Amelia Almorza Hidalgo is a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville. She is part of a Project funded by the European Research Commission: An ARTery of EMPIRE. Conquest, Commerce, Crisis, Culture and the Panamaian Junction (1513 – 1671), which is directed by Professor Bethany Aram, at Pablo de Olavide.

Dr Almorza received her PhD in History from the European University Institute in Florence in 2011. Her doctoral research focused on the analysis of the emigration of women and families to the Viceroyalty of Peru in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly in relation to the processes of social mobility of the colony.

Her research has been published in a number of articles and essays, and she is a member of several national research groups, as well as an international network of consumer studies. Part of her research was recently published in an article (“Sibling relations in the Spanish emigration to America: 1560 – 1600”) in European Review of History.  

Her current research forms part of a larger project, which applies historical, archaeological and archaeometric methodologies to evidence of encounters between peoples and goods from Europe, America, Africa and Asia that took place on the Isthmus of Panama during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In episode 14 of History Hub’s podcast series – ‘Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra: conversations on the history of Portugal and Spain, 1415-1898‘ – Dr Almorza is in conversation with series host Dr Edward Collins. In the episode, which is available to podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud, they discuss Spanish women on transatlantic voyages in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Spanish emigration to the New World was one of the most significant waves of relocation in human history, in terms of numbers and the impact on the American landscape and its people. While the earliest settlers tended to comprise young male recruits as part of groups on conquest and settlement expeditions, the composition of Spanish emigration to America seems to have changed by the mid-sixteenth century. Emigrants now tended to come from non-elite urban groups, comprising artisans and small-tradesmen.

One of the key features of Spanish emigration to America in this period is the significant presence of women. In the podcast Dr Collins and Dr Almorza discuss Spanish women on transatlantic voyages in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

‘Spanish women on transatlantic voyages in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ with Dr Amelia Almorza Hidalgo (Universidad Pablo de Olavide).

 

Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra

This History Hub podcast series features interviews with experts in the areas of Portuguese and Spanish history, from the beginning of the Portuguese discoveries in 1415 to the end of Spanish dominion in America in 1898. The interviews, conducted by historian Dr. Edward Collins, cover a range of topics on the domestic and overseas histories of both nations, which include, among others: the Portuguese explorations of Africa and Asia, Spanish navigation and settlement in America, the church in Portugal and Spain, monarchy and intermarriage in the Iberian kingdoms, natural science and mapping in America, the role of nautical science, Irish historical relations with Portugal and Spain, and imperial competition in Europe and overseas. The interviewees comprise a number of established and renowned academics, as well as up-and-coming researchers from universities and institutions worldwide.

This History Hub series is funded by UCD Seed Funding and supported by UCD School of History. Series editor is Mike Liffey (Real Smart Media).

Download series episodes on iTunes or listen via Soundcloud.

Episodes

• Series introduction by Edward Collins
• Episode 1: Portugal and Spain in the 15th and early-16th centuries: a brief overview by Edward Collins
• Episode 2: Ellen Dooley on the Spanish Inquisition and the religious image in Spain & America, 1478–1700
• Episode 3: Ricardo Padrón on America, the Pacific, and Asia in the Imperial Imagination, 1513-1609
• Episode 4: Allison Bigelow on the Science of Colonial Silver: Rethinking the History of Mining and Metallurgy in the Early Americas
• Episode 5: Early Colonial Brazil, English Piracy, and the Adventures of Anthony Knivet (1591-1599) by Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá
• Episode 6: Onésimo T. Almeida on Portugal and the Dawn of Modernity, 1419-1620
• Episode 7: Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra on Old Testament Culture in the Spanish Monarchy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries
• Episode 8: Zoltan Biedermann on ‘A Negotiating Empire: Portuguese diplomacy in Asia and the Global Renaissance’
• Episode 9: Flora Cassen on ‘Philip II and His Italian Jewish Spy’.
• Episode 10: Tamar Herzog on ‘Frontiers of Possession: Spain and Portugal in Europe and the Americas’.
• Episode 11: Pedro Cardim on ‘The Idea of Hispania: Portugal and the Spanish Monarchy in the 16th and 17th Centuries’
• Episode 12: Barbara E. Mundy on ‘Tenochtitlan: Transformation and Endurance after the Spanish Conquest’
• Episode 13: Aaron Alejandro Olivas on ‘The Iberian Atlantic and the War of the Spanish Succession, 1700-1715’
• Episode 14: Amelia Almorza Hidalgo on Spanish women on transatlantic voyages in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Image: detail of drawing from The First New Chronicle and Good Government (1615). Drawing 220: “The Spaniards who were born in Castile, well-educated and Christians of great honor”. Image reproduced with the permission of The Royal Danish Library.