The Route to the Indies and the Andalusian Piarists. Archidona, Meeting Place Between America and Cádiz

Abstract

The Piarist College of Archidona was founded in 1757, becoming one of the most prestigious educational centers in Andalusia. The children of the Cádiz bourgeoisie and others who come from America go to it, they are members of merchant families who became wealthy with the route to the Indies, the most important transatlantic business of the 18th century. Many of them are of Basque, Navarre and Cantabrian origin in addition to other foreign colonies, mainly French and Genoese, established in Cádiz. Neighbors from Buenos Aires, from the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru, from the Captaincy General of Venezuela, who come to train at the college from the Spanish Indies, that demonstrate the close commercial contacts and patronage networks between both shores of the Atlantic.