Indiano

Indiano was the colloquial name for the Spanish emigrant in America who returned enriched, a social typology that had become a literary cliché since the Golden Age. The name was extended to their descendants, with admiring or pejorative connotations depending on the case.

The Indianos became local leaders in the era of caciquismo (late 19th and early 20th century), a period in which large contingents of young people, especially from regions with easy access to the sea, such as Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country, Catalonia and the Canary Islands, were forced at that time to do what was known as the Americas: emigrate in search of a better fortune in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela. In some cases, they came at the request of their relatives already established in those places, forming remarkably successful family businesses. Most were not so fortunate, and found no better fate in America than the poverty from which they were fleeing.

Those who managed to amass real fortunes and decided to return years later to their places of origin, sought prestige by acquiring some noble title, buying and restoring old casonas or pazos, or building new palaces, in a very colourful colonial or eclectic style, which came to be called "casonas", "casas de indianos" or "casas indianas" (in some areas, such as the Asturian town of Somao, they are particularly abundant). They often incorporated palm trees in their gardens as a symbol of their adventure in tropical lands. They also established their mecenazgo in charitable or cultural institutions, subsidising the construction of schools, churches and town halls, building and repairing roads, hospitals, asylums, water and electricity supplies, etc. Literature and art often made reference to the history of emigration to America and the return of the Indianos.

The cleanliness of the origins of some of these fortunes was always in question, especially those of those who enriched themselves through the slave trade (such as Antonio López y López, ennobled with the title of Marquis of Comillas), and who, in collusion with the landowners established overseas, set up the slave-owning lobby to obstruct any kind of abolitionist legislation that might be developed in the metropolis, such as the reforms promoted by Julio Vizcarrondo (himself a descendant of slave-owning landowners). Prominent among the pro-slavery group were Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (brother of José Cánovas del Castillo, who had become wealthy in Cuba) and Francisco Romero Robledo. Slavery was not definitively abolished in the Spanish colonies until October 7 of 1886.