Barcelona historian maps Catalonia's hidden slave-trading legacy

Historian Martín Rodrigo Alharilla guided a tour of Barcelona highlighting buildings and families that profited from 18th-19th-century slave trade, noting that well-known names are only a fraction of the network.

During a walking tour in Barcelona, historian Martín Rodrigo Alharilla identified several historic structures that once belonged to slave traders, including a former indiano’s house and the former headquarters of the Catalan Gas Lighting Company, whose founders were slaveholders. He noted the removal of a statue of Antonio López y López, the sole Spanish monument taken down because it honored a slave trader. Alharilla’s research, displayed in the Maritime Museum’s exhibition and the online España Esclavista portal, maps more than 220 sites tied to Catalonia’s role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

He emphasized that famous families like the marquis of Comillas, Joan Güell, Vidal-Quadras and Miquel Biada represent only the tip of a much larger network of financiers, shipowners and plantation owners. The historian connected this past to contemporary social disparities, urging acknowledgment, educational reforms and symbolic reparations. He also referenced the recent UN resolution condemning the slave trade as a crime against humanity, noting the abstention of several EU states, including Spain.