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JOHN ADAMS

LETTER IV. BISCAY.

Dear Sir,

In a research like this, after those people in Europe who have had the skill, courage, and fortune, to preserve a voice in the government, Biscay, in Spain, ought by no means to be omitted. While their neighbours have long since resigned all their pretensions into the hands of kings and priests, this extraordinary people have preserved their ancient language, genius, laws, government, and manners, without innovation, longer than any other nation of Europe. Of Celtic extraction, they once inhabited some of the finest parts of the ancient Boetica; but their love of liberty, and unconquerable aversion to a foreign servitude, made them retire, when invaded and overpowered in their ancient feats, into these mountainous countries, called by the ancients Cantabria. They were governed by counts, sent them by the kings of Oviedo and Leon, until 859, when finding themselves without a chief, because Zeno, who commanded them, was made prisoner, they rose and took arms to resist Ordogne, son of Alfonsus the Third, whose domination was too severe for them, chose for their chief an issue of the blood-royal of Scotland, by the mother's side, and son-in-law of Zeno their governor, who having overcome Ordogne, in 870, they chose him for their lord, and his posterity, who bore afterwards the name of Haro, succeeded him, from father to son, until the king Don Pedro the Cruel, having put to death those who were in possession of the lordship, reduced them to a treaty, by which they united their country, under the title of a lordship, with Castile, by which convention the king of Spain is now lord of Biscay. It is a republic; and one of the privileges they have most insisted on, is not to have a king: another was, that every new lord, at his accession, should come into the country in person, with one of his legs bare, and take an oath to preserve the privileges of the lordship. The present king of Spain is the first who has been complimented with their consent, that the oath should be administered at Madrid, though the other humiliating and indecent ceremony has been long laid aside.

Their solicitude for defence has surrounded with walls all the towns in the district. They are one-and-twenty in number; the principal of which are, Orduna, Laredo, Portugalete, Durango, Bilbao, and St. Andero. Biscay is divided into nine merindades, a sort of juridiction like a bailiwick, besides the four cities on the coast. The capital is Bilbao. — The whole is a collection of very high and very steep mountains, rugged and rocky to such a degree, that a company of men posted on one of them might defend itself as long as it could subsist, by rolling rocks on their enemy. This natural formation of the country, which has rendered the march of armies impracticable, and the daring spirit of the inhabitants, have preserved their liberty.

Active, vigilant, generous, brave, hardy, inclined to war and navigation, they have enjoyed, for two thousand years, the reputation of the best soldiers and sailors in Spain, and even of the best courtiers, many of them having, by their wit and manners, raised themselves into offices of consequence under the court of Madrid. Their valuable qualities have recommended them to the esteem of the kings of Spain, who have hitherto left them in possession of those great immunities of which they are so jealous. In 1632, indeed, the court laid a duty upon salt: the inhabitants of Bilbao rose, and massacred all the officers appointed to collect it, and all the officers of the grand admiral. Three thousand troops were sent to punish them for rebellion: these they fought, and totally defeated, driving most of them into the sea, which discouraged the court from pursuing their plan of taxation; and since that time the king has had no officer of any kind in the lordship, except his corregidor.

Many writers ascribe their flourishing commerce to their situation; but, as this is no better than that of Ferrol or Corunna, that advantage is more probably due to their liberty. In riding through this little territory, you would fancy yourself in Connecticut; instead of miserable huts, built of mud, and covered with straw, you see the country full of large and commodious houses and barns of the farmer; the lands well cultivated; and a wealthy, happy yeomanry. The roads, so dangerous and impassable in most other parts of Spain, are here very good, having been made at a vast expence of labour.

Although the government is called a democracy, we cannot here find all authority collected into one center; there are, on the contrary, as many distinct governments as there are cities and merindades. The general government has two orders at least; the lord or governor, and the biennial parliament. Each of the thirteen subordinate divisions has its organized government, with its chief magistrate at the head of it. We may judge of the form of all of them by that of the metropolis, which calls itself, in all its laws, the noble and illustrious republic of Bilbao. This city has its alcalde, who is both governor and chief justice, its twelve regidores or counsellors, attorney-general, &c. and by all these, assembled in the consistorial palace under the titles of consejo, justicia, y regimiento, the laws are made in the name of the lord of Biscay, and confirmed by him.

These officers, it is true, are elected by the citizens, but they must by law be elected, as well as the deputies to the biennial parliament or junta general, out of a few noble families, unstained, both by the side of father and mother, by any mixture with Moors, Jews, new converts, penitentiaries of the inquisition, &c. They must be natives and residents, worth a thousand ducats, and must have no concern in commerce, manufactures, or trades; and, by a fundamental agreement among all the merindades, all their deputies to the junta general, and all their regidores, sindics, secretaries, and treasurers, must be nobles, at least knights, and such as never exercised any mechanical trades themselves or their fathers. Thus we see the people themselves have established by law a contracted aristocracy, under the appearance of a liberal democracy. Americans, beware!

Although we see here in the general government, and in that of every city and merindad, the three branches of power, of the one, the few, and the many; yet, if it were as democratical as it has been thought by some, we could by no means infer, from this instance of a little flock upon a few impracticable mountains, in a round form of ten leagues diameter, the utility or practicability of such a government in any other country.

The disposition to division, so apparent in all democratical governments, however tempered with aristocratical and monarchical powers, has shewn itself, in breaking off from it Guipuscoa and Allaba; and the only preservative of it from other divisions, has been the fear of their neighbours. They always knew, that as soon as they should fall into factions, or attempt innovations, the court of Spain would interpose, and prescribe them a government not so much to their taste.

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https://www.euskadikoorkestra.eus/

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Etxea : the Basque house is also known as ‘etxea’, ‘homestead’- a sort of mixture of ‘house’, ‘home’ and ‘family’, and is a central concept in Basque culture.

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History of the Basques: XX century

Industrialisation across the Atlantic basin Basque districts (Biscay, Gipuzkoa, north-western Álava) was further boosted by the outbreak of World War I in Europe. Spain remained neutral in the war conflict, with Basque steel production and export further expanding thanks to the demand of the European war effort. Ironically, the end of the European war in 1918 brought about the decline and transformation of the Basque industry.

In 1931, at the outset of the Spanish 2nd Republic, echoing the recently granted self-government to Catalonia, an attempt was made to draw up a single statute for the Basque territories in Spain (Provincias Vascongadas and Navarra), but after an initial overwhelming approval of the draft and a round of council mayor meetings, Navarre pulled out of the draft project.

In July 1936, a military uprising erupted across Spain, in the face of which Basque nationalists in Biscay and Gipuzkoa sided with the Spanish republicans, but many in Navarre, a Carlist stronghold, supported General Francisco Franco's insurgent forces.

Another big atrocity of this war, immortalised by Picasso's emblematic mural, was the bombing of Gernika by German planes, a Biscayne town of great historical and symbolic importance, at Franco's bidding. In 1937, the Eusko Gudarostea, the troops of the new government of the Basque Autonomous Community surrendered to Franco's fascist Italian allies in Santoña on condition that the lives of the Basque soldiers were respected (Santoña Agreement). Basques (Gipuzkoa, Biscay) fled for their lives to exile by the tens of thousands, including a mass evacuation of children aboard chartered boats (the niños de la guerra) into permanent exile.

With the Spanish Civil War over, the new dictator began his drive to turn Spain into a totalitarian nation state. Franco's regime passed harsh laws against all minorities in the Spanish state, including Basques, aimed at wiping out their cultures and languages. Calling Biscay and Gipuzkoa "traitor provinces", he abolished what remained of their autonomy.

Franco:

A new wave of immigration from the poorer parts of Spain to Biscay and Gipuzkoa during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in response to the region's escalating industrialization aimed to supply the Spanish internal market as a result of a post-war self-sufficiency policy, favoured by the regime.

the regime's persecution provoked a strong backlash in the Basque Country from the 1960s onwards, notably in the form of a new political movement, Basque Country And Freedom (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), better known by its Basque initials ETA, who turned to the systematic use of arms as a form of protest in 1968.

Franco's authoritarian regime continued until 1975, while the latest years running up to the dictator's death proved harsh in a Basque Country shaken by repression, turmoil and unrest. Two new stances arose in Basque politics, namely break or compromise. While ETA's different branches decided to keep confrontation to gain a new status for the Basque Country, PNV and the Spanish Communists and Socialists opted for negotiations with the Francoist regime. In 1978, a general pardon was decreed by the Spanish Government for all politics related offences, a decision affecting directly Basque nationalist activists, especially ETA militants.

The 1979 Statute of Autonomy is an organic law of mandatory implementation, but powers have been devolved gradually over decades as a result of re-negotiations between the Spanish and successive Basque regional governments according to after-electoral needs, while the transfer of many powers is still due.

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History of the Basques: XIX century

The loss of the Charters in 1876 spawned political dissent and unrest, with two traditionalist movements arising to counter the Spanish centralist and comparatively liberal stance, the Carlists and the Basque nationalists. The former emphasized staunchly catholic and absolutist values, while the latter stressed Catholicism and the charters mingled with a Basque national awareness (Jaungoikoa eta Lege Zarra). Besides showing at the beginning slightly different positions, the Basque nationalists took hold in the industrialised Biscay and to a lesser extent Gipuzkoa, while the Carlist entrenched themselves especially in the rural Navarre and to a lesser extent in Álava.

Iron: With regards to the economic activity, high quality iron ore mainly from western Biscay, processed up to the early 19th century in small traditional ironworks around the western Basque Country, was now exported to Britain for industrial processing (see section above). Between 1878 and 1900 58 million tons of ore were exported from the Basque Country to Great Britain. The profits gained in this exportation was in turn reinvested by local entrepreneurs in iron and steel industry, a move spurring an "industrial revolution" that was to spread from Bilbao and the Basque Country across Spain, despite the economic incompetence shown by the Spanish central government.

Nationalism : In this period, Biscay reached one of the highest mortality rates in Europe. While the new proletariat's wretched working and living conditions were providing a natural breeding ground for the new socialist and anarchist ideologies and political movements characteristic of the late 19th century, the end of the 19th century also saw the birth of the above Basque nationalism. The Spanish government's failure to comply with the provisions established at the end of the Third Carlist War (1876) and before (the 1841 Compromise Act in Navarre) raised a public outcry, crystallizing in the Gamazada popular uprising in Navarre (1893-1894) that provided a springboard for the incipient Basque nationalism—Basque Nationalist Party founded in 1895.

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History of the Basques: Modernity

Basques in the present-day Spanish and French districts of the Basque Country managed to retain a large degree of self-government within their respective districts, practically functioning initially as separate nation-states. The western Basques managed to confirm their home rule at the end of the Kingdom of Castile's civil wars, pledging an oath to claimant Isabella I of Castile in exchange for generous terms in overseas trade. Their fueros recognised separate laws, taxation and courts in each district. As the Middle Ages drew to a close, the Basques got sandwiched between two rising superpowers after the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre, i.e. France and Spain. Sea influence: The Basques (or Biscaynes), especially proper Biscayans Gipuzkoans and Lapurdians, thrived on whale hunting, shipbuilding, iron exportation to England, and trade with northern Europe and America during the 16th century, at which time the Basques became the masters not only of whaling but the Atlantic Ocean. However, King Philip II of Spain's failed Armada Invencible endeavour in 1588, largely relying on heavy whaling and trade galleons confiscated to the reluctant Basques, proved disastrous. The Spanish defeat triggered the immediate collapse of Basque supremacy over the oceans and the rise of English hegemony.[39] As whaling declined privateering soared. Many Basques found in the Castilian-Spanish Empire an opportunity to promote their social position and venture to America to make a living and sometimes amass a little fortune that spurred the foundation of the present-day baserris. Basques serving under the Spanish flag became renowned sailors, and many of them were among the first Europeans to reach America. For example, Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World was partially manned by Basques, the Santa Maria vessel was made in Basque shipyards, and the owner, Juan de la Cosa, may have been a Basque. A Basque trade area: The Basques initially welcomed Philip V to the Crown of Castile (1700), but the absolutist outlook inherited from his grandfather could hardly withstand the test of the Basque contractual system. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and the 1714 suppression of home rule in the Kingdom of Aragon and Catalonia disquieted the Basques. It did not take long until the Spanish king, attempted to enlarge his tax revenue and foster a Spanish internal market by meddling in the Basque low-tax trade area and moving Basque customs from the Ebro to the coast and the Pyrenees. With their overseas and customary cross-Pyrenean trade—and by extension home rule—under threat, the royal advance was responded by the western Basques with a trail of matxinadas, or uprisings, that shook 30 towns in coastal areas (Biscay, Gipuzkoa). Spanish troops were sent over, and the widespread rebellion quelled in blood. A pardon to the leaders of the rebellion in 1726 paved the way to an understanding of the Basque regional governments with Madrid officials, and the ensuing foundation of the Royal Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas in 1728. The Guipuzcoan Company greatly added to the prosperity of the Basque districts, by exporting iron commodities and importing products such as cacao, tobacco, and hides. The Basque districts in Spain kept operating virtually as independent republics. Emigration to America did not stop, with Basques—reputed for their close solidarity bonds, high organizational skills and an industrious disposition—found venturing into Upper California at the head of the early expeditions. By the end of the 18th century the Basques were deprived of their customary trade with America and choked by the Spanish disproportionately high customs duties in the Ebro river, but at least enjoyed a fluent internal market and intensive trade with France. On a positive note the Spanish customs exactions imposed over the Ebro favoured a more European orientation and the circulation of innovative ideas—labelled by many in Spain as "un-Spanish"—both technical and humanistic, such as Rousseau's 'social contract', hailed especially by the Basque liberals, who widely supported home rule (fueros). Cross-Pyrenean contacts among Basque scholars and public personalities also intensified, increasing awareness of a common identity beyond district specific practices. Revolution and war: Self-government in the northern Basque Country came to an abrupt end when the French Revolution centralized government and abolished the region specific powers recognized by the ancien régime. The French political design intently pursued a dissolution of the Basque identity into a new French nation, and in 1793 that French national ideal was enforced with terror over the population. The Southern Basque Country was mired in constant disputes with the royal Spanish authority. During the War of the Pyrenees and the Peninsular War, the impending threat to the self-government on the part of the Spanish royal authority was critical for war events and alliances First Carlist War and the end of the fueros: Fearing that they would lose their self-government (fueros) under a modern, liberal Spanish constitution, Basques in Spain rushed to join the traditionalist army led the charismatic Basque commander Tomas de Zumalacarregui, and financed largely by the governments of the Basque districts. The opposing Isabeline Army had the vital support of British, French (notably the Algerian legion) and Portuguese forces, and the backing of these governments. However, the Carlist ideology was not in itself prone to stand up for the Basque specific institutions, traditions, and identity, but royal absolutism and Church, thriving in rural based environments and totally opposed to modern liberal ideas. They presented themselves as true Spaniards, and contributed to the Spanish centralizing drive. Despite the circumstances and their Catholicism, many Basques came to think that staunch conservatism was not leading them anywhere. Customs were then definitely moved from the Ebro river over to the coast and the Pyrenees, which destroyed the formerly lucrative Bayonne-Pamplona trade and much of the region's prosperity. The dismantling of the native political system had severe consequences throughout the Basque Country, leaving many families struggling to survive after the enforcement of the French Civil Code in the continental Basque region. The French legal arrangement deprived many families of their customary common lands and had their family property divided. The new political design triggered also cross-border smuggling, and French Basques emigrated to the USA and other American destinations in large numbers. They account for about half of the total emigration from France during the 19th century, estimated at 50.000 to 100.000 inhabitants. Iron and mining: The centuries long forge (ironwork) network linked to readily available timber, abundant waterways, and proximity of coastal harbours saw its final agony, but some kept operating—north of Navarre, Gipuzkoa, Biscay. A critical moment for the development of heavy metal industry came with the introduction in 1855 of Bessemer blast furnaces for the mass-production of steel in the Bilbao area. In 1863 the Regional Council of Biscay liberalized the exportation of iron ore, and in the same year the first mining railway line was pressed into operation. A rapid development followed, encouraged by a dynamic local bourgeoisie, coastal location, availability of technical know-how, an inflow of foreign steel industry investors—partnering with a local family owned group Ybarra y Cía—as well as Spanish and foreign high demand for iron ore. The transfer of the Spanish customs border from the southern boundary of the Basque Country to the Spanish-French border ultimately encouraged the inclusion of Spain's Basque districts in a new Spanish market, the protectionism of which favoured in that respect the birth and growth of Basque industry. 3rd Carlist war: the rising Spanish Prime Minister Canovas del Castillo stated that no agreement bound him, and went on to decree the "Act for the Abolition of the Basque Charters", with its 1st article proclaiming the "duties the political Constitution has always imposed on all the Spanish." The Basque districts in Spain including Navarre lost their sovereignty and were assimilated to the Spanish provinces, still preserving a small set of prerogatives (the Basque Economic Agreements, and the 1841 Compromise Act for Navarre).

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History of the Basques: Middle Ages

Christianization was slow. Muslim accounts from the period of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania and beginning of 9th century identify the Basques as magi or 'pagan wizards', they were not considered 'people of the Book' (Christians In 418 Rome gave the provinces of Aquitania and Tarraconensis to the Visigoths. After 456, the Visigoths crossed the Pyrenees twice from Aquitaine, probably at Roncesvalles, in an effort to destroy the Suevic kingdom of Rechiar, but as the chronicle of Hydatius, the only Spanish source of the period, ends in 469, the actual events of the Visigothic confrontation with the Basques are obscure.[24] Apart from the vanished previous tribal boundaries, the great development between the death of Hydatius and the events accounted for in the 580s is the appearance of the Basques as a "mountain roaming people", most of the times depicted as posing a threat to urban life.

The Franks displaced the Visigoths from Aquitaine in 507, placing the Basques between the two warring kingdoms. In 581 or thereabouts both Franks and Visigoths attacked Vasconia (Wasconia in Gregory of Tours), but neither with success. Synergies between ‘Roman’, non-Frankish urban elites and a rural militarised Vascon power base enabled a strong political entity in south-west Gaul. 

The Basque-Aquitanian realm reached its zenith at the time of Odo the Great, but the Muslim invasion of 711, at which time the Visigoth Roderic was fighting the Basques in Pamplona, and the rise of the Carolingian dynasty posed new threats for this state, eventually spurring its downfall and breakup. In 844, the Vikings sailed up the Garonne to Bordeaux and Toulouse and raided the countryside on either bank of the river, killing the Duke of the Basques Sigwinum II (recorded as Sihiminum too, maybe Semeno) in Bordeaux. They took over Bayonne, and attacked Pamplona (859), even taking the king Garcia prisoner, only released in exchange for a hefty ransom. They were to be overcome only in 982 by the Basque duke William II Sanchez of Gascony, who made his way back from Pamplona to fight to the north of Bayonne and put a term to Viking incursions, so allowing monasteries to spring up all over Gascony thereafter,[31] the first of which was the one of Saint-Sever, Caput Vasconiae. 

Basques played an important role in early European ventures into the Atlantic Ocean. The earliest document to mention the use of whale oil or blubber by the Basques dates from 670. In 1059, whalers from Lapurdi are recorded to have presented the oil of the first whale they captured to the viscount. Apparently the Basques were averse to the taste of whale meat themselves, but did successful business selling it and the blubber to the French, Castilians and Flemings. Whaling and cod-fishing are probably responsible for early Basque contact with both the North Sea and Newfoundland. The Basques began cod-fishing and later whaling in Labrador and Newfoundland as early as the first half of the 16th century. 

Magellan's expedition was manned on departure by 200 sailors, at least 35 of them Basques, and when Magellan was killed in the Philippines, his Basque second-in-command, Juan Sebastián Elcano took the ship all the way back to Spain. 18 crew members completed the circumnavigation, 4 of them Basques. The Basques mutinied in Christopher Columbus' expedition, a distinctive group who is reported to have erected a makeshift camp in an American island. 

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Paleolithic:  similar to Aquitaine and Pyrenees/ Epipaleolithic and Neolithic settlers, European Early Modern Humans, "West European Hunter-Gatherer" (WHG). They would have been nomadic or semi-nomadic, following the annual migration of their prey, and would also have eaten plant materials. The figurines, cave-paintings, ornaments and the mysterious Venus figurines are a hallmark of Cro-Magnon culture, contrasting with the utilitarian culture of the Neanderthals.

Epipaleolithic and Neolithic:  end of Ice Age: hunters turned from large animals to smaller prey, and fishing and seafood gathering became important economic activities. Burials become collective (possibly implying families or clans) and the dolmen predominates, while caves are also employed in some places. Unlike the dolmens of the Mediterranean basin which show a preference for corridors, in the Atlantic area they are invariably simple chambers.

Copper and Bronze Ages:  use of copper and gold (c 2500), the first urban settlements / LA HOYA - a link or trading center between Languedoc and Portugal. Undecorated pottery, building of megalithic structures continued

Iron Age:  Indo-European, notably Celtic influence in the region. Settlements now appear mainly at points of difficult access, probably for defensive reasons, and had elaborate defense systems. During this phase, agriculture seemingly became more important than >animal husbandry.

Roman rule:  Its laxness suited the Basques well, allowing them to retain their traditional laws and leadership. Romanisation was limited on the lands of the current Basque Country closer to the Atlantic, while it was more intense on the Mediterranean basin. The survival of the separate Basque language has often been attributed to the fact that Basque Country was little developed by the Romans.