Biography of Joaquín de Agrela y Moreno.

1. Subject: History of Spain
Teacher Carmen Molina Povea
Language assistant: Anna Toepel
Joaquín de Agrela y Moreno
IES NAZARÍ- Salobreña
Granada
Fábrica de azúcar Nuestra Señora del Rosario (La Caleta-Salobreña)

2. Joaquín de Agrela y Moreno
Joaquín Bartolomé Francisco de Paula de Agrela y Moreno was
given this name when he was baptized in the parish church of
Nuestra Señora de las Angustias in Granada, four days after his
birth in the capital on August 24, 1815. He was the son of the
married couple Valentín de Agrela Abaisón and María Josefa
Moreno Avilés, who were medium-sized property owners and
occasional moneylenders that considerably increased their
fortune in the middle of the 19th century from the opportunities
to acquire real estate offered by the confiscation of
ecclesiastical and municipal assets. Thus, they acquired
properties in the municipalities of Iznalloz and Montillana in the
Eastern Mountains, in the Vega de Granada (Santa Fe) and on
the coast (Salobreña), attaining an estate that, at the time of the
death of Joaquín Agrela y Moreno in 1870, was worth more than
two and a half million reales.

3. Joaquín de Agrela y Moreno
Joaquín de Agrela had made the leap from
agricultural to industrial activities, making some
investments in the silk and ribbon industry with
the preferred destination of the American
market, and in 1860 he began the construction
of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario sugar cane
and cane liquor factory, belonging to the
municipality of Salobreña, in the annex of La
Caleta on the coast of Granada. To do so, he
expanded his agricultural properties in that
municipality, proceeding to the extensive
planting of sugar cane, a raw material for
industrial production.

4. Joaquín de Agrela y Moreno
The factory began operating in 1862, and its daily milling
capacity amounted to four hundred tons of cane.
Simultaneously, Joaquín de Agrela had moved into the financial
sector, receiving in 1852 the Granada delegation of the General
Deposit Fund, created that same year by Juan Bravo Murillo
with the intention of turning it into a large national savings bank
whose assets were made up of State debt. Agrela installed the
offices of the General Deposit Fund in Granada in his own
home, at number 5 Frailes Street, becoming the entity that
attracted the most savings, until the outbreak of the financial
crisis of 1866. The Government´s difficulties fulfilling its
commitments with the Fund led it to lethargy and, finally, to its
disappearance in 1870, coinciding with the death of Agrela

5. Joaquín de Agrela y Moreno
Joaquín de Agrela had obtained a dispensation to marry
his cousin María del Rosario Moreno Gimeno on
December 22, 1839 in the church of San Matías in
Granada. From this marriage eight children would be
born, of whom six survived: Valentín, Juan Manuel,
Joaquín, Filomena, Mariano and Josefa Agrela Moreno.
The second and third would die shortly after their father,
and the two remaining brothers, Valentín and Mariano,
continued the lineage of multi-sector entrepreneurs
(agriculture, industry and finance) who would soon also
make the leap into political life.
Source: http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/78773/joaquin-de-
agrela-y-moreno

6. Activities
Read the text and answer:
1. How did Joaquín de Agrela's real estate increase in the mid-19th
century?
2. In what areas did his family acquire the new properties?
3. What activities did he do before engaging in industrial activities?
4. What industrial activities did he carry out?
5. What products were made in the Nuestra Señora del Rosario
factory?
Research and answer:
6. Until what year was the sugar factory operating?
7. Consult the Catalog of Goods of Cultural Interest of Andalusia
(Catálogo de Bienes Culturales de Andalucía):
https://guiadigital.iaph.es/ and indicate in which year the factory was
declared “Bien de Interés Cultural” (BIC) and under what legal
typology.