Cork appropriation and management in Valdelosa (Salamanca, Spain), 1835-1975

Abstract

The rise and characteristics of the cork trade in North-western Spain are not well known. Yet small extensions of cork-oak forests brought about a prosperous cork business and the birth of diverse industrial activities which, given their limited capital base and size, did not grow beyond artisan’s workshops. The case of Valdelosa (Salamanca) is particularly relevant in this regard. From 1835 on cork production was developed in this municipality using local raw materials supplied by the cork-oak forests. Local industrialists, residents, large scale land-owners and the forestry administration resorted to various strategies to get control of the cork and the profits it entailed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These strategies somehow mirror the evolution of public forestry property in Spain as a whole. Among the strategies, one stands out because of its appearance of collectivism. It lasted throughout most of the twentieth century and disappeared, not without enormous conflict, between 1974 and 1975. This article makes use of archive materials from the Municipal Archive of Valdelosa, the Provincial Archive of Salamanca and the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture.