|
|
Migration: a word, recalling
the Albanians and the Moroccans, who are living and working
in our towns and villages. We rarely identify them with the
over 27 million italian people, who just by the second half
of the 18th century have settled worldwide. Even though statistics
prove that people from Tuscany were over 1 million and two hundred
thousand less, 5% of the total, it is not to forget that many
of them were from Tuscany. Yes, among them there were even people
from Pistoia and they were not only a few. Infact with the word
migration we want to consider people coming from the appennine
and subappennine area, which streches from Lunigiana to Casentimo
throughout the whole part of Pistoia. Since the Late Middle
Ages people, being citizens of Pistoia Province in the future,
had began to migrate from these areas and for centuries the
places to achieve had been the Maremma, Sardinia and Corsica.
They had been carachterized by migrants,engaged in agriculture,
in jods at woodlands and in sheep farming .The opportunity to
find here more grazing lands and at the same time the lack of
an income , sufficient for family's support had driven shepherds
but even a great number of wood-cutters, coalmen, in other words
anyone, to move away every year for a lot of months. In any
ares people from Pistoia were considered as coalmen; well, whenever
they found woods they didn't waste their time. They used to
cut woods and to produce coal.
Infact some of them are to be found in the Mato Grosso of Brazil.
For centuries people from Pistoia, ranging from stone-nasons,
metalworkers of Pistoia mountain to nurses, errand boys and
to the plaster figurine makers of Valdinievole have brought
their knowledge off the border. Much to their regret in other
countries they learned any type of job; they became miners,
bricklayers, workers of furncases and they did the hardest and
the most dangerous jobs. Nevertheless the personal, entrepreneurial
and commercial success was often in their hands. With the birth
of the Kingdom of Italy the phenomenon of migration developped
further on. After the year 1868 because of population increase
and because of the lack of resourses, sufficient for everyone's
support more and more people had to leave home, sometimes even
for ever. In the year 1871 10% of the people from Pistoia was
composed by migrants and in the year 1907 migration was already
increasing by 35%.At the outbreak of the First World War the
great part of them came back home. In the year 1919, precisly
during fascism, there was a further sudden rise in the migration
phenomenon as a way to overcome support problems and as a criticism
against the on-going policy. But what places did people from
Pistoia favour? At the beginning they favoured areas nearby,
such as France, Corsica and the countries of North Africa. Afterwards,
just since the '80s of the 19th century, many migrants have
experienced transoceanic travels to North and South America,
particularly to the United States, Argentina, Brazil. In the
last few years many of them have made their way towards Switzerland,
Belgium, Ger many, Scandinavi a and Austrialia.
Don't forget that many migrants have often settled in these
countries.
|
|
|
