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Contract of charter to transport goods from London to Barcelona, ​​on board the ship Ruby, and bill of lading according to which Captain Joseph Forster has paid for the delivery of the cargo of wheat to Isidre Martorell, 17/03/1764-4/06/1764

Date
1764
Archive
Valls Municipal Archive
Document type
Textual
Reference code
CAT-AMV-56-562
Link to the archive
Description

The contract is better understood when it is known that between 1763-1764 there was a subsistence crisis, both in Barcelona – as Pierre Vilar already highlighted – and the big cities and in the countryside. The big cities received many migrations from the countryside and tried to alleviate the hunger by importing wheat and doing charity, to avoid outbreaks of violence. However, this migration had positive consequences for industrialization… A single document, microhistory, can allow us to analyze or corroborate macrohistory.