Estremadura and the transhumants: a history of opposition

Abstract

The main characteristic of the economy of the region of Estremadura in the past, was the pre-eminence of the primary sector over the rest of productive sectors. This agriculture is mainly crop for dry farming and the agrarian and primary activities are complementary. The reason of that close dependency is based on the composition of cattle to work in the fields as well as on the economic model of subsistence. It’s obvious that in a context of shortage of resources, these would be used on the first place to satisfy primary needs. Reason enough to assign the available resources to the monoculture of cereals. And the more evident effect of that orientation would be the decrease of areas destinated to pasture. The choice between cultivating cereals or keping in reserve the fields to feed extensive herds had to face necessarily the stockbreeders. This dialectic opposition is a part of the history of Early Modern centuries and about which there are lots of literary evidence and archive documents.