The free trade and royal tariffs Code was published on 12 October 1778 that started the opening of maritime traffic between Spain and the West Indies.  As Vives has pointed out, the volume of traffic between the two Atlantic coasts grew “wonderfully and rapidly”.

Some maritime routes have been named in history by the type of trade they carried out. Some known and popular ones include "The Opium Route", "The Tea Route", "The Wheat Route", etc.  Others have received the name of the type of ship most used for it like "The Galleon Route" used between Spain and America.
In the middle of the nineteenth century there was another clearly Spanish route that, although known, has perhaps received less attention. It is what I refer to as the “The Tasajo Route” for tasajo, the dried beef used primarily to feed the slaves of the West Indies.

Starting in the second half of the nineteenth century, steam power began to spread although sailing refused to die out and for several years challenged steam power, especially on certain lines.  In 1960, the Spanish merchant fleet was comprised of 4,176 sailing ships that added up to 400,000 gross registered tonnes (GRT) and only 84 steam ships, whose total tonnage reached 15,000 GRT. Ten years later there were 3,712 sailing ships and 169 steam ships, which then represented a fifth of the total fleet.  The tipping point occurred in 1883, the year in which the tonnage of Spanish merchant steam ships exceeded that of the sailing ships, 307,353 GRT versus 286,164 respectively.

It is precisely during this time period and for some years afterwards when a trade took place that has gone down in maritime history as “The Tasajo Route” or “Dried Beef Route”.   The sailing ships left from Mediterranean ports, basically from Barcelona and Tarragona with loads of wine, flour, cloth, almonds, oil, construction materials and salt (from Torrevieja in particular) destined for the West Indies.

From here whether in ballast or as part of its Mediterranean cargo, they left for the Plata River of Argentina and Uruguay where they took on dried salted meat known as tasajo primarily for Cuba.  This tasajo was the basic food for the slaves of the West Indies. Tasajo was loaded in the Argentinean or Uruguayan ports and in order to avoid moisture getting into the meat, they caulked the hatches. The captains for the most part were shareholders in the ships and besides being captains acted as ship-owners and stevedores. Sometimes they returned to the Plata River from the West Indies to take on a new load of the dried beef because the charter fee made it profitable to return to the Plata.

In Cuba and Puerto Rico the usual loads were taken on from these islands: sugar, tobacco, coffee, molasses, etc.  The load was usually completed in the American ports of the Gulf of Mexico:  New Orleans, Pensacola, Jacksonville, etc. with cotton, local woods like pine and candlewood as well as an additional charter of paraffin (paraffin was transported in barrels and used for lighting). We are in what Vicens Vives has defined as the golden age of the Catalan and Spanish Levant sailing fleet.  How did this boom come about? There are various causes that usually make these types of booms happen. The beginning occurred with Captain Mirambell, commander of the schooner Constancia, through his own resourcefulness, resumed commercial relations between Spain and the republics of the Rio River.

The tariffs of 1849, which among other regulations had established the differential fact of the flag at 20 percent of the goods loaded, gave impetus to ship construction in Catalonia. There was non-stop construction in the string of shipyards that extended from Barcelona to Blanes through Badalona, Masnou, Vilasar de Mar, Canet de Mar, Calella, Tossa de Mar and San Feliu de Guixols. We can verify this feverish activity by the fact that in 1864, in one of the Blanes shipyards, the Vietes family was able to simultaneously build five ships: a frigate, two brigs and two brigantines. These ships were usually very sturdily built and although the strength made them safer, it also made them slower. One feature of these ships, like others of that era, was the Bow Masthead. Some beautiful examples are still with us and can be seen in the Barcelona Maritime Museum, where some paintings are also kept of the most famous ships of that time rendered by the artist Jose Pineda. 

The abolition of the differential fact of flag for the government of the revolution of 1868 meant the end of this brilliant period, which had been considered by Ricart and Giralt as the golden age of the Catalan sailing navy, a period, according to Ricard, in which 734 ships were built, averaging 160 tonnes.  While Vicens Vives limits this period from 1834 to 1858, Alcalá Zamora points to an initial date of 1834 but prolongs the final date to 1870-1875. Furthermore, during this time, it liberalized the import of ships, all of which profoundly sped up changes in the structure of the Spanish commercial fleet. As a result, in 1883, the tonnage of steam ships, which were mostly iron hulls, exceeded that of sailing ships of wooden hulls. Nevertheless, some maritime historians point to 1858 as the date when the “eclipse” of the Catalan sailing ship fleet began.

The first totally steam powered boat constructed in Spain was the Joaquín del  Piélago launched in Cádiz in 1892 by the Trasatlántica company. Its formidable addition to the Spanish fleet may only be able to be explained by resorting to the number of ships built abroad. Indeed, during the decade 1880 to 1890, Spain imported more than 200 iron hulled steam chips with a total tonnage greater than 250,000 GRT. These imported ships primarily came from England and they were also mostly imported by ship owners from Bilbao who had also in some way participated in the massive exportation of iron from Bilbao and loading docks from the province of Santander to the United Kingdom.

With the expansion of steam power, the transformation of the Spanish fleet and the later lost of the West Indies colonies in the Spanish-American War of 1898, the flourishing period of “The Tasajo Route” ended. The ships of the “The Tasajo Route” indeed could not compete neither in velocity nor in the beauty of the lines of the other sailing ships of the period as did the clippers, who had a large role in the what history calls the “The Great Age of Seafaring”. The unforgettable José María Martínez Hidalgo, in his excellent work, “From Oar to Sail” gives us detailed and even anecdotal information about the voyages of the Catalan ships, pointing out that “the organization of these sailing ships were very special”.  The captains often acted, in addition to their normal functions of commanding the ship, as ship owners and stevedores to the extent that they had capital invested in the enterprise. After guaranteeing the yield on the voyage on the trip over with the carriage of the primary cargo (almost always fabric and bricks from Alicante or Barcelona, salt from Torrevieja, Ibiza or Cádiz, cork from Emporda or wine from Priorat), other goods composed of boxes that contained a variety of Catalan merchandise,  commonly acquired as end-of-season sales goods were loaded as high as the hatch openings and more and more bulk items started to be put in: this one with parasols and umbrellas, another with fabric, shoes and ironmonger items and never lacking in musical instruments, especially if the destination was a Mexican port.

In the Barcelona Maritime Museum, one can see and admire a wide ranging and magnificent collection of water colours and oil paintings of ships from the middle of the nineteenth century including the broad work of José Pineda, who, in addition to being an excellent painter of ships, built a model of a frigate that he called “Hijas de Pineda” (Pineda’s daughters) for the world exposition of 1888. Pineda, like Rafael Monleón in the Madrid Naval Museum Developer had parallel activities.  Both were merchant seaman and conservators of their respective museums where they left the traces of their excellent work.  One of the last sailing ships that made the dried beef route, according to what Martinez Hidalgo tells us must have been the brigantine Soberano, built in the shipyards of Blanes. José María, who had a pleasant memory of it, points out with his usual mastery that the Soberano had little length in relation to its excessive beam and height in addition to a full bow that contributed to give it a box like shape.  The Soberano was for several years on the tasajo route. Later it was made into a tanker for the shipment of molasses and for some time it was commanded by Captain Don Ernesto Anastasio, who later became President of the Trasmediterránea Company. The Soberano’s last run ended in the narrows of the Ebro as a result of a big storm.  There, its entire crew died tied to the crows-nests waiting for help that never came.

I have been fortunate enough to visit several naval and maritime museums around the world, but except for Greenwich, none of the museums have the breadth of scope that the Barcelona Maritime Museum has that is so linked to the origin of navigation as the medieval shipyards and with a such an extraordinary piece as the 1/1 reproduction of the galley La Real of Don Juan de Austria in Lepanto, whose construction was carried out in the very Barcelona shipyards for the four hundred anniversary of the battle of Lepanto. It has been some years since Rómulo Bosch y Alsina ( 1849- 1923) was a Catalan businessman and politician that was linked, for most of his life, to the world of maritime business. According to Javier Aznar, from 1900, until his death in 1923, he assumed the vice-presidency of the Junta de Obras del Puerto de Barcelona (Barcelona Port Works Commission). This title was effectively the president since the job of President was then held by the Civil Governor of the Province. During his vice-presidency, the Barcelona Port Works was built and located in the port of Paz. When Bosch y Alsina died, the Commission decided to name the former Muelle de la Muralla in his name.

It has been some years since I moved from Barcelona to Madrid but I still recall with nostalgia the walks between classes though the Bosch and Alsina docks (now known as the Moll de la Fusta) where it was not unusual to see portrait painters of boats seated on a stool and painting on a small easel the veteran sailboats that dock on their way to French ports or the Spanish Levante, including the Balearic Islands.  I still have three paintings by the architect Gabriel Amat, a fabulous painter of ships who was also perhaps one of the most famous of those “portrait painters” of boats.  Through a friend I have been able to obtain three of them, which I have hanging in my house. I treasure them dearly and I have reproduced them to illustrate this paper as homage to Gabriel Amat. I imagine that in these times we live in the old tradition of portrait painters of ships has lost its followers.
I ask the readers of this article to forgive me if the article has turned out excessively nostalgic.

Ricardo Arroyo Ruiz Zorrilla

Bibliography
Alcalá Zamora and Queipo de Llano, José Evolución del tonelaje de la flota española durante los siglos modernos. 1975. Universidad de Zaragoza
Alemany, Joan and Casanovas Angels. La navegació a Catalunya. Diputació de Barcelona.1987
Aznar Colet, Javier, Centre Documentació marítima. Museu Maritim de Barcelona.- Autoritat Portuaria Barcelona.
Arroyo Ruiz-Zorrilla, Ricardo. Historia de la Marina Mercante española. Editorial Silex.2001.
Canga Argüelles  Diccionario de Hacienda. 1833.
Delgado i Ribas,- La industria de la construcció naval catalana (1750-1850).  Drassanes nº 2
Martínez Hidalgo, José María  Del remo a la vela 1940. Editorial Juventud
Enciclopedia General del Mar. 1982. Editoral Garriga
El Museo Marítimo de Barcelona. 1985. Editorial Silex
La Mar los buques y el arte. 1986. Editorial Silex
Masriera, Arturo. Oliendo a Brea.
Ricart y Giralt, José,- Nuestra Marina Mercante.  1887
J. El siglo de oro de la marina velera catalana J. 1790-1870.  1923.
Roig, Emerenciá.  La Marina del Vuicents 1929. Copia del Museu Maritim de Barcelona
Valdaliso Gago, Jesús María . Los navieros vascos y la marina mercante en España 1860-1935. 1977.
Vicens Vives J. Historia de España y América social y económica Vols. 4 and 5; 1982

Ilustraciones
Bergantín- goleta “Norma” Barcelona Maritime Museum published by Martínez Hidalgo in 1985 . Editorial Silex. .
Brigantine Schooner “Timoteo I”, built in Blanes  in 1855 by Salvador Vieta. Barcelona Maritme Museum, published by Martínez Hidalgo. Editorial Silex
Watercolour from H. “Pellegrin” 1867. Barcelona Maritime Museum. published by J. Martínez-Hidalgo in 1986. Editorial Silex.:
Ship painting school,  Estrella Polar, Drawing by Gabriel Amat
Italian ship painting school, Americo Vespuccio, Drawing by Gabriel Amat
Sailboats berthed at the Bosch y Alsina Dock,  Drawing by Gabriel Amat.