Seasonal Harvests: Migration, Reproduction, and Religion in the Early Modern Spanish Tuna Fisheries

This article argues that the early modern Spanish tuna fisheries were a compelling maritime cultural theater in which species, calendars, and cultural practices collided. Combining the accounts of early modern religious observers, visual, literary, and bureaucratic records, and the insights of modern marine biologists, I argue that the seasonal spectacle of the almadraba illuminated distinct cross-species modalities of oceanic migration and reproduction. The early modern almadraba took place each spring in a region characterized by long-standing religious strife and enhanced significance in a moment of globally expanding Christianity. The history of the tuna fisheries in this period points to the underexplored and rich intersection of religious and environmental history. As fishworkers pursued bluefin tuna and Jesuit missionaries sought to fulfill their biblical calling to be “fishers of men,” the seasonal harvests of the almadraba revealed gendered early modern ideas about mobility and transformation in a maritime context.