Learte’s dream. Spanish transatlantic mobility in the eighteenth century through the autobiography of a Navarrese migrant

Abstract

Fracasos de la fortuna is the title of Miguel de Learte Zegama’s autobiography written during the 1780s. Learte Zegama, born in Sangüesa (Navarre) circa 1731, decided to write his memoirs from his childhood in the north of Spain, his years in Cadiz, his travel into the Canary Islands, and his emigration to the province of Rio de la Plata around 1750. This narrative outlines a personal defence of the author to rebuild his deteriorated reputation after the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Gobernación of Tucumán based on his mobility. The present article focuses on two aspects of (t)his story that illuminate the transitory dimension of the migrant’s experience and its subjective fluidity: the impulses and self-presentation. Firstly, I address the two main impulses of Learte to migrate from Cadiz to America and, later, from Tucuman to Navarre. Then, I examine the account of Learte’s sojourn in the Canary Islands and the ambivalent peninsular and American perspective from which he writes. Thus, this case study provides an example of eighteenth-century mobilities, problematising categories like “merchant” or “creole,” and demanding an approach that recognizes formative paths, contingency and multidirectional character of mobility, as constitutive of the early modern experience.