Agrarian reform in Franco’s regime: the Plan of Adoption of the island of El Hierro (Canary Islands)

Abstract

We approach in this paper the singular form in which Franco's dictatorship managed in the first decades of his mandate two elements which they’ve characterized the historic development of the Spanish field, the economic lag and the social manifestation of this situation, the poverty. The autarkic solutions of Franquist commandership are exemplified for the island of El Hierro in the called "Plan of Adoption", central document of the contemporary development of the Island and of the present paper for this reason. In spite of the design and accomplishment of some goals, the Adoption did not solve the structural insular problems. On the contrary, it perpetuated, of extraordinary form, the autarkic model and its consequences social and territorials until the first years of the decade of the 60. The result of this extensive period of comptrollership was, of a part, the maintenance of the local population in the limit of the biological resistance and, of other one, to send the majority of the inhabitants to the ungrateful way of the emigration.