Josep Xifré i Casas, born in Arenys de Mar, is considered one of the richest men in Europe in the 19th century. Hence the saying: “You have more money than Xifré.” He was one of the great figures of the Indians, described in this way as those who made the Americas and returned to their homeland enriched. Xifré’s father died bankrupt and he emigrated to Cuba, where he amassed his fortune with the export of leather after achieving a monopoly on the sector in the Caribbean. Upon his return to Catalonia, he built in Barcelona the house known as the Porxos d’ en Xifré, the first building photographed on the Peninsula along with the Llotja del Mar, on November 10, 1839 with a daguerreotype.
To put a face to one of the wealthiest men of that time, he runs around the internet and sometimes a photograph of him has been published in a documentary although it is not really him, as proven by an investigation carried out by the municipal archivist of Arenys de Mar, Hug Palou.
This archivist has been able to verify that the photograph does not correspond to Josep Xifré, taking into account that the daguerreotype dates from 1839 and is shown to a young man when he was 62 years old at that time. The photograph would have been taken between 1861 and 1863, according to the data on the back of the image, something that confirms that it cannot be Xifré since he died in 1856. What is not known with certainty is who the young man portrayed is. At the moment, no image of Xifré is publicly known. What there is is a marble sculpture with his face in the mausoleum commissioned by his son in the old hospital for the poor that this Indian man founded in Arenys de Mar.
This is one of the stories included in the book El arriving indià desaparegut by the Efadós publishing house within the prolific collection Catalunya desapareguda. Its author, Anna Castellví, coordinator of the Network of Indian Municipalities of Catalonia, of which 11 municipalities are part, makes a visual historical journey through 21 Catalan localities of this migratory phenomenon between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Starting from a fund of some 5,000 photographs, Castellví initially selected 700 images and then made another selection with the 189 finally published in the book, accompanied by a caption. “First, I wanted the Indian heritage to be seen through the most representative municipalities and, secondly, for it to be as old a photograph as possible,” details the author.
Others were not as lucky as Xifré and fell by the wayside on their journey across the Atlantic, either never escaped poverty or decided to stay in America. During the second half of the 19th century, many young people had no other option than to emigrate in search of new opportunities and for many the so-called New World was the chosen land. The reasons were diverse, although economic was one of the main ones due to the phylloxera plague that devastated the vineyards and many families were forced into poverty. On the other hand, others decided to cross the ocean to avoid military service, which then lasted between eight and ten years.
They began cabotage with small boats to ports such as Palamós or Sant Feliu de Guíxols to take another boat to the port of Barcelona and then reach Cádiz, where the Atlantic crossing began. The first ones did it with sailing boats and it could take between 40 or 60 days, depending on the weather conditions. The advent of steam meant a big change and the trip could be completed in about three weeks.
Those Indians who returned enriched, some chose to build their houses on the seafront, making summer vacations in second homes fashionable in a certain way. Today, there are examples such as the house of Les Punxes from the end of the 19th century on the beach of Sant Pol in Sant Feliu de Guíxols or the modernist-style building on the promenade of Tossa de Mar that was Joan’s house. Sans i Moré, currently the Diana hotel. However, other buildings no longer exist and were demolished. Among them, the residence known as Can Gaspar de Blanes – promoted by the Indian Gaspar Ribas -, the disappeared Lloveras spa located at the foot of the sea in Arenys de Mar or the also extinct modernist house Can Formosa in this same municipality of Maresme, where He built the Raymond Hotel and it is now an apartment block.
“They are tourist places and with the real estate boom, heritage has been lost, but it is still quite preserved in many places,” explains Castellví, a graduate in management and public administration and a postgraduate in institutional and political communication.
“It was a very important migratory event for Catalonia and later these people invested to bring the railway with the first line in the Iberian Peninsula between Barcelona and Mataró, they built schools, hospitals and nursing homes, they promoted access to drinking water…they wanted the progress for their places of origin,” he adds.
Although the Indians are usually associated with coastal municipalities, they also existed in inland towns, such as Banyoles, Olot, Llagostera, La Bisbal d’Empordà or Caldes de Malavella. “We always have the idea that the Indians were seafarers because they were not so afraid of sailing. There are cases of many young people from Cadaqués who had been to Havana once or twice but never to Figueres,” highlights the author.
This phenomenon had its lights but also its shadows, with human trafficking and slavery. “Not all Indians were slavers nor were all Indian slavers. When I explain the legacy of the Indians, I also have to talk about slavery, which is totally condemnable, horrifying and embarrassing,” says Castellví. This dark past also focuses on Xifré: “In his time, many people had people enslaved in their service or on plantations. Xifré did not have plantations and there is no document that he trafficked people. Yes, he had people enslaved in his service because when he made his will he left two people to his son as an inheritance,” says the author.
Castellví speaks with passion about the Indians, a reality that she knows very closely and heard stories since she was little at home, since two of her grandmother’s cousins ??went to travel to the Americas. She now investigates the role of women in the Indian world. She still doesn’t know if after finishing her investigations they will become a new book.
