The ports of Asturias in the Age of the Enlightenment

coming to grips with a chronic weakness

Abstract

In the eighteenth century Spanish naval policy experienced a renaissance with the building of important military infrastructures (arsenals) and investment in technology (ships of the line). As regards the country’s coasts from a civil perspective, however, an analysis of its commercial and fishing ports, which were not strictly of any strategic or military interest, paints a picture in which their deterioration and ruination alternated with the repeated requests of the sailors’ guilds for improvements to be made to quays, docks and associated outbuildings. In Asturias, it can be claimed that practically all the requests for assistance were heeded by the administration (the drafting of projects, the planning of taxes to defray building costs, the frequent visits of military engineers, etc.), although this does not mean to say that they were fully met or guaranteed their sustainability for more than a few decades.