The Shared History of Jabaloyas, Spain, and Utah

The Shared History of Jabaloyas, Spain, and Utah

BY RAÚL IBÁÑEZ HERVÁS, TRANSLATED BY ANGÉLICA REAL SERRANO

Jabaloyas is a small village located in the province of Teruel, Spain. It lies at 1,405 meters (4,609 feet) above sea level in the mountainous region of the Sierra de Albarracín. For years the population of the small town has declined, primarily due to migration. At present, the number of inhabitants is sixty-five, compared to 719 in 1920. The people of Jabaloyas, or Jabaloyanos, have long known that many of their relatives left their homes and moved to America at the beginning of the twentieth century. At least 125 men and women born in this village packed their bags to cross the ocean between 1907 and 1931; a great many of them came to the state of Utah. A few of these people settled down abroad, but most of them returned to Spain. They came back not only with money but also with traditions that have been kept alive till now. Their descendents, even today, treasure objects brought home as a remembrance of their stay in the United States.

The village of Jabaloyas would like to thank Utah for giving its people the opportunity to improve their lives by working there, at a time when the hope of progress was very restricted in their home. It would be a great pleasure and honor for Jabaloyas and Utah to become sister communities, as thanks for and acknowledgment of our shared history.

Even though contemporary Jabaloyanos knew of their ancestors’ sojourn in the United States, they possesed few details about that experience. Some time ago, I decided to learn more about the exodus. 1 The first written documentation I found appeared in the 1920 census of Jabaloyas, which established that an outsized number of townspeople left for America. 2 Persuaded by this information—and, mainly, because of my interest in the subject—I began to research in earnest in early 2017. I appealed first to the descendents of the migrants and then returned again to the 1920 town census. The oral sources opened two lines of research. On the one hand, on several occassions, the interviewees referred to the existence of a mine, which confirmed that these immigrants were going to work as miners. However, they could provide neither information about the mine’s name nor about its location in North America. This proves a quick memory loss among the generations; that is, no more than one hundred years were needed to forget the name of the place where the majority of Jabaloyanos lived in the United States. On the other hand, a great number of interviewees emphasized that many of their relatives had traveled to the American West to work as shepherds.

A panoramic image of Jabaloyas, Spain. Jabaloyas is a small village in the province of Teruel, located in the mountainous region of the Sierra de Albarracín. Raúl Ibáñez Hervás, photographer. Courtesy of the author.

Meanwhile, the 1920 census mentioned the destination “Vinyant Canyon America,” “Vinyant Norteamérica,” or “Vinyan Canyon América del Norte” several times, particularly referring to eighteen residents of Jabaloyas. Research into this locale yielded no positive results. The first clue of where the emigrants may have ended up came from the World War I draft registration card of Manuel Pradas, a Jabaloyano then living in the United States and working as a miner in Utah’s Bingham Canyon: the Vinyant Canyon of the 1920 census. 3

Due to this discovery, many more avenues of research opened to me, especially through electronic databases. I was able to increase the tally of Jabaloyanos who moved to the United States (from the fifty-two people recorded in the census of 1920 to 125 at present) and the information collected about each of these immigrants.

Emigrants from Jabaloyas might have first learned of Utah through their relationships with the people of the Basque Country, who had a longer tradition of traveling to the far West. 4 Once the migration began, word of what the American West seemed to offer—the need for a young workforce, the advantages of a developed country, and the promise of a dignified life—spread like wildfire in the province of Teruel. This word of mouth had a substantial impact, encouraging many in Teruel to make the long journey. Several towns in the province (including La Puebla de Valverde, Jabaloyas, Camarena, and Teruel) became hubs of migration to the United States from Teruel, prompting the people of neighboring places to leave for the same North American locations. We have, to date, recorded the full names of one hundred people from the province of Teruel destined for the state of Utah. Of those one hundred Turolenses, eighty-eight went to Bingham Canyon, fifty-one of them from Jabaloyas; that is, 58 percent of the provincial total (see table one).

Selected locations in the province of Teruel, Spain. Map created by Deb Miller, Utah Division of State History.

An aerial view of the Utah Copper Company mine, as seen on May 7, 1926. Shipler Commercial Photography. Utah State Historical Society, photo no. 25185.

Despite the difficulties of mining work, the opportunities available in Utah were markedly better than those available in an impoverished Sierra de Albarracín in the early twentieth century. Spanish lands were in the hands of a very few people, the so-called señoritos, who set the course of the economy in their villages. When the wealthy men wanted charcoal made, day laborers could eat with the money they earned; however, when the landowners decided otherwise, workingmen and their families simply went hungry. Even when the people of the Sierra could work, they still earned only a comparatively small amount. The average wage for a daylaborer in Spain at this time was about 1.40 pesetas. In contrast, one could earn between $2.20 and $3.90 a day in Bingham Canyon—an amount equivalent to between 11.70 pesetas and 20.70 pesetas per day. This gave immigrants a shot at saving as much money as possible. 5

The significance of this opportunity is evident in the fact that entire families—father, mother, and sons—left to improve their lives. The names of relatives, even friends from neighboring places, who went together to Ellis Island have been found in the municipal archives. Sometimes, only parents, the elderly, and the youngest sons stayed in the village. Most of the working-age residents embarked for America, whether they were married or unmarried. In 1920 alone, fifty-two Jabaloyanos were away in North America.

The locations within Teruel province from which emigrants left for North America in the first third of the twentieth century. Map created by Raúl Ibáñez Hervás. Courtesy of the author.

A map indicating the main destination states for the known 125 Jabaloyanos who traveled to the United States from 1907 to 1931. Map created by Raúl Ibáñez Hervás. Courtesy of the author.

Table 1. From Jabaloyas to Utah, 1910–1920*

Yet, all told, this was predominantly a movement of young men. Once they had settled down in North America, other family members (primarily sons and wives) joined them. Throughout the years of migration, however, 40 percent of the migrants from Jabaloyas to Utah were between sixteen and twenty years old. This was a youth migration. In older age groups the percentages decline, and those over thirty-five years old made up only 13 percent of migrants. Men constituted over 95 percent of the total, and unmarried immigrants (62 percent) prevailed over married ones (35 percent).

Although Jabaloyas became the center of this phenomenon, it also spread to nearby places, if more modestly. These included Bezas and Valdecuenca (13 people from each), Toril y Masegoso (10), Saldón (7), and Terriente (6). A total of 180 emigrants left from the villages of the Sierra in the first third of the twentieth century. They made their journeys as groups of friends or relatives, rarely as individuals, embarking from various European harbors they had reached by train or ship. Sometimes they traveled to Valencia by land and from there by ship or train to Barcelona, en route to French harbors. Others made the trip from Spain to European ports by switching between animal-drawn vehicles and trains or even by walking.

They apparently preferred to leave for the United States from the French harbor of Le Havre, although it was farther from their home than ports such as Valencia. The ocean crossing from Le Havre lasted from eight to eleven days, while stops and layovers lengthened the voyage from Barcelona, Bilbao, Burdeos, Liverpool, Marseille, or Vigo to more than twenty days. It’s also possible that Spanish emigrants preferred French harbors because the Rif War in Morocco (1911–1927) had led to tighter controls in Spanish harbors and an increased risk of being detained as fugitives. Further, Spanish laws forbade young men from migrating if they had not completed compulsory military service. Leaving from foreign harbors allowed the Turolenses to elude Spanish authorities who could end their adventure.

Once aboard, practically all of these emigrants traveled third class. The ticket cost around 300 pesetas at that time, which, in comparison with the daily wages, would require working and saving for nearly a year to purchase a ticket to the United States. There were times when the emigrants resorted to the sale of land, help from relatives, loans, or other methods to pay for their passage. Although more than six thousand kilometers divide the Sierra de Albarracín and North America, this distance did not deter at least 125 Jabaloyanos, men and women, from leaving for the new continent. This migration gave them the opportunity to work, on the one hand, in the great copper mines of Bingham Canyon in Utah and, on the other hand, as shepherds in the neighboring state of Idaho, among other jobs and destinations (see appendix).

Mariano Jarque in the United States. Courtesy of Teodoro and Eduardo Pradas.

The testimony of the immigrants’ descendants, combined with the documentary record, allows us to piece together an understanding of their arrival in the United States and how they adapted to their new lives. The first documented Jabaloyano in Utah seems to have been Bruno Monleón Domingo, who left the French harbor of Le Havre on May 24, 1913, and arrived at Ellis Island on May 30 that same year. Monleón—unmarried and thirty-three years old—was destined for Ogden, Utah, with Joaquín Sánchez as his contact there. He was a “farm laborer” who reached New York with just ten dollars in his pocket. On his journey, Monleón was accompanied by Román Mendiguren, a Basque with the same destination and contact in Ogden. 6 The daughter of Urbano Rodríguez, a Jabaloyano and a shepherd, recalls that her father suffered so much from dizziness after his voyage that he had to stay at a hospital for two days upon his arrival to get well. Meanwhile, Marcelino Martínez Valero, en route to Bingham Canyon in 1917, was detained for four days on Ellis Island until his brother was contacted and Martínez could be sent to Utah by train. 7 Regina Rodríguez, a Jabaloyano who is currently eighty-eight years old, relates that her father had “muchos problemas” understanding his employer because none of them could speak the same language. 8

Although people such as Lucio Domingo Sánchez, who knew a hotel owner in Ogden and arrived in that city to work as a laborer, had a different experience, mining and shepherding were the two main occupations of the Jabaloyanos who came to the American West. 9 Many people in Jabaloyas raised cattle at that time and, in the United States, their knowledge was appreciated. Because of the danger and difficulty of mining, some of the migrants, rather than staying for long, continuous stints at the mines, alternated between mining in Utah and shepherding in Idaho. This was the experience of twenty-three-year-old Joaquín Domingo Valero, who seems to have been the first Jabaloyano headed for Bingham Canyon. By July 2, 1914, Domingo was working as a “trackman” for the Utah Copper Company, earning $2.20 a day. He stayed at this job for only a short time, until September 15, 1914, but had returned to Utah Copper again by February 1915. 10

Bingham, Utah, 1926. Note the town’s cramped layout, necessitated by its canyon geography. Utah State Historical Society, photo no. 15070.

Life in Bingham Canyon was not easy: some three hundred deaths occurred each year from accidents and occupational diseases, mainly silicosis. This is what happened to Manuel Pradas Marco and Fermín Monleón Sánchez, who died from the complications of mining. 11 Dangers like these impelled some immigrants, after years of working in a mine, to become shepherds, an occupation they could assume more readily because of the traditional connection between Jabaloyas and stock raising. In still other cases, though not so many, it was just the opposite: Idaho shepherds moved to Utah mines.

Most of the Turolenses in Bingham Canyon worked as “trackmen,” charged with building railroad tracks for the mine’s train, for which they earned $3.40 a day. Some of them contracted pulmonary disease as a result, falling ill after returning to Jabaloyas. Like Manuel Domingo, who moved from trackman to “second helper,” some of them were promoted to positions such as “mucker” or “second helper” that resulted in a wage increase and greater responsibilities. 12 Many Jabaloyanos adapted themselves quite well to North American. For instance, a “Spanish House” existed in Bingham Canyon, where compatriots could meet and receive mail from their relatives in Europe.

Altogether, most Turolenses lived in the United States temporarily; by the 1930s, their presence in Bingham Canyon practically disappeared. Only a few of them stayed abroad and married, beginning a new life and gaining American citizenship. Bernardino Lázaro, a man from Jabaloyas who married Teresa Gil in 1922 in Ogden’s Saint Joseph Church, was one such example. 13 Francisco Jiménez Navarro, another Jabaloyano who worked in Bingham Canyon, also married in the United States, to an American; their daughter visited Jabaloyas years ago. 14 Even though most of these Spaniards did not stay in America, their time there did have a cultural impact in their hometowns, with the adoption of American hobbies like poker or boxing.

A Utah Copper Company personnel card for Manuel Domingo Pradas, one of hundreds of such cards located in the rich archives of the Kennecott Copper Corporation held at the University of Utah. Note the incorrect spelling of Jabaloyas (notetakers on both sides of the Atlantic rendered placenames according to what they heard) and the evidence of movement in the seemingly mundane details recorded on this card. Kennecott Copper Corporation, Utah Copper Division Records, Accn1440, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah.

Francisco Gimenez at his home in North America. Courtesy of Teodoro and Eduardo Pradas.

The early twentieth century was a time characterized by necessity and poverty in the rural homes of the Sierra de Albarracín. The chain migration from the Sierra to the United States, particularly Utah, created a chance to work and save money overseas. The village of Jabaloyas would like to thank the state of Utah for the opportunity it offered at a moment when misery surrounded Spanish families. Make no mistake, many people improved their lives in Spain because of their hard work abroad, investing their savings in houses, farms, and agricultural machinery. Our research further proves that these young sojourners were involved in the economic and social development of the American West.

Therefore, the townhall of Jabaloyas has started the required arrangements with Utah authorities so that a sister community arrangement can become a reality. This process is complicated, however, because the town of Bingham Canyon, the destination of these emigrants, was disincorporated and dismantled in 1971, in part to widen the mine. Relatives of those immigrants to Utah still live in the village. Today, the sixty-five residents of Jabaloyas are eager to see how this process will play out, as they work to recover the connection their parents and grandparents had with Utah a century ago.

Notes

1 Initially, I based my research on the 1920 municipal census and the records kept on Ellis Island. I then widened my research to collections such as United States Census (1900, 1910, 1920, 1930); United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918; United States, Panama Canal Zone, Employment Records and Sailing Lists, 1905– 1937; United States Public Records 1970–2009; New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925–1957; New York Book Indexes to Passenger Lists, 1906–1942; New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829–1940; New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795–1949; Florida, Key West Passenger Lists 1898–1945; Florida Deaths, 1877–1939; and the Kennecott Copper Corporation, Utah Copper Division Records, Accn1440, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter Kennecot Copper Corporation Records). Another key element has been the collection of oral testimonies from the children, grandchildren, and other relatives of the immigrants. To that end, we established a model file questionnaire so that basic information from the descendants of those immigrants to the USA can be collected. Teodoro Pradas, Fermín Yagües, and Eduardo Pradas have been a real asset to this work. Holly George and Betsey Wellend consulted the personnel files within the Kennecott Copper Corporation Records . Digitized files managed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City were also so helpful.

2 Located in the municipal archives of Jabaloyas, Teruel, Spain. I would like to thank Eduardo Pencique for helping in this document digitization.

3 United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918, s.v. “Manuel Pradas,” birthdate June 11, 1896, accessed August 16, 2019, ancestry.com.

4 See Iker Saitua, Basque Immigrants and Nevada’s Sheep Industry: Geopolitics and the Making of an Agricultural Workforce, 1880–1954 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2019).

5 Converting dollars to pesetas, we could say that one dollar was worth 5.30 pesetas.

6 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892– 1924, s.v. “Bruno Monleon,” event date May 30, 1913, accessed August 16, 2019, familysearch.org; see also U.S., WWI Civilian Draft Registrations, 1917–1918, s.v. “Domingo, Bruno M.,” birthdate May 8, 1879, accessed August 16, 2019, ancestry.com.

7 New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820–1957, s.v. “Marcelino Martínez Valero,” arrival date January 15, 1918, accessed August 16, 2019, ancestry.com.

8 Regina Rodríguez, interview with the author, Jabaloyas, Spain.

9 New York, Passenger and Crew Lists, s.v. “Lucio Domingo Sánchez,” arrival date August 12, 1914, accessed August 16, 2019, ancestry.com. Domingo’s contact was José Laucirica, a hotel owner in Ogden.

10 “Domingo, Joaquin,” I. Personnel records, Kennecott Copper Corporation Records. I would like to thank Holly George and Betsey Wellend for finding these cards.

11 “Deaths,” Salt Lake Telegram, December 3, 1931, 15; see also “Monleon, Fermin” and “Pradas, Manuel,” I. Personnel records, Kennecott Copper Corporation Records.

12 “Domingo, Manuel,” I. Personnel records, Kennecott Copper Corporation Records.

13 Utah, Select Marriages, 1887–1966, s.v., “Teresa Gil,” marriage date July 29, 1922, accessed August 16, 2019, ancestry.com.

14 Original document collected by Teodoro Pradas.

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