Hydraulic policy and agricultural colonies in 19th century Spain: the proposed interior colonisation of the Aragonese Joaquín Costa

José María Alagón Laste
Art History Department
University of Zaragoza

ORCID: 0000-0001-8288-3262

Published: 21/12/2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31338/ahi.2024.3.1

ABSTRACT: Concern for the depopulation of Spanish territory was very present in the 19th century, in line with what had happened in previous periods. Thus, until the second half of the century, colonisation policy addressed the problem of the great depopulated areas in Spain, which added to the interest in hydraulic policy. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, demands for water and irrigation were concentrated, giving rise to a general plan for hydraulic works that never materialised. But in the eighties, the crisis at the end of the century changed this panorama, and it was the so-called regenerationists, particularly Joaquín Costa, who demanded the implementation by the state of a national hydraulic policy. In this text, we will first analyse the Law of Agricultural Colonies enacted in 1855; then, the figure of the theoretician Fermín Caballero and his proposals; the legislative process in defence of the isolated rural farmhouse; subsequently, the agricultural crisis at the end of the 19th century and its relation with the actions in agrarian matters, and finally, the role of Joaquín Costa in the hydraulic policy and his colonising ideas.

KEYWORDS: agrarian colonisation, hydraulic policy, irrigation, territory, agriculture, depopulation, repopulation.