TRANSFORMACIÓN DEL PAISAJE AGRARIO CIEZANO ENTRE 1808 Y 1874: CRISIS, AMPLIACIÓN DE LAS TIERRAS DE REGADÍO Y DESARROLLO ESPARTERO

Abstract

The devastation wreaked upon Cieza, by the French army in 1812, in the context of the Peninsular War of Independance, together with a period of drought, created an agrarian crisis within the existing, more widespread crisis, bringing about a serious demographic recession. The crisis was overcome due to the construction of water-mills, wich began in 1823, and which during several decades achieved an important amplification of the land-surface, irrigated by the river-Segura, in which the most significant productions were those of wheat, and pearl-barley. During the middle-years of the nineteenth century, there was considerable expansion of the cultivation of ‘esparto’, as a product for consumption. This motivated a gradual dispossession of the mountainous common-land, and the appearance of ‘poaching’. Industrialisation began around the year, 1870.