A Dissimulated Trade: Flamencos and the Trade of North European Timber in Seville (1574-1598)

Spain’s wars against the Dutch and the English provoked an increasing hostility towards north European migrants in Castile in the last third of the sixteenth century. While migrants from England were forced to leave, those from the Low Countries and Germany – known as flamencos – were tolerated in Seville, Spain’s economic capital at the time. In this context, a group of migrants from the Low Countries and Germany took control over the trade of timber and naval provisions, which had to be imported from the Baltic and Scandinavian regions and were strategic commodities for the city’s economy and the Spanish king, Philip II’s, imperial aspirations. Out of necessity, Philip II allowed these flamencos to reside and operate in Seville despite his bans on the trade with the Dutch Republic, but they had to do it in “a dissimulated manner.”
The thesis reflects on the development of a commercial axis between Amsterdam and Seville, during the first decades of the Eighty Years’ War. This thesis sheds a new light on the Eighty Years’ war by focusing on the people who maintained ties of economic cooperation across the enemy territories. The dissertation examines how Dutch, Flemish and German migrants thrived in Seville and contributed to the city’s consolidation as a main operative centre of the Habsburg’s seaborne empire.