Gibraltar’s role as a crossroads of cultures highlighted at international history seminar

Gibraltar’s historical role as a meeting point between cultures, peoples and migration routes was highlighted during the 15th International Meeting of the Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians (ADHILAC)which was held on the Rock last week. 

The seminar brought together academics from different continents, countries and historiographical traditions to examine themes including migration, slavery, commodities, political change, and transatlantic connections. 

One of the contributions focused specifically on Gibraltar was Richard Garcia’s lecture, Gibraltar as a Crucible for Migration, delivered on behalf of the Gibraltar Heritage Trust. 

The lecture formed part of a panel examining Gibraltar as an Atlantic-Mediterranean intersection and its historical role as a meeting point between different peoples, cultures and migration routes. 

The panel also looked at Gibraltar’s connections with the wider Atlantic world, including the experiences of Gibraltarians in the Caribbean and South America during the Second World War. 

Dr Javier Francisco, from the University of Basel in Switzerland, said in the seminar’s opening speech that Gibraltar was a place “where roots, borders, peoples, languages, and political spaces have intersected for centuries.” 

He said the current period was “one of those moments in which history feels particularly relevant.” 

“We see migration and displacement reshaping societies and political debates, including just right now across this narrow strait,” he said. 

“We see wars and geopolitical tensions threatening to disrupt key arteries of global trade from the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Taiwan, with repercussions that can reach far beyond the regions themselves.” 

Dr Francisco added that the economic system traditionally associated with past centuries was now more settled than ever before. 

He said developments involving goods, information, technologies and ideas were not simply repetitions of the past but were “circling across the globe at a speed that would have been unimaginable.” 

Regarding the role of historians, he said: “we historians cannot provide simply a convenient instruction manual for the present.” 

Instead, he raised questions about “how and why do people move; who can move freely and who is forced to and what happens when established roots are interrupted and new ones emerge.” 

He also raised questions about how commodities, knowledge, diseases, technologies and political ideas travel with people and “how do societies cope with profound disruptions and social rupture.” 

The Minister for Heritage, Dr John Cortes, also addressed the seminar and referred to Gibraltar’s history and the experiences of Gibraltarians who were evacuated to London, Northern Ireland, Jamaica and Madeira during the Second World War. 

Dr Cortes expressed his belief that “little Gibraltar perhaps is showing the way forward which bigger countries seem not to be able to see,” in reference to the EU-UK treaty. 

The programme included a lecture by Wim Klooster on Jewish migration to the seventeenth-century Americas and further sessions on the Black Atlantic culture, slavery, commodities, women’s migration, Jewish communities, European immigration, wars, political change, capitalism and transatlantic voyages. 

The event also included the 15th General Assembly of ADHILAC and the election of its Board of Directors for 2026–2030. 

Sven Beckert delivered the final seminar lecture, How to Rethink the History of Capitalism.