The repopulition of Menorca in the middle ages

In 1.287 ac Minorca was conquered by king Alfonso the III of Majorca. The local Islamic population was captured and sold on salve markets in different locations around the Mediterranean Sea. Some well-to-do people were able to buy their freedom, after being dispossessed of most of their wealth. There are some historical indications that many, or most, of them were thrown overboard by greedy and remorseless crew of merchant vessels, while fleeing the island.

It was therefore necessary to repopulate the island and, as it is recorded in the chronicle of Ramón Mutaner: Minorca was “populated by good Catalan people like no other place could be populated”. The truth is that the king had to award considerable privileges in order to lure new Christian inhabitants to the island. The perils and uncertainty of such an enterprise (in the middle ages) would only encourage the most unfortunate. Although it’s hard to verify it’s widely believed that most of that early population came from jails from around Catalonia and Majorca. 

In short, as it happened in Australia and other remote colonies, the origin of the Menorcan population has to be found among the lower classes of their time. Among these first inhabitants there would be plenty of thieves, swindlers, crooks and the like, and this would be the solid foundations of the island current economic dynamism.

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