Maragato

The term maragato refers to the inhabitants of the Maragatería region in the province of León, Spain, although historically it also refers to the merchants and mule drivers from that area.

Designation

There are several theories about the origin of the term "maragato."

• One of them points out that it comes from Latin mericator 'mercader'. In the middle of the centuryXIX was discovered in La Coruña the tombstone of a maragate dated in the centuryXIV, with symbols – the bag and the whip- that make thinking about the arrival, and an inscription that prays: Hic jacet Joahnnes Andres mer(i)cator....
• Laureano Rubio, a professor at the University of León, argues that the name "maragato" comes from the times of the arrival, when the Somozanos became known as fish merchants. The transport of salted fish products from Galicia (the sea) to Madrid (the Cats) would be reflected in the name, which would mean from the sea to the catsand it would be reduced to “marad”.
• On the other hand, Pedro de Alba attributes the origin of the term to the word Maurisco (' brave warrior') which, according to the author, should not be confused with Moorish.
• Other theories link the etymological origin of the word to the supposed ethnic origins of the maragatos.

History

Theories about origin

Various theories have been proposed about the ethnic origin of the Maragato people.

• The Benedictine friar Martin Sarmiento expresses in his Critical discourse on the origin of maragatos that, for him, "maragato" is a name derived from the name "maurello", citing several historical documents. He asserts that in the Council of Lugo of 569 he is awarded to the bishop of Astorga the maurellos superiorum e inferiorumthat for him they corroborate the existence and evangelization of the Maragato people already since the times of the Suevos, or even "before Muhammad was born". The name "maurello" would eventually become the word "maragato". The friar also alludes to the fact that, according to Ptolomeo, Astorga constituted the head of the Amazon peoples, and that Petabonios, according to the Itinerary of Antonino the present Ponferrada, would be the head of the superatio peoples. The denomination "supersatio" is Latin and means "the same as high, excellent and superior", affirming Sarmiento that of this name would come from that of maurellos superiorum and ascribed a pre-Roman origin and astur to the people of Maragato.
• In the same manuscript mentioned, Sarmiento also collects and at the same time qualifies as false other theories already extended at the time. One of them attributes to the maragatos Arab origin, alluding to the "common voice" of the time that claimed that the maragatos received the name of the vocablos mauri capti (mores captive). Specifically, the widespread belief stated that “[...] the Maragatos are descended from a portion of Moors, that the christians captivated in a victory, and that the king transplanted them to the Maragaria mountains, so that they might inhabit, populate and cultivate it.” Or Mauro gotho, in understanding that they came from those who lived in Spain, and that by allying, relating and marrying, they gave birth to children who were neither Moors nor Goths, but 'Maurogothos' (maragatos). These theories are the first documented, collected in the 18th century.
• According to the Arabist Reinhart Dozy, the maragatas roots lie in the Berber people. Dozy states that in the time of Fernando I a Berberisco group remained in the area of Astorga when the others of his race returned to Africa, and that, accepting the Catholic religion, he always had great independence, keeping his customs and customs. The members of this group were called Malagonwhich would lead to the term maragas. Oliveira Martins, in his History of Iberian Civilization, speaks in identical terms that Dozy points out that, in hatred of these, the Northern Christians called Malacontia to the region inhabited by the Arab group, its inhabitants were called Malacontes.
• Eduardo Saavedra believes in the Celtic origin of the Maragato people, affirming the similarity between the Celtic traditions and maragatas such as the nuptial rite. Joaquín de Ciria and Vincent expressed this theory at the conference he gave at the Royal Geographical Society after his trip to the Maragaria in 1908, adding also that the term maragato could have its origin in the Celtic Vokes marc-hekaat or mar-kaatWhich means "cabalgar."

Economy

It is difficult to know what the Maragata economy was like before the beginning of the muleteer activity, but it is very likely that it was based solely on agriculture and livestock. What is certain is that in the Maragata families in which the men were not muleteers, both women and men dedicated themselves to cultivating, without much success, the arid Maragata land and, to a lesser extent, to livestock.. Textile production also became important, especially in towns like the Val de San Lorenzo, where the Maragatas wove blankets that ended up being remarkably well-known at the time, especially because they were used by muleteers. The textile industry continues to be considerable in the aforementioned town.^{[citation needed]}

Although the mule industry constituted almost the entire economic support of the region, this wealth was distributed only among a few families, and the majority of the inhabitants of Maragatería were very poor.^{[citation needed]}

Arriería Maragata

It is important to note that not all Maragatos ended up dedicating themselves to mule farming, only a few families from each town made a living from it. It is estimated that the mule trade only occupied 20% of the population of the region. In some towns in Maragatería, such as Santiago Millas or Castrillo de los Polvazares, the muleteer tradition was much more notable and was reflected in the number of Maragata muleteer houses that last in them.

The first documented Maragato muleteer activities are found in the registry of notarial activities of Puentedeume, where it is recorded that merchants and muleteers from the Maragato towns of Quintanilla de Somoza, Valdespino de Somoza and Castrillo de los Polvazares were engaged in 1633, 1636 and 1657 respectively to transport pickled oysters in trains to Medina de Rioseco and La Bañeza, although in previous documents the presence of mule driving activity in the region can be intuited. King Henry II granted exemption from paying the portazgo, that is, the tax on merchandise when entering a town, to the city of Astorga on February 20, 1367, giving privileges to the Maragatos muleteers both in Astorga itself and in other cities and towns in the kingdom. This right was taken advantage of by Pedro and Alfonso Botas, two maragatos who were required to pay the tax when entering the city of Lugo in 1430. After the claim they made to the portazguero judge of the city, the privileged situation of the Maragatos in Lugo was recognized in a document.

The Maragatos mule drivers enjoyed a great reputation, and according to testimonies such as that of the English traveler George Borrow or that of the Augustinian religious Enrique Flórez, they were taciturn, serious and had a phlegmatic temperament. The honesty that characterized them, added to the great commitment they had to the safety of the transported cargo, caused the price they charged for transportation to be, in many cases, "double, at least, what others in the trade charge." The Crown of Spain even entrusted them with the transfer of Indian gold from the ports of arrival to the court and the transportation of tax collection, merchandise that the muleteers insured with their own assets.^{[citation needed]} These facts are corroborated by the lack of documents that record cases of robberies against muleteers from Maragatos, when generally the rest of the guild was always decimated by bandits during the transport of goods, which has always caused suspicion that the Maragatos had pacts with them in which, in exchange for a sum of money, they would not be robbed.^{[citation needed]} Furthermore, it has been possible to collect oral witnesses about Maragato muleteers who went bankrupt, as is the case of a muleteer from Castrillo de los Polvazares who, supposedly, was docked in a Galician port when he was preparing to transport crown gold and lost his entire fortune by having to respond with his assets to the loss of the cargo.^{[citation needed]}

The great presence of Maragato muleteers throughout the Northern Plateau of the country caused them to become popular and highly stereotyped figures, especially in the city of Madrid, as was collected by Enrique Gil y Carrasco in his Popular Types of Spain.

The mule industry came to an end at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the XX with the arrival of the railway and other means of freight transport. Many Maragatos settled in Galicia and Madrid, where they set up lucrative fishing and fishmongering businesses. In Madrid they continue to have almost complete control of the guild. Since then, the term maragato has been separated from the muleteer activity and is used to designate the inhabitants of the Maragatería region.

Myths about maragatos

Although the Maragatos were a group that maintained a certain degree of isolation, more for economic and commercial interests, the truth is that they have been denied recognition of being an ethnic group as such, since 'Maragato' It was confused only with all those who practiced arriería or street vending, a very widespread commercial practice in the province of León and the rest of Europe. A series of myths have been created that in very few cases correspond to reality: their clothing has nothing Arabic, but rather responds to a fashion of the century XVIII that spread to many parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe. An example is the similarities between the Breton costumes of French Brittany and the Maragatos. Another widespread myth is the supposed affiliations with ancient Moorish populations, but in truth no one has been able to attest to this either genetically or historically other than through ramblings about the origin of the name.

Maragatos in America

The Maragatos were pioneer settlers of the colonial establishments of Atlantic Patagonia during the XVIII century, and together with Galicians and People from other origins were at the foundation of Carmen de Patagones.

From this last town other groups of Maragatos headed to the Eastern Band, founding there the city of San José de Mayo (Department of San José), in the current territory of Uruguay. For this reason, the residents of San José de Mayo and its surroundings, as well as those of Carmen de Patagones, usually receive the nickname of maragatos. From San José de Mayo, many European maragatos, now transformed into gauchos, colonized other areas of the Banda Oriental territory, including territories of the current Río Grande del Sur. This explains why the Rio Grande do Sul federalist revolution of 1893 was called in Brazil the "Maragatos Revolution."