Foreigners in Malta (late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries)

Published on 17/03/2011

Anne BROGINI

(excerpts)

INTRODUCTION

One of the characteristics of borders is attraction. As economically dynamic spaces, they foster the creation of trade flows and attract numerous and diverse human actors. Border places are thus characterized by significant migrations and intense cosmopolitanism. At the same time, faced with the danger this represents, civilizational borders tend toward a standardization of ways of life through religion. To preserve border identity, foreigners must be or become identical to the society that welcomes them. The border engenders assimilation; in this respect, cosmopolitanism is very particular.

Between the late sixteenth century and the late seventeenth century, the port of Malta is a good example of this border cosmopolitanism. After the warlike phase of the sixteenth century, economic activities—privateering and commercial—experienced unprecedented development in this opening space, driven by the Order which exercised its sovereignty over the archipelago. These activities attracted an ever-growing number of non-Maltese actors, to the point that in the seventeenth century, both Christian and non-Christian foreigners regularly resided in the port, either temporarily or permanently. At the same time, this new cosmopolitanism was carefully controlled by the political and religious authorities.

This study is therefore organized around three main themes: a presentation of the foreigners present in Malta, then an account of their activities and their distribution within the port area, and finally the management of cosmopolitanism by the island authorities.

I - A PORT ATTRACTIVE TO FOREIGNERS

It was from the late sixteenth century, when the great civilizational conflicts in the Mediterranean came to an end and privateering and commerce—in which Malta participated—developed, that the island's port opened up to the arrival of numerous foreigners. These grew ever more numerous throughout the seventeenth century and were of extremely different nationalities and religions.

A - Ever more numerous foreigners

We have little information regarding the port population before the first census carried out by the Order in 1590. In the seventeenth century, other counts took place, conducted by the knights or by the Bishop of Malta, which give us an idea of the strong demographic growth of the Maltese port area. Between 1590 and 1670, the population doubled, rising from 10,000 inhabitants at the end of the sixteenth century (including the Order, Maltese clergy, and slaves) to approximately 20,000 at the end of the following century (censuses of 1658 and 1687).

The demographic growth resulted both from a noticeable improvement in living conditions in Malta, thanks to the presence of the Order which ensured better food supply for the island and medical or hospital assistance for the poor and sick, and from the settlement of newcomers: to the poor Maltese leaving the countryside were added, in the seventeenth century, ever greater numbers of foreigners.

In less than a century, the number of foreigners indeed quadrupled, rising from approximately 2,500 in 1590 to approximately 8,500 in 1680. Thanks to a count of souls (status animarum) carried out during the episcopal visit of 1668, we know that the population of the Grand Port, composed of approximately 21,000 people, was divided as follows:

Approximately 2,500 religious, among whom the members of the Order, monks, and the Maltese clergy (i.e., 11.9% of the total population)
2,000 Muslim and Jewish slaves (i.e., 9.5% of the port)
8,100 Maltese (i.e., 38.5%)
8,500 foreigners (i.e., 39.5%)

If we combine the slaves with the Christian foreigners, we obtain the enormous figure of 10,500 foreigners in the entire port area, or more than half the inhabitants! From the mid-seventeenth century onward, the Grand Port of Malta had more foreigners than islanders. These foreigners were of very diverse nationalities and statuses.

Street in Malta

B - Foreigners of very diverse nationalities and statuses

The foreigners were divided into two broad categories: non-Christians, who were predominantly slaves, and Christians who were all of free condition, except for slaves who had converted to Christianity and had not regained their freedom.

1. Non-Christians

Necessary for manning the rowing benches of the galleys of the Order of Malta or for all the major construction and fortification works on the island carried out in the early modern period, slaves were assuredly the most numerous non-Christian foreigners. Their number grew from 1,600 in 1599 to approximately 2,000 by the mid-seventeenth century; Jewish and Muslim, they occupied a special place in port society, since they were theoretically excluded from it by their condition. They were nevertheless physically present in the port where they were concentrated (rural slavery being exceptional in the early modern period) and housed in the three Slave Prisons of Vittoriosa and La Valette. They were recognizable by their appearance: the Turks were shaved with a braid or tuft of hair on the top of the skull, while the Barbaresques wore beards and turbans. Finally, they spoke their own language, as evidenced by documents from 1602 which report that the Jews prayed and spoke in Hebrew in the Prison and in the city of Vittoriosa.

As for free non-Christians, these were merchants and intermediaries for the ransoming of slaves. They originated from both the Levant (Zante, Salonique, Andrinople for the Jews; Istanbul and Alexandrie for the Muslims) and the West (Tripoli, Jerba, and Tunis for both religions + Venise for the Jews). Their presence was always temporary, and therefore impossible to quantify. They received from the Grand Master a safe-conduct allowing them to reside freely in the port, for a period of a few days to a few months.

Sometimes the stay could be longer, like that of Casoa Belmenda, a Moor from Tunis who lived freely in the Grand Port in 1622 and engaged in trade with Barbary. Likewise, in 1633, Isaac Aldech of Zante obtained from the Order a safe-conduct for all the members of his family, so that they could reside without constraint for three years in La Valette under the direct protection of the Grand Master, while Aldech took charge of the ransoming of numerous Jews and Maltese in the Levant.

2. Christians

They were of various nationalities. The first to come and settle in Malta were the Italians, as the island had been part of the Kingdom of Sicily since the Middle Ages; until the first years of the seventeenth century, they represented approximately 40% of the foreigners in the port area. For a large majority (more than half), they originated from the south of the peninsula, from the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples. Alongside them, we also find Genoese and especially Venetians (who represented approximately 15% of the Italians).

In chronological order of their settlement, next came the Greeks, who were among the most numerous foreigners in the Grand Port in the sixteenth century. Their presence in Malta dates from the arrival of the Hospitallers in 1530, who had left Rhodes escorted by a group of 1,000 to 2,000 Rhodians. At the end of the sixteenth century, they were grouped into three parishes, located in Vittoriosa (Saint-Georges church) and in La Valette (Sainte-Marie Damascène and Saint-Nicolas churches) and, according to the episcopal visit of 1590, numbered only 192 people. The proportion of Greeks had indeed sharply declined over the century, to the point that by the mid-seventeenth century, they were grouped into only two parishes, the Saint-Nicolas parish in La Valette having been suppressed for lack of faithful. At that time, the Greeks in Malta represented no more "than" 13.5% of the foreigners.

The Greeks were, for the most part, originally from the islands: 9.2% of them came from Rhodes, the community having maintained ties with its island of origin; others originated from Chypre (8.8%) or from islands geographically closer to Malta, such as Crète (21%) or Zante (8.6%). The relatively strong presence of Cretans in Malta is explained by a massive influx of Candiotes during the years when the Order supported the Venetians in their struggle against the Ottomans for the preservation of Candie (1645-1669). Indeed, during this period, parish registers attest to the settlement and marriage in the port of 46 Candiotes, nearly half of all those (99) who had settled during the seven preceding decades (1575-1645).

But the most important foreign group in the seventeenth century was unquestionably that of the French, whose number more than doubled between 1600 and 1670: their share of the foreign population rose from 20% at the end of the sixteenth century to more than 43% at the end of the following century. Almost all of them (95%) originated from Marseille and the Provençal coast (Six-Fours, Saint-Tropez, Cassis).

We also find some foreigners native to the Iberian Peninsula, present regularly but in small numbers (approximately 3% of foreigners), as well as English and Flemish who began to settle in Malta in the 1620s-1650s.

Finally, in the second half of the seventeenth century, we observe the increasingly noticeable presence of Russians, Slavs, and foreigners from the Balkan Peninsula. Their arrival in Malta resulted from the increase in the proportion of men from Central and Eastern Europe in the rowing crews of Ottoman galleys from the mid-century onward. As the corsairs and knights of Malta regularly captured Turkish ships in the Levant and freed Christian slaves or brought renegades before the Inquisition, the number of Slavs increased in Malta. For very often, once freed in the port or reconciled, these men chose to live in Malta, married an island woman, and entered the service of the Order.

Indeed, if Christian foreigners came in such great numbers to settle in Malta, it was because its port constituted in the seventeenth century an important employment basin, essentially linked to maritime activities.

Port in Malta

II - THE SETTLEMENT AND ACTIVITY OF FOREIGNERS

A - The occupations of foreigners

The main provider of employment was obviously the Order, which had given the port its entire economic impetus through the development of privateering and through the practice of commerce necessary both for the food supply of the archipelago and for the disposal of booty. The Order thus offered very diversified employment opportunities: soldiers on ships or in the port, to protect the island from any Muslim corsair or military attack, galley oarsmen or sailors on the galleys, or all the functions ordinarily found on ships (galley overseers and assistant overseers, cooks, barbers, surgeons, helmsmen, clerks...).

To cite just a few examples, in 1569, the Candiote Bernardino (DE CANDIA) settled in Vittoriosa after enlisting as a galley guard on the Order's galleys.

Likewise, in 1625, a Flemish sailor named Giacomo JAN settled in Senglea to work in the service of the Order or of any shipowner who wished to hire him.

Many foreigners also came to Malta to engage in privateering or commerce, both as small traders and as intermediaries for the ransoming of slaves. The French were the most active: 31% of lay corsairs were Provençal or from Marseille, compared to only 11% Sicilians and 4% Greeks (the rest of the corsairs being Maltese). The French also dominated commerce and represented more than half of Malta's merchants. They particularly distinguished themselves in trade with the Muslim Barbary coast (Tunis and Tabarka for the coral trade, Tripoli) and the Levantine coast (Alexandrie, Smyrne, Istanbul).

Fortification in Malta

Thus, in 1655, the Provençal merchant Jean RAYMOND came to establish himself in La Valette to engage in regular trade with Tunis.

The merchants quickly formed families, such as the DANIEL family which dominated Maltese trade in the early seventeenth century: one of the brothers, Louis/Aloisio, settled and married in Bormula/Cospicua in 1605 with an island woman. She was the widow of Pietro BONNICI.

while his brother Jacques supported him in his activities from Six-Fours and Marseille (cf. trade contract linking Jacques and Louis in a commercial voyage to Alexandrie). Together, they engaged in trade with the Muslim coast and served as ransoming intermediaries between Malta and Tunis.

The same was true for the OLIVIER family of Marseille which, in the middle of the century, distinguished itself in the Levant trade: in the 1620s, the brothers Claude and Jamet settled and took wives in Senglea, then the family expanded to the point that in 1645, one of the sons, Claude, settled in La Valette.

However, the activities of foreigners in Malta were not limited to maritime occupations alone. Many of them were artisans (shoemakers, tailors, small shopkeepers), tavern keepers, innkeepers: to cite just one example, in 1621, a certain Agata from Catalogne, a widow, married a Maltese man with whom she opened and ran an inn in the port. But above all, the Order offered positions as physicians, surgeons, and herbalists in its Infirmary in La Valette, such as the Sicilian Giuseppe Lancelotto from Catane, who came to settle in La Valette in 1645 to serve as a physician at the Infirmary.

Similarly, in 1655, the Frenchman Jean MEYSONAT was employed as a herbalist.

The brief overview of occupations shows that immigrants in Malta were very often small-scale commercial actors, who engaged in multiple activities and combined the roles of merchants, corsairs, shipowners, or ransom intermediaries. Few large merchant enterprises existed, with the exception of a few French families we have already discussed. We observe, however, that a socio-professional distribution was taking shape in the four port cities.

B - The distribution of foreigners in the Grand Harbour

Cosmopolitanism in Malta was not homogeneous, and the four cities attracted new immigrants in very different ways. We observe that the Three Cities (Vittoriosa, Senglea, and Bormula) were far more cosmopolitan than La Valette: while the Three Cities had between 37% (for Vittoriosa) and 43% foreigners (Bormula), La Valette had only 26.7%.

Vittoriosa and Senglea, the oldest port cities, show similarities in their character and in the history of their settlement. Enclosed by ramparts, and therefore unable to expand indefinitely, they were populated during the sixteenth century, during the successive waves of immigration of Italians and Rhodians who came to settle with the Order in 1530, as well as the first French, who arrived at the very end of the century. In the seventeenth century, their population stabilized at around 2,800 to 3,100 inhabitants for Vittoriosa and around 3,000 to 3,500 for Senglea.

Within these populations, Greek, Italian, and French foreigners had been dominant since the sixteenth century. Between 1575 and 1610, they represented 95% of the foreign population of Vittoriosa (i.e., 268 marriages out of 282) and 90.2% of that of Senglea (i.e., 121 marriages out of 134). Greeks and Italians were the most present: they represented 72.7% of the foreigners in Vittoriosa and 73.2% of those in Senglea. In the seventeenth century still, between 1640 and 1670, the three nationalities represented, for Vittoriosa, 86.5% of foreign marriages and for Senglea, 41.9%. But by that time, the French were better established in both cities, especially in Senglea, and now represented 37.3% of immigrants in Vittoriosa and 44.1% of those in Senglea.

The two cities, which experienced simultaneous development, attracted essentially the same categories of newcomers: mainly French or Maltese merchants, ship captains, and ransom intermediaries resided there. For example, the great Maltese merchant family of Rispolo established residence there, as did the Olivier family from Marseille, which we have already mentioned.

Alongside the twin cities of Vittoriosa-Senglea, two other cities experienced entirely different destinies: the prestigious La Valette, the new capital of the archipelago and new seat of the Convent since 1571, stood in contrast to the populous Bormula (which would become Cospicua), a small urban outgrowth on the edges of Vittoriosa and Senglea.

Map of La Valette

We have noted that La Valette, symbol of the Grand Harbour's development, since the completion of its construction in 1575 coincided with the island's opening to the corsair and commercial exchanges of the seventeenth century, was quite paradoxically the least cosmopolitan of the port cities, with a low proportion of 26.7% foreigners. This was due first to the presence of the Order, which represented about 2,000 people, and to the strong representation of the Maltese clergy, which comprised about 300 monks and 50 priests, according to the count made during the episcopal visit of 1668.

As a result, out of a population that in 1681 numbered 8,026 inhabitants, we can calculate that religious persons already represented a third of the urban population of La Valette! To this must be added another explanatory factor: the completion of the city's construction in 1575 had indeed coincided with the beginning of a major rural exodus, during which many islanders, fleeing the poverty and famine of the countryside, came to settle in the port and inhabit the still sparsely populated new capital.

The foreigners that La Valette attracted since its construction were therefore predominantly French, whose massive arrival began in the years 1590-1610: throughout the seventeenth century, more than 52% of the capital's foreigners were French, who accounted for 668 unions out of a total of 1,275 foreign marriages. The other highly present foreigners were the Italians, whose immigration to Malta never dried up in the early modern period. In contrast, the proportion of Greeks was extremely low (5%) compared to Senglea and Vittoriosa. A prestigious city par excellence, a political symbol of the Maltese victory over the Turks in 1565 and residence of the Order, La Valette attracted the most affluent social categories of the insular or foreign population: wealthy bourgeois, Maltese legal officials, foreign soldiers, prominent Maltese or foreign physicians and surgeons.

In contrast to La Valette, Bormula was at the same period the most cosmopolitan of the Maltese cities. Born at the end of the sixteenth century from the demographic growth of Senglea and Vittoriosa, lacking ramparts until the end of the seventeenth century, it grew considerably over the course of the century, rising from 1,396 inhabitants in 1614 to 2,662 in 1658. Many French, Italians, Greeks, but also English and Dutch crowded into its small neighborhoods.

The French were once again in the majority and represented more than a third of the foreigners, followed by the Italians and Greeks, who accounted for 43% of unions, and the Nordics (5% of the foreign population). The parish registers clearly illustrate the working-class character of the small city: it is there that we find the greatest number of sailors, galley oarsmen, small-time corsairs, and Maltese or foreign fishermen.

Sources:

Cahiers de la Méditerranée Volume 67
Slideshow images "Malta-Ago"

Published with the kind permission of Anne BROGINI