Port-cities in Britain are known and studied as crossroads and gateways of empire. People, ideas, goods, money, etc. flowed in and out of these porous urban environments. For many people, port-cities were not only a place of transience, they could also be a home city with a strong sense of community. From the 16th through the 19th centuries, some of those who called port-cities their homes were part of the Anglo-Spanish diaspora. From Cadiz to London or Bilbao to Liverpool, Spanish and British citizens crossed the oceans in order to participate in Anglo-Spanish trade and imperial expansion. These voyages inevitably led to the creation of Anglo-Spanish communities in the littoral regions of both empires. The growth and success of Anglo-Spanish communities in port-cities was driven in part by imperial ventures such as the textile industry, mining, and the slave trade. It is not always easy to reconcile the history of exploitative ventures with the immigrant communities whose creation they facilitated. However, it is important to bring together local and imperial histories in order to understand how Anglo-Spanish communities were built, thrived, and sometimes waned.
This conference seeks to bring together scholars interested in the lives of Anglo-Spanish communities across both the Spanish and British empires. The conference also seeks to address the tensions that investigating family and local history can bring to communities today. The conference will be open to the public in the hopes that those interested in the conference themes will come and engage with the ideas being presented. The themes of this conference were inspired by the histories of two Anglo-Basque families, the Zuluetas and the Larrinagas, both of whom have contentious legacies in London and Liverpool.
The organisers are particularly interested in paper or panel proposals in the areas of family history; literature; art history; business history; food history; urban history; slave-trade history; shipping history; and cultural history. Please click here for more information. Please send individual paper or panel proposals to Dr. Anna Brinkman (a.brinkman@warwick.ac.uk) by midnight on 25 March.
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