The Basque Gypsy people in the nineteenth century: Between assimilation and reaffirmation

Abstract

Research has tended to treat the Gypsy people’s past as if it were homogenous, in spite of certain factors that characterize their evolutionary dynamics as different. The objective of this article was to analyse the individual evolution of a series of Gypsy families in the cultural and geographical environment of the Basque Country in the nineteenth century. The factors that determined their uneven progress can be summed up as the possibility of double jeopardy due to the imposition of the legislative prerogatives of the Basque provinces at the same time as the law of Spain, and their unique culture. Micro-historical analysis was used in an effort to move beyond the uniform view of the history of the Gypsy people and to find out more about Basque Gypsy families. The conclusions led to the establishing of a previously undefined human group, the Basque Gypsies, born of repression, followed by assimilation. It was contact with other groups of Castilian Gypsies—who paradoxically regarded them as Gazhe [non-Gypsies]—that helped prevent Basque gypsy families in Spain from becoming completely diluted in cultural terms.