Are tourist rentals legal?

On one side of the coin, there are owners who want to get a return on their property when they are not using it. On the other, tourist rentals are perceived as a factor in speculation, favouring low-cost tourism and putting pressure on the traditional rental market.

In an attempt to regulate a practice that has continued to grow, local, regional, and national governments have introduced a series of stricter regulations. The aim is to ensure fair competition, prevent the touristification of entire neighbourhoods and preserve access to permanent housing for the local population. In Barcelona, for example, the future elimination of all tourist licences by 2029 has already been announced.

One of the key players in this scenario is Airbnb, which began as a collaborative platform to make use of empty flats and now operates in 191 countries. But… Is it legal today to advertise our flat as tourist accommodation? The answer is yes, but with many more requirements than a few years ago.

What are the requirements that must be met?

In Catalonia, tourist rentals are legal, provided that the regulations are complied with. Decree 75/2020 of the Government of Catalonia defines a rental as the transfer of an entire dwelling (not individual rooms) for a maximum period of 31 days, with immediate availability and in exchange for financial compensation.

However, since July 2025, new requirements have been added:

• Mandatory registration in the Catalan Tourism Register (RTC) and obtaining a registration number (NIRTC).
• You must also be registered in the State Register (NRA) through the Single Digital Window.
• The property must be adapted for mobility, in optimal hygienic conditions, and adapted to the number of places stated on the certificate of occupancy.
• It is mandatory to offer one private room per user and common rooms cannot be converted into bedrooms.
• It is necessary to provide a 24-hour emergency telephone number and to notify the Directorate-General of Police of the stay.
• It is recommended to follow good safety practices, cleaning protocols and emergency information procedures.

Are permits required?

To start a tourist rental business, you need to obtain several permits, and the regulations are becoming increasingly stringent. The first step is to consult both the municipal ordinance and the statutes of the residents’ association. Since April 2025, the association can prohibit or limit this activity, and it is essential to have the prior authorisation of 3/5 of the owners, both in terms of number and share of participation.

If municipal regulations allow it and the community does not object, the owner must formally notify the local council of the start of the activity, register with the Catalan Tourism Registry (RTC) and obtain a registration number (NIRTC).

Any activity that does not follow this procedure will be considered illegal and may result in penalties ranging from €3,000 to €600,000, depending on the severity of the offence.

Do I have to inform the tax authorities?

With regard to taxation, the Directorate-General for Taxation establishes different criteria depending on the services offered. If the accommodation includes services typical of the hotel industry—regular cleaning, reception, customer service or catering—the activity will be subject to VAT. However, if only the use of the property is transferred, without additional services, it is not necessary to apply VAT, but it is necessary to pay Property Transfer Tax (TPO), according to the regulations of each autonomous community.

Tourist rentals are still legal in Catalonia, but they are highly regulated. If you intend to offer your flat to tourists, you must scrupulously comply with municipal, national and state regulations, apply for the relevant permits, register the activity and pay the correct taxes.

Now more than ever, it is necessary to be well-informed and advised so as not to commit infringements that can be very costly.

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Economic inequality manifests itself in various ways, and one of the most notable is the disparity in the costs of living between different social strata. One of the approaches that sheds light on this disparity is the Vimes Index, created by activist Jack Monroe based on the Vimes Boots Theory.

Sometimes writers and thinkers are the ones who provide a more lucid look at society. This is the case of the British writer Sir Terry Pratchet, who in one of his novels develops a conceptual tool to understand why it is more expensive to be poor. In the novels of the Discworld series, Inspector Samuel Vimes develops the Vimes Boot Theory. In summary, he comes to say that if a person has a low salary he will buy cheap boots, instead of expensive ones. But the poor quality of cheap boots will force you to buy boots more often, so in the medium term you will have spent more money on boots than someone who has enough money to buy good boots that won’t break.

This example, applied to all types of products, produces the paradox that, due to having little liquidity, one is forced to spend more and therefore remain poor. The idea behind the Vimes Index is simple but powerful: it suggests that being poor not only means having less money, but also comes with a series of additional costs and barriers that perpetuate the cycle of poverty. This concept has been widely adopted by economists and activists as a way to understand and address economic inequality from a more holistic perspective.

Why is it more expensive to be poor?

In addition to the example proposed by Vimes’ Theory (extrapolated to clothing, vehicles, computers or any other product) there are other variables that make the lives of people with few resources more expensive. For example, having low salaries or little assets, it is very common for these people to lack access to good loans and financial services. In this way, many ends up turning to high-interest lenders or falling for revolving cards. All of this can spiral into debt and increase costs in the long run.

Health and wellness costs also end up being higher, because people with low incomes do not usually have access to preventive medicine. They often do not have adequate nutrition either, because they cannot consume foods of the highest quality. All together results in a higher incidence of chronic diseases and injuries, which in turn generates additional costs in the form of medical treatments and loss of work productivity.

Jack Monroe, everyday inequality

This is the vision of economic activist Jack Monroe, who asked the Pratchett family for permission to create the Vimes Index. What Monroe points out is that it makes no sense for inflation to be calculated taking into account all types of products, because people with low incomes do not consume expensive products. And these expensive products are the ones that frequently have the smallest increases and attenuate the inflationary average. If rice has risen by 300% and champagne by 2%, truffles by 1% and caviar another 1%, statistics will say that prices have risen by 76%, but in reality the poor man’s effort has been triplicate.

The proposal of the Vimes Index is to calculate inflation only with essential products.

Activist Jack Monroe explains the Vimes Index at the 2022 Edinburgh Book Fair.

A representative shopping basket

The Vimes Index offers a valuable lens into understanding why being poor is more costly in modern society. By recognizing the multiple factors that contribute to this dynamic, from limited access to affordable products to the additional costs associated with poverty, we can move toward more effective solutions that address economic inequality comprehensively.

The perspective of activists like Jack Monroe reminds us that economic struggles play out in people’s everyday lives and that solutions must be both structural and practical. By including a variety of products and services in the representative shopping basket, we can obtain a more accurate picture of the challenges faced by low-income people and work toward a future where everyone has access to a dignified and prosperous life.

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Investment coins, also known as bullion coins, are minted in precious metals, usually gold and silver. There are several gold investment coins available on the market, but the Britannia and Krugerrand are among the most popular and coveted in the world. We explain their history and what makes them special.

Krugerrand

The Krugerrand was first minted on the 3rd of July 1967 to market the vast amount of gold produced in South Africa around the world. The Krugerrand was a pioneer in establishing the new concept of the one-ounce bullion coin measure, a standard that is now recognised worldwide. It was also the first legal tender gold coin issued after World War II, in large part laying the foundation for the creation of gold coins later issued by other countries.

The obverse of the coin features the bust of Paul Kruger, President of the Republic of South Africa from 9 May 1883 to 31 May 1902. His surname, Kruger, and the rand, the South African unit of currency, are combined to give the coin its name. A gazelle, the national animal of South Africa, is engraved on the reverse, beneath which is the legend: “one ounce of fine gold”, in English and Afrikaans, a Dutch-derived language spoken mainly in South Africa.

Although Krugerrand coins are 22-carat gold, i.e. 91.67% pure, unlike most one-ounce coins issued by other countries, which are usually 99.99% pure gold, 24 carats, the Krugerrand compensates for this lower grade with more weight (1.09 ounces).

It is an extremely popular coin that attracts many gold investors. Because of this, the Krugerrand usually commands a lower premium over the price of gold than other 1-ounce coins or, indeed, any gold product of similar size.

Britannia

The gold Britannia was born in Europe in 1987 and was the first gold investment coin to be minted in all four weights (1, ½, ¼, and 1/10 of an ounce of gold). It gets its name from Latin, when in the 2nd century a female figure, wielding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, appeared on coins minted in southern Britain during the occupation of the Roman Empire.

This design remained the same until 2000, with the obverse of the coin showing the image of Queen Elizabeth II and the face value in sterling, a design common to all Commonwealth gold coins. Subsequently, The British Royal Mint introduced a new design of the female figure for the odd years, keeping the previous one for even years. Further variations with the image accompanied by a lion, or the seated Britannia, were minted in later issues.

The marketing of this 24-carat gold coin is as popular in the UK as it is in the rest of the world. Most issues of Britannia coins are readily available, but buying a Britannia from a specific year can be quite expensive due to scarcity. Therefore, buying a current issue in the hope of seeing the value increase beyond the possible upward fluctuation of gold is a factor that cannot be ruled out.

Up to now, with Preciosos 11Onze, it has been possible to purchase gold bullion. From now on, we also offer the option of buying Krugerrand and Britannia gold coins. Gift gold, for tomorrow’s future.

Evolutionary theory is much more complex than a reduction to simple individual competencies. The thing is that Charles Darwin’s theory of the evolution of the species led to the conclusion that the existing social hierarchies within contemporary societies were the result of “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest”. Even so, the selective application of biological concepts in a social and anthropological framework can be harmful to humanity.

At the end of the 19th century, the English naturalist and philosopher Herbert Spencer pushed for the application of the biological concepts of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest” in the field of social science. Spencer thus invented the concept of “social Darwinism”, which was a deliberate misrepresentation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory.

The concept became very popular in academic circles, for example in the neoclassical or marginalist school of economics, represented by the economists Jevons, Menger, Walras, Pareto and Marshall. This school of economic thought focused mainly on explaining individual behaviour and the exchange of goods and services, abandoning the great classical themes of wealth generation and distribution, which had occupied economic analysis since the mid-17th century.

However, it is not by chance that this concept gained wide acceptance – especially among the European high society – since it appeared just at the time when the old European monarchies were transforming into today’s modern states, adopting capitalism as the only socio-economic system and abandoning mercantilism for good.

Therefore, Western states – including the emerging United States – began to attach great importance to competition between individuals – here also between companies, territories or countries – within the always-defended free market and to justify why there are strong actors who see their wealth and power increase, as opposed to those considered weak actors who see their wealth and power diminish, if they ever had any!

Thus, “social Darwinism” would only mean the ideal expression of dominant material relations. Since then, the concept has become very popular among Western societies and has been widely disseminated in academic and social circles, since it has provided Western societies with a pseudo-scientific justification of their privileged positions worldwide. Moreover, it has allowed them to continue to rationally justify their past colonisation of the Americas, Africa and Asia. It has even allowed them to justify misogyny.

Of course, there are other options!

At the antipodes of Spencer, we find the Russian geographer and zoologist Piotr Kropotkin who, at the end of the 19th century, would provide an opposite view to “social Darwinism”. For Kropotkin, cooperation is the key factor in human evolution, while competition is a parallel issue.

Throughout his book “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution”, Kropotkin unpacks how cooperation and mutual aid are common and essential practices in nature. If we humans renounce solidarity and replace it with greed, social stratification will appear, absolutism will be justified and fascism will be sweetened. The latter state could not be observed by Piotr Kropotkin, but it was magnificently described by George Orwell in his well-known fable “The Revolt of the Animals”.

Thus, only a morality based on freedom, solidarity, and justice can overcome our destructive instincts, which are also part of human nature. It will therefore be of vital importance that science be the foundation of ethics, forcing it to shy away from any principle that sacralises power. It will also be important to constantly study social structures, which will enable us to produce the knowledge necessary to meet human needs, the basis for the development of a free society.

Those who think that “freedom is doing whatever you want” are fools! Hegel said that “freedom is consciousness of necessity” and Montesquieu, very beautifully, said that “freedom is being able to do whatever we want, when we want”. Then there are the phonies who say “Freedom is to have no limits”. And where do you find this? Perhaps in geometry, where there is only the point and the straight line or regular curves. No, life is pure exigency with limits. Freedom without responsibility is a fraud,” says the Spanish philosopher Antonio Escohotado in his work “The Enemies of Commerce. A moral history of property”.

Mutual support is therefore the term that describes cooperation, reciprocity and teamwork, which gates or implies a mutual benefit for the people cooperating or involved. There are countless examples of mutualism within the animal and plant kingdom, such as the collaborative work of ants in gathering food for the winter, or the highly effective strategy of plants, which take advantage of the interaction with insects and birds to pollinate. More than 170,000 species end up contributing to 35% of global food crop production.

Certainly, nature is full of examples and Kropotkin provides plenty of arguments to show that humans are interdependent. Indeed, this is the key to our success as a species in human evolution, to the extent that early human societies practised this strategy when it was a matter of survival.

The idea of the socially independent individual is a myth that has been widely promoted by Western states – especially in the Anglo-Saxon world – and by large multinational corporations, which have projected countless triumphant models of self-made men and women. The clear visualisation of their triumphs has allowed the system to model us on Spencer’s concept. Somehow, it has managed to turn us into atomised and easily controllable consumers, given that from the time we are small we are educated to become individual, self-sufficient, independent, property-owning, smartphone-carrying people who, although they make it easier for us to connect, paradoxically lead us into isolation. Without knowing it, social Darwinism is embedded in our brains.

New ways for old strategies

Voltaire famously said that “civilisation does not abolish barbarism, but perfects it”. Strange as it may seem, the phrase is still relevant today. Slavery has always existed and will always exist, it is just that the contemporary world has softened the methods. What are the two things a human being would defend with his life? His children and a place to stay.

And nowadays, what are the two mechanisms that subjugate us to the system? Well, raising a family and acquiring a home. The skill of the system lies in the fact that it has been able to create profitable businesses around these two principles. This is why the desire for private property and the formation of the ideal family as a consumer entity has been fostered, while at the same time, wages are frozen, house prices rise and the cost of living has increased. This has resulted in a population of dependents and convinced people for a large part of their lives. These are the ones who will go into debt and submit to precarious work or an unjust law to maintain these standards imposed by the system. That is why it is up to us to declare ¡enough is enough!

Mutuality in Catalonia

In Catalonia, there are countless examples of mutualism, which can be traced back to the guilds and brotherhoods of the Middle Ages. Since the end of the 19th century, mutual societies, cooperatives and associations have been one of the distinctive features of Catalan society – just look at the amount of money raised by the TV3 Marathon year after year! The richness of its associative fabric shows a great diversity of entities that form the backbone of our country, ranging from leisure and sports associations, mutual or health insurance companies, social welfare, agricultural cooperatives, cultural or neighbourhood associations to political organisations, savings banks or community banking.

Community banking is based on the principle of mutualism, which is based on the associative tendencies of human beings to satisfy their needs through voluntary and peaceful cooperation, mutual aid and solidarity in a model where producers freely exchange products and services.

From the very beginning, we explained that 11Onze is a fincom. A fintech platform where the community can educate itself financially, get access to diverse content and access a growing range of financial products: from the El Canut account you can do your banking, buy gold and cryptos, and soon get access to credit.

Do you want to know what the great secret of the Catalans is?

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The two Voyager probes launched into space by NASA in 1977 were designed to explore the outer planets of our solar system. They were accompanied by a gramophone record made of copper and covered in gold, containing a message to show the existence of life on Earth to possible intelligent extraterrestrial beings.

In the vastness of the cosmos, two tiny time capsules traverse interstellar space with a message intended to make our existence known to any intelligent extraterrestrial life forms they may encounter along the way. A message in a cosmic bottle containing a small sample of what humanity and planet Earth are all about also symbolises our eagerness and ability to discover new frontiers.

Carl Sagan, the well-known American astrophysicist, astronomer and science communicator, led the team that created the “Golden Record” in 1972. The Voyager Programme’s Golden Record was to be an upgrade of the plates previously mounted on the Pioneer probes, with much more information about life on Earth and the essence of humanity.

The discs are thirty centimetres in diameter, made of gold-plated copper. These metals were chosen for their chemical stability and thermal properties, as they had to be strong enough to withstand the forces of the launch and subsequent thermal changes in space. A tiny amount of uranium-235 was also added to serve as a clock so that a future extraterrestrial discoverer could deduce its age.

The contents of the Golden Records

The beating of a heart, birdsongs, Bach’s Brandenburg concerto, a Balinese dancer, a human embryo… The golden records include a compendium of sounds, images, and information that provide an overview of the Earth and its inhabitants. The contents of the records range from greetings in various languages to recordings of popular music, sounds of nature, photographs of people and landscapes, and even instructions on how to play them.

Each record includes 90 minutes of music with pieces from different cultural traditions, from classical music to popular music from various countries. The intention was to capture cultural diversity and human artistic expression and show it to the rest of the universe. This idea was imprinted on the records: “To the creators of music – all worlds, all times”.

Selected nature sounds were also recorded to show some examples of what life is like on Earth, conveying the richness and complexity of our natural environment. As well as 115 photographs in analogue format, ranging from stunning landscapes to depictions of human anatomy and scientific diagrams. In addition, greetings in 55 different languages (no, there are no greetings in Catalan) were included to show the linguistic diversity of our planet.

The Voyager space probes are the most distant man-made objects from Earth and the first to reach interstellar space. Thanks to NASA’s latest efforts, they will have a lifespan until around 2026 and then continue their journey in silence. The likelihood that they will ever be found by intelligent extraterrestrial life is minuscule, but the message contained in the golden records will live on forever and ever in outer space.

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As with the resolution of past conflicts, the meeting of the victors at the end of the Second World War in the German city of Potsdam in the summer of 1945 once again divided the world into two blocs. The great Western powers implemented a new economic model allowing them to impose their pre-eminence over other countries.

Two political, social and economic models – in principle antagonistic – that would clash several times over the decades in small, low-intensity armed conflicts that would become the great lever of economic growth for the Western world.

However, the Potsdam Conference also confirmed that industrial capitalism – initiated at the end of the 18th century – was an exhausted economic model. The more than sixty million deaths resulting from the Second World War forced the old European monarchies – now evolved into Western democracies – to adopt much more subtle ways of achieving their economic goals. The new extractive strategy therefore had to be less catastrophic and more effective. Therefore, the new economic model that will be progressively deployed will no longer involve having to physically occupy territory but will be sufficient to control local elites.

With this new strategy, the United States, as the big winner and supported by a powerful military-industrial complex, will be able to displace the world’s economic centre – from Europe to North America – through the imposition of its currency, the financial pressure exerted by its banks, and the creation of technological dependence on a global scale. Thus, the establishment of their well-known multinationals – Amazon, Nike, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Apple, McDonald’s, Disney, HP and others – will allow it to directly or indirectly conquer almost the entire world. Entertainment, mainly cinema and major sporting events such as the Olympic Games, the Super Bowl or the World Cup, will be the real weapons of mental and material subjugation that would make it possible to extend the American dream to the whole world.

Social peace, the basis of the new economic efficiency

It all began in the spring of 1951 in Montreal, when representatives of various Western intelligence agencies met secretly with university psychiatry professors at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. As a result of that meeting, we know from declassified documents that the US military invested a large amount of money in McGill University in Montreal to research sensory isolation.

This research was initiated by Dr Donald Olding Hebb, who would eventually abandon the project when he realised the magnitude of the tragedy and completed by Dr Donald Ewen Cameron, who would take it to a higher level. Cameron went on to experiment with many patients who were subjected to a multitude of electroshock sessions, combined with sleep cures and constant repetition of recorded messages to the point of mental exhaustion.

The study found that sensory isolation is a way of generating extreme monotony that leads to a reduction in critical thinking capacity through the confusion of the individual’s mind. Therefore, when a person is not able to reason… we are in trouble!

The results of all these experiments will allow Western intelligence agencies to design mechanisms of control over their population to guarantee social stability within democracies. Consequently, the idea of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right to private property, the fundamental basis of the free market, will be repeated ad nauseam. To ensure economic efficiency, competition will be made an instrument to drive economic growth, based on the premise that “if the company next door has better products and more sales than me, I will consequently have to develop better ideas to be better than my competition”.

Not least, the studies on sensory deprivation will enable Western intelligence agencies to develop interrogation manuals – such as the famous KUBARK manual of the US military and the CIA – to be used against internal and external dissidents of the system the West’s postulates.

The management of fear

The technological breakthrough of World War II would take humanity into outer space – to the Moon and beyond – but it also led to the development of the atomic bomb as a weapon of global destruction. It will be used as an instrument of political pressure that persists to this day.

The five main arms manufacturing countries in the world – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – are the ones who are in charge of our peace. They make a business out of war, but they sell peace, above all, through the propagandist MSM serving Western hegemonic powers that test the ‘democracy’ of each country. They are big media that confuse freedom of expression with freedom of pressure and decide who is a dictator or a coup leader, which incidentally has the “bad habit” of making people vote to find out what they think about that policy or any other issue that may affect them. And those media outlets that don’t follow these guidelines are shut down or taken to the confines of the system. The news shows a reality that often doesn’t exist to suggest, isolate and pit us against each other!

Economic shock therapy

As everyone knows, the Wall Street crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression of the 1930s. By 1932, some 5,096 banks went into receivership. Their collapse drove many companies into bankruptcy, which saw stocks of goods accumulate, and led to a significant fall in prices, especially in the agricultural sector. Finally, the decline in economic activity led to a runaway rise in unemployment.

Influenced by the economist John M. Keynes, the newly proclaimed President of the United States, F. D. Roosevelt, launched a major public employment programme to get people back to work: the policy known as the New Deal. But it was not until after the Second World War that the Depression ended, thanks in large part to the implementation of the famous Marshall Plan, which generalised Keynes’s regulatory and interventionist model to most of the Western world.

Contrary to Keynes’ postulates, we find already in the late 1940s a small group of intellectuals – known as the Mont Pelerin Society and led by the Austrian economist Friedrich August von Hayek – who were convinced that if governments stopped providing services and regulating markets, the problems of the world economy would solve themselves. One of its leading representatives and professor of economics at the University of Chicago, Milton Friedman, believed that through economic shock therapy, he would push societies to accept a purer, deregulated capitalism.

Indeed, the theses of the shock doctrine have been imposed all over the world in different processes. These radical measures have triumphed not so much from the hand of freedom and democracy but from their imposition through shocks, crises and states of emergency. Thus, far from sugar-coating the role of the US in becoming a global hegemon, its ability to control the world is due to sanctions, restrictions, blockades, freezes, confiscations or military action.

Above all, the role played by the creation of a specific international bureaucracy, generated strictly because it does not depend on the United Nations and is therefore exempt from any direct control that might upset the international community, has been essential. These supranational bodies – World Bank, World Trade Organisation and International Monetary Fund – have executed all these economic shock therapies by the book all over the world, combining political pressure with extortion. And there is no shortage of examples!

A system in need of a financial mafia

In 2004, the American John Perkins – a former employee of the American consulting firm CHA Consulting, Inc. – published an interesting book entitled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, in which he explains in detail how he participated in different processes of economic colonisation of Third World countries, especially on the South American continent, during the 1980s.

Perkins, as chief economist at CHA Consulting, had the task of identifying countries with natural resources of interest to the clients – mostly corporations – represented by his consultancy.

Once identified, the next stage was to send a “small army of jackals” to the country in question to promise that, with the sale of its resources, the country would achieve Western standards of social welfare and economic stability. Finally, the country was forced to take out a large loan – through the World Bank or other related organisations – justified to the public as part of the deal and because it had neither the technology nor the infrastructure to extract, produce or manufacture the natural resource.

But this amount of money never reached the country in question, since it left the World Bank – based in Washington – and was diverted to an account in Houston, Texas or San Francisco, where, funnily enough, the owner was a company that worked for the consultancy, and which specialised in the construction of the infrastructure necessary to extract, produce or manufacture the natural resource.

Thus, the money was used to pay for the cost of the construction – power stations, roads, industrial parks, ports – which in the end only generated large profits for the companies awarded the contracts. It is true that, to a lesser degree, they also ended up enriching a local minority who owned the basic industries or commercial establishments, but to the detriment of the majority. Thus, at the end of the process, all the country’s economic resources earmarked for health, education or other public services were used to repay those loans. As John Perkins explains, knowing upfront the country’s inability to repay the loans was an important part of executing the plan.

Thus, this system has allowed Western corporations or supranational bodies – the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund – to create a parallel empire that controls large parts of the planet: the so-called “areas of influence”. It is for this reason that Western democracies can tell one of these “voluntarily influenced” countries that if it cannot repay its loans, it can always sell its resources to be exploited… without the obligation of a social or environmental commitment; or that it has to allow the construction of a military base on its territory, or that it has to vote against certain countries considered “enemies” at the next United Nations meeting.

When the president of one of these countries does not accept, the government is often intervened or overthrown. The process starts with a strong national and international smear campaign, false news of all kinds is created to condition public opinion and, in the end – in favour of democracy – the coup d’état is carried out with full justification. And if it did not go well, he would end up being assassinated. Contemporary history is full of examples: Mossadeq in Iran (1953), Ngô Đình Diệm in Vietnam (1955), Lumumba in the Congo (1960) Allende in Chile (1973). More recently, the pressures of all kinds that Lula da Silva has had to endure to stop the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, and Maduro to nationalise Venezuelan oil or Petro for the decarbonisation of the Colombian economy.

The economy of death

In 2009, amid the global recession, the English psychologist Oliver James published the book “The Selfish Capitalist”, which concludes that behind the mental illnesses of today’s Western society lies the capitalism that has been practised for the last fifty years. Simplifying a lot, the thesis of the book exposes how the Anglo-Saxon neoliberal economy has pushed individuals to want to have more and more cars, mobile phones, clothes, and money… and all this has led to permanent dissatisfaction of the individual. Based on a study published by the World Health Organisation in 2004, concludes that mental illness affects almost 23% of the population in the Anglo-Saxon world and 11.5% in the rest of the European countries, given that they entered the neoliberal wheel later.

For example, in the United States, the number of young students with huge debt is increasing, just as there is a huge number of people in debt for healthcare, credit cards or mortgages. So this system, designed to exploit the so-called “developing” countries, has now turned against the West.

On the other hand, neoliberal economics has sought to maximise short-term profits without taking into account the social cost and environmental impact. And here, neoliberals like Friedman got it wrong: beyond the short term, we need to increase profits in the long term, so that everyone wins. If we are guided by the goal of paying a decent rate of return to investors who invest, we can begin to change the model.

According to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military spending increased by 3.7% in real terms in 2022, to a new all-time high of $2.24 trillion. If much of this money went to pay the same companies that get these million-dollar contracts, but instead of paying to make missiles, it would go to collecting all the plastics in the oceans, restoring destroyed natural environments, cleaning up the waste dumped in the oceans… the planet would be a much better place. And in this process, new technologies can help us to make it possible.

Multipolarity

This system has worked as long as the winners have been the United States, since it allowed their allies to take a piece of the pie on the condition that they supported its international policy or facilitated access to their markets for its companies. The United States has shared the pie with aligned countries, but not with those who were willing to dispute its economic interests.

At this point, we are entering a new era where the distribution of political, military and financial power will no longer rest with a single country. In short, the world will no longer dance to a single tune. We have already begun to dance to the tune of oriental music, to the rhythms of the balalaika, combined with a little samba, a touch of Indi-pop and a dash of mbaqanga.

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The Catalan language is full of sayings through which popular wisdom used to advise on economics, that is, the community used to help its members. Let’s analyse some of them and their origin.

Paroemiology is the science that studies the origin and meaning of proverbs, and is as old as language itself. We find samples in the translations of the proverbs of the Bible, and in Jewish and Arabic books of sentences translated into Catalan. We can find them in the work of the philosopher Ramon Llull or the writer Francesc Eiximenis, in the book Tirant lo Blanc, and so on. Since the end of the 16th century, the saying takes precedence over proverbs. Here are just a few examples of how paroemiology has been present since time immemorial: from Guillem de Cervera’s Proverbis (1180), Llibre de Doctrina del Rei Jaume d’Aragó (1290), and so on, to books such as Baldiri Reixach’s or Carles Amat’s, used for teaching. One of our country’s paroemiologists is Victor Pàmies i Riudor; through his work we can know the origin, history, etymology…

As an example, let’s analyse a few sayings related to money and investment. Popular wisdom always gives us good advice.

• L’aigua va allà on n’hi ha més.
  It refers to money: the more you invest, the more profit you get. (In fact, water tends to accumulate forming rivers, in the sea …) It means: money goes where money is.
• Sabater amic o parent, calça car i dolent.
  It warns that whoever gives money to win a friendship or find love, comes out unscathed because everyone takes advantage of kindness.
• Per casar filles donzelles no venguis moltons ni ovelles.
  It means that the family patrimony should never be undone. (Long ago, to marry a daughter, you had to endow her with some goods: money, jewellery, furniture, tableware and bedding, animals, land …)
• Béns de campana, Déu els dona i el diable els escampa.
  It tells us that those gains that come easily and effortlessly are the easiest to lose.
• Diners de tot fan veritat i del jutge advocat.
  It tells us that, with money, we can change reality according to our interests.
• Si a qui deus no pots pagar, humilment li has de parlar.
  This saying tells us to be humble with our creditors when we cannot pay them what we owe them, in order to avoid retaliation.
• Germans, els pans; parents, els qüens; i coneguts, els papers de menuts (qüens = diners). Even food is shared between siblings; you can trust a relative or ask them for money; but none of this is possible with an acquaintance.
•  Educació i diner fan al fill cavaller.
  Education makes a person perfect and money proclaims it.
• Al marit, barca; la muller, arca (arca = cofre = caixa dels diners).
  Husbands used to do physical work whereas wives used to manage family money. It means that everyone has to do the tasks for which they are best prepared.
• Sastres, música i sabaters, moltes postures i pocs diners
  They move their hands and body a lot in exchange for little benefit.
•  Si la butxaca no sona, els músics no poden tocar.
  With a precarious economy, great things cannot be done.
• Pagant, sant Pere canta / En pagar, sant Pere canta / Pagant, mossèn Pere canta.
  Money gets the most unthinkable things.
• Si vols enganyar al marxant, posa-li la “ganància” per davant.
  Cash in front of your eyes usually makes you decide right away to whom you sell.
• Qui pren, son cor ven.
  Whoever accepts someone’s money, gifts, or favours, is left in material or moral debt.
• A on vas, diners? Allí a on n’hi ha més.
  It means owning money is the principle to having more.

Sayings in Catalonia

Sayings can be categorised according to their topic. According to Joan Fontana, José Enrique Gargallo, Víctor Pàmies, and Xus Ugarte in their work Els refranys més usuals de la Llengua Catalana, there are 15 major topics:

1. Meteorological sayings.
2. Calendar sayings.
3. Sayings about jobs and profits (money, works, jobs …). 
4. Sayings about religion and beliefs. 
5. Sayings about home and family.
6. Sayings about men and women. The human body and the ages of life. 
7. Sayings about flora, fauna, and nature.
8. Sayings about people’s qualities and feelings. 
9. Sayings about health and illness. 
10. Sayings about food and drink. 
11. Geographical sayings. 
12. Sayings about parties and leisure.
13. Sayings about tips.
14. Sayings about morality.
15. Miscellaneous sayings.

Sayings have two meanings: the literal meaning and a figurative meaning, which is exemplified by the literal meaning. To use proverbs in our usual speech, you must know that they are bits of prefabricated speech. Aside from being known by most members of the speaker community, they can be used to refer to ideas that contain some kind of shortcut in order to avoid explaining them.

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The adoption of a new economic logic at the beginning of the 19th century allowed the English and Dutch to acquire a dominant position over the rest of the European economies, and by extension, over the rest of the world’s economies. This prompted the old European monarchies – Castile, Portugal, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia – to seek ways of embracing this modern socio-economic vision in order to eradicate their endemic poverty, but unlike the former, it forced them to undergo tumultuous processes of adaptability to the new economic system.

Oriol Garcia Farré, historian and 11Onze agent

At the beginning of the 17th century, the first colonial empires with deeply Catholic roots – such as Castile and Portugal – were structurally bleeding to death as a result of decades of fierce fighting against the Protestant and Turkish world, which was causing them significant losses of economic resources and a growing territorial delegitimisation. The repression exercised by the Catholic Castilian fundamentalists – led by their king – against the Dutch Calvinist world, far from definitively subjugating those territories, had the opposite effect, as it brought to the surface a survival instinct that has been widely studied by the Social Sciences.

At the root of the conflict was the Dutch refusal to contribute financially to the Hispanic imperial cause, which sought to universalise Catholic culture. For more than eighty years, imperial encounters sought to break the Dutch protective ring that had been built up to counter the pressure exerted by the famous Flanders “tercios”. This line of defence consisted of forty-three towns and fifty-five fortifications. Forced to live within this territorial microcosm, Dutch survival – as people – required rationalisation and systematisation of public and private initiatives.

First and foremost, Amsterdam was to become the epicentre of power for the seventeen United Provinces. From there, they would promote the creation of a free and open market that would be able to satisfy the needs – in that context of permanent war – of all the cities of the Dutch territory. Thus, it would encourage the diversification of agriculture as a basis for future specialisation and division of labour, foster technological innovation to improve agricultural production, promote fairs and markets to encourage the exchange of goods and services, expand internal trade networks and seek external trade routes through the development of a powerful shipbuilding industry, and guarantee the right to private ownership of the means of production. But above all, the government of the federation of the United Provinces would enforce all commercial contracts and ensure full freedom of movement of both people and goods through the creation of a Dutch standing army.

Therefore, this whole level of organisation resulting from the conjunction of the public and private spheres would be designed to meet the needs of the population in the face of Catholic pressure, which would lead to a significant increase in public spending. To reduce it, a financing mechanism would be developed consisting of issuing long-term public debt securities, which would be traded on the recently created Amsterdam stock exchange.

And Descartes came to the rescue!

A transcendental event was the contribution of the philosopher René Descartes to the mentality of Northern European society. Through his treatise “Man” he will argue that humans are divided into two distinct components: an immaterial mind and a material body, the latter understood as a perfect machine. In this way, he will succeed in separating the mind from the body and establish a hierarchical relationship between the two. Therefore, as the seigniorial classes dominate nature and seek to control it for productive purposes, the mind will have to dominate the body for the same purpose.

This view will be exploited by Calvinists to model the “good Christian” as one who controls his body, his passions and his desires and thus ends up self-imposing a regular and productive order. Therefore, any inclination towards joy, play, spontaneity or the pleasures of bodily experience will be considered potentially immoral.

All these ideas will be fused into a new explicit value system: idleness is a sin and productivity is a virtue. Within Calvinist theology, profit will become a symbol of moral success. It will be the test of salvation. To maximise profit, people will be encouraged to organise their lives around productivity and those who fall behind – during the race for productivity or fall into poverty – will be branded with the stigma of sin. This new ethic of discipline and self-mastery will become central to the culture of capitalism.

The creation of new monopolies

Until then, commercial expeditions had operated on the basis of small fleets created and controlled expressly by the monarchies. Most of the time, the company was set up for a single commercial voyage and, on its return, the small fleet was liquidated so as not to bear the costs of maintenance. Investment in such ventures was therefore extremely costly and high risk, not only because of the usual dangers of piracy, disease and shipwrecks but also because of the conditions of the spice market, where inelastic demand – insensitive to price changes – and relatively elastic supply – price changes increasing supply – could cause prices to fall at just the wrong time and ruin the venture’s prospects of profitability.

Thus, if the commercial expedition was successful, it has been calculated that the return was close to 400% of the initial investment, allowing the Crown to boost its economy. On the other hand, if it was a failure, it was the Crown itself who assumed the losses and, consequently, it was the population who ended up paying the debt through higher taxes and lower salaries, since the Monarchy managed the violence.

But in the early 17th century, through the formalisation of stable agreements – known as cartels – the respective governments of England and Holland obtained charters granted to private initiatives in the spice sector to trade with the East Indies. With the creation of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, entrepreneurial mechanisms were put in place to control supply and minimise risk in the global spice trade.

The novelty arose in the founding process of both companies when they came up against the problem of financing. Given the size and high costs involved, the founders of the companies were unable to finance the entire cost of the project, which made it necessary to obtain financing by selling part of their securities to merchants and small savers, to whom they granted them a share of the companies’ future profits in exchange.

The stock exchange becomes the key to the new system

Thus, both the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company would be the first shareholder-owned companies to be listed on the London and Amsterdam stock exchanges respectively. From then on, any English company seeking finance would be able to trade in its own securities. In less than a hundred years, more than a hundred English companies will be trading their own securities on the London Stock Exchange. For their part, any resident within the United Provinces would have the possibility to register in writing – in any of the 17 Dutch Chambers – the amount of money they wanted to invest on the stock exchange. At the beginning of the 19th century, both companies will distribute annual dividends of 40% to all shareholders and will be the first companies to publish their profits annually.

Supported by the methodical rationality of the Protestant world, both the English and the Dutch managed to give commercial continuity to those companies, which eventually became true multinationals for almost three hundred years, thanks to the use of the stock exchange as a mechanism to finance future commercial expansions. Therefore, the new economic system will be more dynamically and efficiently self-regulating, unlike the old centralised system, which still remains today. Within a few years, the new financial mechanisms and continuous private initiatives will break up the old commercial monopolies controlled by the first colonial empires, which had been self-legitimised by the right of conquest through the Treaties of Tordesillas, Zaragoza and Cateau-Cambrésis.

The two companies will be structured as a modern vertically integrated global supply chain corporation divided by a conglomerate of companies that will allow them to diversify into multiple commercial and industrial activities, such as international trade, shipbuilding and the production and marketing of spices. The companies would become so large in the early 19th century that they would gain quasi-governmental powers over their colonies, such as the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, issue currency, have their own flag and conquer new territories. The most extreme case was the British East India Company, which ruled India until its dissolution in the late 19th century when it passed directly into the hands of the British Crown.

Therefore, we would never be able to understand the English industrial revolution of the late 18th century if we untied it from the financial revolution that began in the early 17th century. As England was able to obtain more raw materials and more markets, it would be forced to mechanise all its production processes in order to satisfy the growing world demand. By the middle of the 19th century, it would control 30% of world markets, although this would change at the end of the century when new competitors appeared.

A system to satisfy social welfare

Unlike mercantilism, capitalism will decide not to consume all its goods, since it will organise itself rationally and methodically for the sole purpose of producing, accumulating and investing its goods in order to produce more and more. In this sense, capital investment decisions will be determined by profit expectations, whereby the profitability of invested capital will play a fundamental role in any economic activity.

The enlightened scholars defended capitalism as the only economic system capable of generating sufficient wealth to satisfy social welfare, which could only be maintained on the condition that it generated continuous economic growth in the production of goods and services. Thus, meeting this crucial social need will only be possible if there is a progressive specialisation in work or if new skills are acquired by individuals, companies, territories or countries. But it will also be necessary to maintain unchanged and without interference, the existence of free competition – based on the law of supply and demand – which will require a willingness to do so without coercion or fraud on the part of the participants in commercial transactions.

This innovative economic system will imply a new way of doing things based on the existence of three key axioms: the accumulation of capital as a source of economic development, strong privatisation of the means of production and the obligation to make constant profits. Therefore, the theoreticians of capitalism will be aware that the maintenance of the new economic system will force the systematic search for new markets and the creation of new and increasingly aggressive consumer dependencies between individuals, companies, territories or countries all over the world.

The perversity of the system

Within the system itself lies a hidden self-destruction trigger that is activated when goods start rising in price, driven by the idea that their value can never fall. There are few areas of human activity where historical memory counts for as little as in the field of finance.

Financial crises and bubbles have been repeating themselves – in a more or less cyclical fashion – since 6 February 1637, when investment in tulip bulbs in Holland inflated prices to the point where a bulb could be worth as much as a house, or when in 1720 the English state fraudulently altered the real value of the South Sea Company’s shares in order to place debt, which would end up triggering a crisis of biblical proportions in its economy.

It may be tulips, shares in public companies, the debt of a growing country, investments in railways, dot-com stocks or complex financial assets, but in the end, there will always be a trigger: a war, a bankruptcy, a rumour or simply someone smarter who will cause a few to go ahead and sell the securities, and behind them the rest will try and fail to do so. This is what we now call “financial bubble bursts”. In credit contracts, the flow of money comes to a standstill, and what was once worth a lot is now worth nothing. The crisis begins. Bigger and bigger, more expansive and much more contagious.

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The political map of Europe at the end of the 15th century was shaped after the many conflictive social, political and economic events of the previous century and with a population reduced to less than 50% due to the Black Death. The new political landscape that emerged from this process showed a great variety of institutional forms of power. Alongside the two legacies of the Christian Lower Empire – the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy – the feudal monarchies that emerged from this structural impasse greatly strengthened, which legitimised them to govern differently and led them to construct a new concept of the State.

In order to sustain this new conception of the State, the European monarchies sought the basic mechanisms that would enable them to consolidate new state structures with a markedly centralising and unipersonal character. For this reason, they first fought energetically against all those powerful families – the Armagnacs, Lancastrians, Braganzas, Mèdicis and Palomas – who had the capacity to dispute their decisions. The fight would not always be through the use of violence, but plots were created to delegitimise them or a tight matrimonial policy of territorial anthropophagy would be applied to them in order to extend state property permanently, without the need for bloodshed.

The new political conception would lead to a clear cornering of the most representative organs of the citizenry – such as the Cortes, the Estados Generales or the Dietas – which would be replaced by a powerful and much more specialised council of the king. In this way, the State would multiply its presence in the territory through the creation of a powerful administrative network linked to the different activities of the new management system. Soon, the civil service would appear, with a life tenure at the end of the century, which would allow a segment of the population to become rich beyond limits simply by working in proximity to power.

Up to this point, the monarchies had been financed by their own resources through ordinary rents linked to manorial rights or the profits produced by their possessions, whether from the exploitation of forests, the stamping of coins or the slave trade. But this was no longer enough.

An economic paradigm shift

The European monarchies would assuage their ambition by imposing a three-pronged strategy: firstly, they made the supplies of the feudal system regular and plentiful, which lead to the appearance of an infinite number of extraordinary financing funds for people and goods, such as taxes on trade, the famous tax on salt, or taxes on houses, fires, and so on; Secondly, they created the need for consumption, such as new eating habits or the introduction of fashion in the need to dress; and thirdly, they freed themselves from the usual need to ask for the consent of their subjects, who – were still represented in institutional bodies – coming up against the argument that “in peacetime, this request was completely unnecessary”. But the key and fundamental element that would allow all this new machinery to work perfectly would be the creation of a standing army, aimed at domestic control – between threats and persuasion – and projecting the monarch’s power outwards.

Gold would continue to be the main problem for the European economy, since it would still be absolutely necessary for trade. Since ancient times, the East-West relationship had gone through an infinite number of ups and downs, but its balance of trade had always been in deficit – with respect to gold – as the Asian continent was poor in deposits of precious metal. The only gold that reached Europe with any regularity – since the 10th century – was Sudanese gold, but this would never satisfy the needs of the feudal economy.

The study and appreciation of the Greco-Latin classics

The atmosphere of strong economic dynamism pervaded the whole of this period, forcing the European monarchies to seek new fields of action and new sources of profit to maintain the new and very costly state structures. Europe was too small a space to satisfy the ‘grandeur’ of the nascent modern states, but above all, it showed a shortage of raw materials. It was then that the real desire to get closer to the sources of African gold or oriental spices would appear.

The worldview of medieval society was conditioned by religion, imaginary legends and geographical ignorance, but this changed radically from the Quattrocento onwards with the recovery of Greek manuscripts ignored by the Church – which controlled culture – as they were considered pagan texts. With the introduction of the basic rules of correct Latin translation – promoted by Petrarch and Boccaccio – these manuscripts were correctly transcribed and took on a new meaning. The rereading of numerous classical texts – such as Euclid, Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Eratosthenes and many others – made it possible to construct new critical thinking that would lead humanist scholars to want to verify how much wisdom the ancient texts contained about the world.

This humanism would favour a definitive break with medieval tradition and would exalt the qualities proper to human nature. It would allow the discovery of the human self and give a rational meaning to its existence. This anthropocentrism would free the human being from metaphysical wonder and place him before the gates of empirical curiosity. The dissemination of this innovative thinking was made possible by the invention of the movable type printing press. But this mental change would also enable a small group of people – settled in both Sagres and Nuremberg – to begin to experiment and apply modern scientific methods based on mathematics and astronomy, which would alter the universal worldview.

Colonial conquest and exploitation

Ambitious businessmen set out in search of maritime routes that would lead them to new territories where they could find abundant products to satisfy the growing demand of European markets. And in this context, the State would favour this expansive economy by participating – indirectly – in the commercial adventures of these daring entrepreneurs, who would boast a great deal of audacity but little Atlantic experience.

Chance and the trade winds led the first navigators to the most populated area of the American continent. The territory of the “New World” – both north and south combined – is 42.5 million km². Before the arrival of Europeans, an estimated 100 million people lived on the entire continent, as opposed to the 1 billion who live there today. Of these, some 80 million people lived in the strip between Mexico and Peru. On the other hand, in the gradual southward descent of the African continent, Europeans discovered that the Muslim world had penetrated much further than they thought. Beyond the equator, they entered a totally unknown world and discovered black Africa. With an area of 32 million km², current estimates speak of some 60 million people who could be living on the entire African continent by the end of the 15th century.

From the very beginning of the westward voyages, the first navigators were certain and aware that where they had arrived was not the East Indies, but a completely different territory. And in embellishing this fact, the state deployed all its modern legal and administrative machinery to possess it legitimately. Without entrusting themselves to anyone and by the right of conquest, the European monarchies began to claim ownership of those territories while ignoring the indigenous population. At this point, religion played a key role in justifying the destruction, annihilation and extermination of the ancestral cultures that lived harmoniously. A similar path would be followed on the African continent, although this process would begin some one hundred years later.

As the newcomers – already in the name of the Crown – moved into these new territories, they would discover that precious metals were not the only source of wealth. In less than fifty years, European markets would be supplied, in quantities unthinkable until then, with countless tropical products such as pepper, sugar, cotton and tobacco. The Atlantic coast would see the growth of a major port network stretching from Cádiz to Antwerp and would form the backbone of a new economic area. And then, the Crown would define itself as an Empire, always, with a shining sun!

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For the first time, we are entering a rocky path where many plans are mixed up. Historical objectivity – based on documentary rigour – has been abducted by a clearly intentional narrative that has sought to justify anything that would serve to construct universality. Doubting the official narrative surrounding the “Discovery of America” – where the Hispanic matrix is based – has forced countless historians to work outside the academy, with no other resource than their wit and intelligence.

The raw material on which history is based is documentary sources. Chronicles, cartularies, wills, contracts, dispositions, novels, chants, archaeological remains or ‘Lebenswelt’, are a specific type of documentary that each historian uses to understand and explain the past, which – filtered through his or her mental framework – will end up shaping a specific perception of that reality.

It is for this reason that, during the creation of knowledge, one will engage in passionate, constructive and sterile debates. Discrediting one’s adversary with personal attacks is a symptom of dialectical incapacity. Therefore, anything outside empirical rigour evokes us into the world of fiction or coffee shop talk. But what happens when a documentary source is shown to have been altered, tampered with or burned?

The capitulations of Santa Fe

Established in the camp of Santa Fe of Granada, the recent victors of the war of Granada, better-known as Catholic Monarchs – a title granted by Pope Alexander VI in 1496 – signed capitulations or agreements with Christopher Columbus on 30 April 1492 to carry out a major ultra-oceanic venture.

The agreements signed – known as the Capitulations of Santa Fe – would set the legal framework that would underpin the entire discovery of America, but they would also be the origin of future disputes between the Crown and the Columbus family. They will also clarify the granting of the titles of admiral, viceroy and governor-general of all the territories discovered and all the benefits derived from this enterprise.

The capitulations will acquire capital legal importance for Columbus and his descendants, and for this reason, he will never part with them during his lifetime. There is no record of the existence of this original until 1526 when it appears for the last time among the documents kept in the Columbus Archive in the Carthusian monastery of Santa María de las Cuevas (Seville). Unfortunately, this original has never reached us.

At the same time that the original of the capitulations was released to Columbus, a copy of the original was entered in the corresponding Book-Register of legal dispositions of the Royal Catalan-Aragonese Chancery in Barcelona. This entry is recorded in book 3,569, folios 135 and 136, in the ‘Diversorum sigilli secreti’ section, dated the same day of its issue, i.e. 17 April 1492. But just as the Catalan register is patented, no similar record has been found to date in any Castilian register. And it is well known that the systematic investigations carried out for centuries in the main Castilian archives -Simancas, Indias or Duque de Veragua- have so far been unsuccessful.

The legal construction of the maritime enterprise

Legislative power in the Crown of Aragon did not belong exclusively to the monarch but had to be developed together with the three estates: nobility, clergy and cities and towns. If the initiative came from the monarch, the constitution was born, while if it came from the estates of the courts, the court chapter was born.

From 1363, there is evidence of this legal practice when it came to the pairing of armies by the king with the deputies of the different estates of the Catalan-Aragonese Crown. It is for this reason that King Ferdinand signed the capitulations with Columbus, which is why one of the agreements states “perquè sia feta Armada en la Senyora del Senyor Rey, de Galées”. Therefore, neither in the legal sources of contemporary Castilian law nor in those of Indian law itself, will we find norms through which the legal concepts that appear in detail in the capitulations can be established.

The capitulations were negotiated and prepared in Barcelona by a committee formed by Joan de Coloma – representative of the Catalan Chancellery and the king’s personal secretary – and Joan Peres – Columbus’ representative – who was a prominent doctor of medicine and renowned cosmographer and owner of the castle of Sant Miquel, on the outskirts of Pals d’Empordà. And it was from the old port of this Empordà town, which no longer exists, that the ultra-oceanic expedition set sail.

When the two parties reached the agreement – on 17 April 1492 – the capitulations were immediately sent to the camp at Santa Fe de Granada – where the Catholic monarchs were staying – for official ratification (on 30 April 1492) and were subsequently handed over to Christopher Columbus. Finally, at the beginning of 1493, the Cortes Generales held in Barcelona ratified the agreement. All this justifies why these ‘Capitulations’ were kept only in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon: because that is where the documents of the magistracy concerned were recorded and archived.

The financing of the maritime enterprise

All the surviving texts show very clearly that the money for the ultra-oceanic venture was advanced – to a large extent – by a Valencian settled in Barcelona, Lluís de Santàngel, who was the scribe of rations for the Catalan Chancellery, which often performed fiscal functions. The company was also financed by other illustrious figures such as Gabriel Sanxis – general treasurer of the Crown of Aragon -, Joan Cabrero – King Ferdinand’s waiter – and Alfons de la Cavalleria, royal adviser. It so happens that all these illustrious figures had had commercial links with the Columbus family in Barcelona for decades.

All the documents referring to the royal payments for the ultra-oceanic enterprise, count the figures in ducats, which was the Catalan currency. However, this currency was not used in Castile until 1497, when, after strong opposition from the Castilian municipalities for considering it a foreign currency, it was imposed by the monarchs.

It should be borne in mind that the structures of the two states, Aragon and Castile, always remained separate, despite the creation of bodies common to both crowns, such as the Inquisition. Therefore, each crown had its treasury, with its treasurer, its scribes and its royal archives. Consequently, if we apply the scientific method to find out who paid for the enterprise of discovery, we only have to go through the account books of both treasuries. Unfortunately, it is impossible to review the account book of the Catalan treasury, as it has disappeared. On the other hand, other contemporary Catalan sources say that thousands of ducats were being allocated to pay for ships and crews throughout that period.

But what happens when we look at the account book of the Castilian general treasury? By the way, it is public and in a modern edition! Well, there is no record of any money being spent on any maritime expedition during the nineties of the 15th century. There is no document that speaks of money referring to ships, pilots, crews or expeditions of any kind.

The triumph of the maritime enterprise

Christopher Columbus was received with full honours by the Catholic monarchs at the Royal Palace in Barcelona on 3 April 1493, after completing the first transoceanic voyage. Contemporary chronicles explain that the audience was very well received, and attracted many curious onlookers from all over the world.

Columbus had succeeded in finding the lost continent spoken of in countless ancient texts: the lands on the other side of the Atlantic “which since the sinking of Atlantis had been cut off”. And as proof of this discovery – of this “New World” – he presented the indigenous people, animals, metals and plants that they had brought back to the kings and to the highest authorities of the kingdom. Reliable proof that they came from lands hitherto unknown.

In fact, in the Capitulations of Santa Fe, it is written that the company undertook to discover territories “which are in the direction of the Indies”. Since at that time there was no geographical reference to illustrate an expedition that aimed to go to the other side of the Atlantic, the geographical reference of the Indies and China of the Great Khan was used. Both cases are extensively described in Marco Polo’s Travels at the end of the 13th century.

As the official documents of the first Columbus voyages state, the toponyms used to designate the “new places” were: Florida, l’illa Montserrat, the region of Valençuela, l’illa Margalida and la Jamaïca. It was after the expulsion of Columbus from all his American possessions and the change in the Crown’s policy in the mid-16th century that Castilian place names began to appear.

Disputes following the discovery of the maritime enterprise

When Columbus returned from his first voyage, the kings confirmed all the powers stipulated in the Capitulations de Santa Fe. But on returning from the second expedition, the monarchy realised that the lands discovered were not four lost islands, but were actually the mainland. This perception caused the monarchy to reconsider the powers granted to Columbus.

The legal problem the monarchy encountered was serious: they were aware that they had accepted and signed capitulations, which allowed the birth of a new dynasty installed in a New World and where Columbus would become viceroy for life, as well as being a hereditary title!

Aware of this problem and in the absence of the person concerned – since he was on an expedition – King Ferdinand changed the rules of the game. The viceregal reform of 1493 led to a limitation of the viceroy’s power, which would be subjugated to the power of the king and the possibility of removing him from office whenever treason against the Crown was proven. In 1500, Francisco de Bobadilla accused Columbus of betraying the Crown.

All documentation on the trial against Columbus has disappeared. From indirect sources, it is known that the Crown seized all the documentation that Columbus had to provide in his own defence. And it is also known that the reports on which the accusations were based were drawn up by Pere Bertran Margarit and Bernat Boïl.

And after all this setup, Columbus was released but deprived of all the titles signed in the capitulations. In other words, he became an inoffensive character for the powers that be. From the 16th century onwards, a long period of litigation began – first against Columbus and then against his descendants – to restore the agreements. For more than eighty years, the Columbus family would sue the monarchy, but it would prove to be a fruitless affair.

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

David Bassa i Jordi Bilbeny: Totes les preguntes sobre Cristòfor Colom. Col·lecció Descoberta, Llibres de l’Índex, 2015.

Jordi Vila: Les Capitulacions colombines de 1492: un document català. 1r Simposi sobre la Descoberta Catalana d’Amèrica, Arenys de Munt, 2001.

Jordi Bilbeny: Cristòfor Colom, príncep de Catalunya, Proa, Col. Perfils, Barcelona, 2006.

Jordi Bilbeny: Inquisició i Decadència: Orígens del genocidi lingüístic i cultural a la Catalunya del segle XVI, Librooks, Barcelona, 2018.

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