La "segunda Hora navarra"de los negocios a las armas. La familia Sesma

Resumo

The object of study is to present the change of trajectory that, around the 1740s, led one of the main families of merchants exporting wool from Navarra, the Sesma, natives of the southern city of Corella, next to the customs of the Ebro river. Having worked their fortune mainly with the fine wool trade, which arrived from Castile and was re-shipped to the port of Bayonne, and having entered the network of both Juan de Goyeneche and Bartolomé Flon, in the context of the war of Spanish succession, in those 40s there is a greater interest in directing the careers of the next generation to new areas, such as service in the homes of members of the royal family or joining the army. The text presents two examples in which the protagonist is Zenón Bernardo de Sesma (1700-1779), who served as first officer to Queen Maria Anna of Neuburg in the years she lived in Bayonne (France), to pass next to act as supervisor in the house of the infante Don Felipe, whom he accompanied in northern Italy during the campaigns of the war of Austrian succession. In both examples, Sesma actively intervenes in the entrance of several of his nephews in the infante’s house and in the army displaced to that stage. All this contributes to explain that this reorientation, at least in the case of the family studied, resulted in the departure in the next generation of the city in which they had worked their fortune, accompanied by the abandonment of business in favor of dedication to the militia.