Chapter Three. Regional Patterns Of Migration: A Systems Approach

From the eighteenth century to the mid-1900s, Algarvian migrants participated in internal, international, and transatlantic circuits of labor migration. Variations notwithstanding, the multiple types of migrations formed recognizable migration systems that linked Algarvian migrant workers with the labor markets of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. This chapter examines the characteristics and evolution of these migration systems and their connections to broader circuits of geographic mobility. Migration systems are identifiable flows of migration that link particular regions or countries to multiple destinations over time. Algarvian participation in the southern Iberian migration system spanned several centuries. Gibraltar became a dynamic labor and commercial market within the Portuguese-Hispanic-Moroccan space. From the eighteenth century to the 1930s, thousands of Algarvian migrants left for Spain and the Alentejo to work seasonally and temporarily in fishing, harvesting, and mining.Keywords: Alentejo; Algarvian migrants; Gibraltar; Iberian migration system