Gaudí and his Catalunya Art Nouveau Negreros Slave Money
The title may throw you off a bit, but I promise you, it’s spot on. If you ever make you way to Barcelona, Spain—or Catalunya if you’re hip enough to know that many of the folks there want to you to address them as Catalonians and not Barcelonians—you will walk the streets and see that many of the houses wave a flag that looks exactly like the Cuban, or Puerto Rican, modern day flags. Spain is just one big modern museum and a wealth of historical information, which makes it amazing to explore if you’re a traveler and not a vacationer. If you’re a vacationer, you’re completely missing the point of everything you see there and WHY you see what you see where you see it. That will be a good point about this piece because I learned quite a few things about Gaudí, when I did a tour unrelated to him, and when I put the YEARS he was operational together, a lightbulb went on in my mind that said “hmmm that means this is a time Spain was heavy into SLAVERY OF LATINOS IN THE CARIBBEAN.” Oh, I knew there had to be some connections to that, because everything in Europe comes from something they gained thanks to enslavement of Africans. Much like I did in Portugal, which you can read here, oh it was time to explore Spain and take a shot at Spain for something everyone is praising but nobody cares to look into who or what they’re praising. In this case, we’re going to have a little look into this architect guy, Antoni Gaudí, because many don’t even the real idea behind this guy and why he went out the way he went out, which was gruesome. If you’re a vacationer and not a traveler, you probably never even bothered to LOOK UP when in Barcelona, but if you do, you’ll see it’s like another world, from the designs of buildings to the things adorning them. If you looked up, you’ll see interesting flags all over the place, on buildings that look like they could be government buildings that are fancy in design but are not government buildings. Upon inspection, you will see these flags I was talking about, and those too are worth a look into if you would only look up. You see them and think it’s like any Cuban or Puerto Rican flag you see always hanging in a window in the Bronx, NY, that’s just what Puerto Rican do anywhere they go. However, in this case, you’d be wrong, because the flag is neither Cuban nor Puerto Rican—of course I knew that part because it was colored differently, but I thought it was like for LBTQ+ Latinos from Caribbean or something. It turns out, it is actually a flag that is specifically to represent the Catalonians, IN SPAIN, and many people want this to be their representation and not the Spanish flag that Spain is known for. In fact, when you walk the streets, you’ll notice that the Spanish they speak is not actually exactly the same as the rest of the country, and I’m not talking just pronunciation, rather I mean whole words can just be completely different. It’s not Spanish, it’s Catalan! They’re about the Catalunya region, not Spain, they are about Catalunya not Spaniards. If you look up, you’ll see multiple flags that are not the Spain flag, all over the place. These are not called ‘banderas’ (flags in Spanish) these are called Senyeras (flags/insignia/banner in Catalunya). One of these flags I kept seeing so much in balconies was called the ‘L’Estelada Blava’ which translated means ‘the blue starred’ in Catalunya—there is a white star with a blue triangle. You’ll wonder why someone would want to represent this flag so much and you think of it like migrants and illegals who come to USA and wave their flags proudly in the faces of Americans instead of going back to their own countries to wave their flags over there. Well, this is completely different and is exactly what you think is the point of waving a flag that is not the national flag of the country one is in, it is a clear declaration of separatist mentality and movement FROM SPAIN, to represent Catalunya as an independent nation. This is why many American look at people waving foreign flags in USA like ‘WTF are you doing here then you are a separatist,’ because you could not get away with doing this I Europe if you are immigrants because it’s seen a disrespect to do so. Well, these people are NOT immigrants, they are descendants from this region of Spain that had its national identity long before the consolidation of Spain into a country. You can historically look at Spain as 5 major game of thrones type regions: Aragon, Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and Andalusia, with multiple sub communities scattered within like when I went to Segovia Roman ruins in the Castile and León region. Each group in each community and region has its own national identity and banners/flags, and this group in Catalunya continues to want to be isolated from Spain, even in 2024. Catalonians have NEVER wanted to join Spain and fought many battles that attempted to join them to Spain since 1600s and hated ruling dukes taking away their privileges already agreed up on, over and over and hated the taxation scams by ruling parties, enforced by Castilian soldiers sent to oppress Catalonians. So, they had a huge revolt, and this officially cemented their desire to separate from anything Spain. However, they were still being exploited by the dukes and government, and then had another major revolt, this time killing government members like a viceroy, in a bloody battle. The straw that broke the bull’s back had them trying to get military support from France to battle “Spain.” This put them on the radar for the greater Spain to question Catalunya’s loyalty. The War for Spanish Succession (1701-1714) was technically WORLD WAR ZERO which would be fought in territories of Spain, Germany and Italy, and any body of water they spotted each other in. It was a disaster, and forced Barcelona to ‘BE’ Spain for conquest, which even was a stipulation in the treaty, and that ended that dream for Catalunya to get French help for anything from that point on– or there would be WAR on Catalunya. Catalunya was PISSED with ‘Spain’ and had to get away from them. These dates of these Wars are important because people will tell you that Catalunya copied their flag from Cuba, a territory that SPAIN rape, pillaged, colonized and stole African slaves and brought there to exploit. So, how is someone going to claim that Catalunya is this righteous place when they didn’t oppose Spain’s oppression of Africans and indigenous people that they put into encomienda and afterwards, full on wiping out of indigenous populations or full on African slavery. Where was all this anti-Spain and anti-oppression messaging back then as it relates to Catalunya and Barcelona not wanting to be part of SPAIN’s conquests over weaker indigenous populations of the ‘new world?’ This is the horseshyt that if you know history, you can see is disgusting roll-out today, to wipe their hands of their wrongdoings in slavery of Africans and Indigenous people all over the Americas. Today, Barcelona likes to tote itself as the voice of the oppressed people, and that’s why they support pro-Palestinian / anti-Israel everywhere there, because they are trying to get support for their wish to separate from Spain, painting themselves are ‘oppressed’ by Spain. All that we are oppressed stuff you see/hear is a re-brand attempt to separate themselves from being the actual oppressors–much like European descendant try to do from their male counterparts when it comes to slavery–and this is another point of this piece today. I saw so much Pro-Palestinian talk and art, and pamphlets, and that is all good, but attempting to co-op them with this fake “we’re the same” nonsense is manipulating those people, to help that save Barcelona’s image, specifically as relates to these countries you guys are claiming they borrowed their hard right flag from– which is most similar to Puerto Rico, not Cuba, because Puerto Rico’s triangle is RED not BLUE, and Catalunya was most connected to CUBA not Puerto Rico, as I’ll expound on for you, in a second.
You people saying they made that flag to show solidarity over Cuba breaking away from Spain, you don’t know what DAFUQ you’re talking about, and you don’t know the history of us Descendants of Slaves from the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, so STFU and take a backseat and learn something today. You’re pretending that the flags are nods to Barcelona opposing slavery and showing solidarity with the formerly oppressed, but the Cuban flag was made in 1849, the Puerto Rican flag was made in 1895, this is centuries after Catalunya revolts mentioned earlier, so they already had nation and identity long before the flag you’re thinking of. The truth is that Catalunya has MANY flags, and that one just 1 of 6 or 7 other possible Catalunya flags depending on their feeling of right to left leaning. The ‘L’Estelada Vermella ‘ (red starred- center left people) that one has a the red triangle like Cuba but that doesn’t mean solidarity with Cuba… hell, even the soccer hooligans have a flag mirroring this, ‘L’Estelada Periquita ‘(parakeet), it doesn’t alight with Cuba. There are so many flags I can’t even keep track, but you’ll mostly see L’Estelada Blava, which is the one you guys are incorrect about saying is the main flag for Cataluyna. The real Catalon flag La Senyera goes back to 1000s!!! And the Puerto Rican or Cuban flags are not even related to Catalunya independence so it’s horseshyte to say Barcelona has this to show sympathy for what they did to the Islands with their slavery. It’s actually the OPPOSITE because it was designed in similar fashion to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Philippines (yes, know your history, look at its design) for the reason that Antoni Gaudí was able to spruce up Barcelona, and it’s a smack in the face to Africans, Indigenous people of the Americas and Asians of Philippines who got their independence from Spain in the late 1800s. I’ll shortly offer you the detailed reason why they were similar, and why there is this connection of Catalunya and the Latin American Caribbean/Philippines, which is about slavery and exploitaion. Spain doesn’t apologize for slavery and treated Blacks there poorly ever since slavery’s abolition. It’s an attempt to spin history there in Catalunya, when people tell you those flags mean they’re in solidarity with Cuba and Puerto Rico. Nonsense! One of my guides also told me this lie, to make Barcelona look so holier than thou and all I could think of was what I am telling you now. I mean, they have to sell the tour, but I’ve been on real tours where they tell the truth, and I did one there too, they are “slavery” as a focus type tours that you’ll give you and you end up in La Rambla. That first tour was teaching lies, so it didn’t sit right with me. Catalunya is lined with the tributes to the blood money they earned during the transatlantic slave trade and Barcelona would not be possible without the slave money that Barcelona/Catalunya, was making for Latin America. The reality is Catalunya, Spain, whoever, they were both heavy in slavery and it reached so deep that your man, Antoni Gaudí, and his magnificent works are all from backs of slaves labor, to get the money to finance and build modern day Barcelona. Yes, you heard that right, Antoni Gaudí’s money was African slave blood money. If anything, those flags with the star and triangle are as much of a pat on the back to their African and Caribbean domination as Portugal’s Monument to the Discoveries is. It’s a bookmark to when Spain was great, and it’s points of pride for Spain. It’s a call back to the good times of Catalunya, when they were running the slave trade in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and their products were flowing freely in Caribbean and Philippines, which Cataluyna has a HUGE part to do with ensuring that their economy kept up AFTER slavery was condemned–which was illegal for them to do. Sure, Catalonians wanted to be separate from Spain, but not that separate when it came to enslaving Africans and getting rich off of their labor. Then they wanted to be best brothers in arms. They weren’t talking that separation shlt when they wanted that money Spain the country was making off of occupation and oppression of African, Asian and the Caribbean, now were they? The Basque Country people, the Catalonians all of those places were united in slavery of Blacks, Indigenous and Asian people, and every single industry in Spain flourished due to their brutality, and has a habit of producing people, like Portugal, who were claiming they were from some ‘oppressed’ group then turned around and did full on slavery of Africans, like Aaron Lopez of Portugal.
I know because I did several tours to confirm this with historians, and you can also go find these, if you have time, yourself following this guide, and I got all this information from that tour while you do tourist nonsense for Instaham to try to fake like you’re a special celeb Black moron in Spain—newsflash, you’re not, and those people don’t like nor respect you. Anyways, Barcelona was very well known for its “negreros,” which translates to SLAVE TRADERS. When Catalunya realized that the world has the Internet and Blacks are allowed to read now, they panicked, just like Portugal, when Blacks started to rise out of the corners of Spain to declare that they were not all killed off, that they were very much alive, although marginalized heavily for centuries. Their Blacks were watching US protests and movements build up, and got ACTIVE, which made their European descendants in Spain start to go read some books themselves to learn their true identities as enslavers of Africa. THIS is what people are conflating with the meaning they are associating with those flags I just talked about, the NEW WAVE people learning how bad their forefathers were, and this awakening (woke) is only less than 10 years old. You people equating their flags to woke people of today is dumb, and it’s a rebrand to hide the shame you feel, it’s ok, we get it. Better late than never. The people of Barcelona, after learning their true history, saw what Americans were doing to former confederate statues since early 2015, getting them removed– mistakenly, people think this only happened after George Floyd protests in 2020, and you’re wrong as usual, because the whole world was watching these bold protests in 2015 and by 2016 they themselves started getting active globally. Americans started going hard in 2015-2016 to get the 8 statues down, and by 2017 they had 42 former pro-slavery statues removed. This opened the eyes of MANY, globally and seemed impossible, previously. Many in the US are racist so they rejected the removal petitions wherever there weren’t enough concerned Americans. Remember that ‘Unite the Right’ racist protests that killed a Jewish lady when a patriot ran her over with a car, that was because a racist’s pro-Slavery statue was being removed (Robert E. Lee) and it ended in bloodshed and anti-semitism– for some odd reason, it ended in anti-semitism, how did they go from Robert E Lee to anti-semitism? These racists need to FOCUS. This is what woke up Black and European Catalonians who learned that their whole dominance is only because they controlled the slave trade, and going down that rabbit hole made MORE people want to join the separatist parties. Not so fast though, YOU, YOU were right there with them because it was YOU! Still, the locals in Catalunya started organizing since 2018. If you recall, Barcelona did the same thing to the statue of Antonio López and others associated with slavery. Yeah, but this one cut a little deeper though, because these figures were instrumental in Barcelona even existing as you see it today! So, that took a lot of soul searching because this is the identity of the Catalunya region after the 1800s, to revamp itself that we are talking here, and these figures they removed pretty much defined Barcelona, and ultimately, all of the great artists of the 19th century Barcelona, who’s works we still admire today– including Gaudí!
Antonio López and Joan Güell, most notably, if you walked La Rambla in Barcelona, they are both huge profiteers and pioneers of the mastered slave trader in Cuba, where they met and became best friends and are national heroes in Catalunya, until they got the spirit from Black people in USA and tore down the top 3 slave trader statues after SOME people learned their pride is based entirely off of slavery—you don’t need a homerun sometimes, because a BUNT is still a hit. Like I did with Portugal, we’re going to have to walk Barcelona DOWN. Also George Floyd and Black Lives Matter didn’t amount to shlt in the USA, other Blacks, around the world, used it to get off their arses and force the European countries they are in to change. Actual Africans, in Africa, they’re not inspired to do shlt but FLEE their countries from themselves, and looking for European descendant women to give them green cards to a Western country, but at least someone is getting the message. Where Portugal has Henry the Navigator who helped them find their golden goose in slavery, Spain has Christopher Columbus who helped Spain get rich off of slavery, in the same way. Nobody is going to tear down any Columbus statues https://maps.app.goo.gl/P52Jwzc42BdYsZFd7 , anywhere, and the one in Barcelona is positioned pointing right at the water, pointing out to the sea just like the Henry the Navigator statue in Lisbon, because slavery of Africans is how both nations got rich and how they found something to be proud about as Europeans. Yeah, Barcelona loved and embraced slavery and everyone coming back home from enslaving Africans in the Caribbean was a hero in Barcelona, thus you got a statue, and buildings and parks named after you! You cannot have a Catalan Art Nouveau movement without SLAVERY, and this is where your man Antoni Gaudí got all his money. You see, those two biggest enslavers, Antonio López and Joan Güell, are crucial to Gaudí’s existence. This powerful slavery duo put the daughter of Antonio López and son of Joan Güell to marry each other and make a super wealthy slave money family, making Eusebi Güell’s, Joan Güell’s son, the richest man in the entire Spain at the point. Eusebi Güell sought out and became the top benefactor of Antoni Gaudí! Who do you think the Park Güell attraction, that has all that extra Gaudí work, is named after? Look at the buildings you see in Barcelona, that’s from an artistic revolution known as Catalan Art Nouveau, a modernist movement to revamp the downtrodden people and infrastructure of Barcelona, with that newly acquired slave money! You see all those pretty buildings up and down Barcelona? That’s from this period, this is all slave money financed and looked like garbage before slavery money started piling up big in Barcelona—siding with their brothers Spain as a unified country for that Catalan modernism movement to improve Spaniard literature and art globally, showing their sophistication—from slavery profits. 👏🏼 You see, the rest of Spain, when they lost their right to slavery, didn’t manage their money well, but Catalunya was a different story already. They were already embedded long term*, so they flourished after slavery ended. At the heart of most of this Modernism was Antoni Gaudí, with his works like the most important thing in Barcelona, the Gaudí creation ‘Sagrada Familia,’ or some of this other popular works such as the Casa Milà (La Pedrera) and Casa Batlló. These are amazing works, and he actually died before the Sagrada Familia was erected like you see, because you can see it’s still in progress as we speak being built. It’s amazing, but that stuff costs MONEY, and it turned out it cost SLAVE MONEY. All of the rich enslavers moved to Barcelona, and started making the place tidy, a period they call the Catalonian Renaissance or the ‘Renaixença.‘ In this period, the rich decided that the way to show Catalonian pride for them succeeding in slavery while the rest of Spain failed, was to rub it in their faces and get Catalonian only artists and writers to promote themselves globally. Enter Antoni Gaudí, one of the top architects chosen by the rich to make these beautiful buildings you love so much when you see them on vacation. Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, bka Gaudí , is considered the Michael Jordan of all architects of this the Renaixença and was highly protected by the rich*–maybe not so much, we’ll get back to that one. There was no match for Gaudí, nobody could even come close to what he was designing and if you go to these buildings they have scattered all around Barcelona (I have a map for you here if you’re interested great source and guide here) you will see this guy was seriously talented and way before his time! Blood money aside, it’s seriously amazing work but it took a LOT of money to finance.
I know, some of you are pissed, now, these European countries got rich on their own out of pure business skills, I know, you’re a Slavery Denier like Holocaust Deniers, and Europe got rich from hard work- I know. I know. Take a look where Barcelona is in relation to water, just like Lisbon is to relation of water. Barcelona benefited from boating goods in, and slaves too, all of which were made possible with slavery of Africans. This is why Catalunya thrived and the land-locked places of Spain did not. Everything about this time frame Renaixença is about Catalonian pride, so why would anyone prideful ever admit to slavery wrongs and how they got their riches, which is the core of their pride? Never, just like Portugal, will they admit their guilt. NEVER! So, while we praise the crazy thoughts and skills of Gaudí, you just had to ask, where the hell was all the money coming from that he could work on all of this stuff consistently and never have to search for contracts for work to do? Well, exactly like the USA, where you had the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and these so called ‘self-made’ millionaire families, Barcelona has it’s fair share of railroad tycoons, infrastructure creators and all these people who had to figure out ways to flip their slave money to continue to enrich themselves and their families, and this is what helped people wash their hands of slavery, because they could say they were self-made tycoons who’s money all came from these Barcelona industries—another lie commonly told there. Barcelona is filled with slavery deniers; it’s built into their infrastructure literally. The push to get Barcelona up and on its feet was rushed because Great Britain forced Europeans out of exporting slaves, that was 1817, so everyone was in a rat race to secure infrastructure wherever they were, to colonize countries in-place, important a large swarth of slaves last minute to colonies, or to import them to the European countries to beat this deadline set by Great Britain. Well, of course, countries continued slavery regardless, like USA, who illegally continued in port towns like Rhode Island, and had slavery breeding farms to reproduce slaves, but ultimately would stop. Spain and Portugal both continue to defy the orders. Oh, we are thorough over here, no lies and propaganda. Look at the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade tracking database and the years that the slaves were suddenly arriving in large groups, in 1817, coinciding with being told to get out of slave trading or Great Briton would shoot your ships down. 🤦🏾 Slavery itself was still going on INSIDE of these colonies, just like USA, and the lie told by Barcelona is that they stopped slavery when told and all the money is new money after that point, which is clearly lies because most countries didn’t stop slavery under some time after USA did, in the very late 19th century, including in Latin America. So those Catalonian enslavers were still making money from the colonies, that’s where all the industries came from, and they were still shipping good to … BARCELONA SEA-PORTS, which could then be the merchants for the rest of the country and the world, since they controlled the ports. Make sense to you yet? It’s SLAVE MONEY still, especially the exports like sugar, cotton and Tobacco, because those plantations were going strong and sugar was like cocaine to people then, still is! Anytime you read the word “textiles” in text about the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, they’re talking about these 3 exports, which made these countries RICH beyond belief. Just like other colonizers, Spaniards decided to go to the actual countries they stole and embedded themselves to control the industries they started with slavery, they weren’t turning it over to former slaves, hell no! That’s what Lopez did, he embedded himself in Cuba, but he made highly profitable businesses such as Banco Hispano Colonial, the Companyia General de Tabacs de Filipines and the Companya Translatlantica del Vapor with their worldwide slavery racketeering. That’s where all the money came from too for Barcelona’s elite to pay Gaudí. Great Britain was playing police of the waters, but Spain was acting like pirates. Spain knew how to get to Africa for 4 hundred years, they just continued to steal slaves and ship them to the place you hear the lies told that Catalunya’s flag is a nod to, CUBA! 🤦🏾 So, when you see works that Gaudí did for other rich people, like that Casa Batlló building, which many consider his ‘masterpiece,’ know that too is from slave blood money, know that Gaudí had multiple slave blood money payers. If Gaudí named the creation after someone, trust it was a person heavily involved with slavery and that’s who financed him. Joseph Batlló, is the man the building is named after, but all you hear of him is positive tales (nothing slavery related) and no ORIGIN story of how he got to be King Cotton. Joseph Batlló was one of the richest people in Barcelona, also very well known for art sponsoring, because of the magical textiles that Barcelona suddenly popped up in large quantities and cost Spain nothing and didn’t exist in Spain before the enslavement of Africans. Where did this cotton come from again? That is what Joseph Batlló was known for COTTON, one of the top 3 exports from slave labor. Read that link in that last sentence, it came from Cuba, and cotton made Barcelona the richest area in all of Spain. These buildings that were created in the renaissance were the pride of Barcelona and their slave industries even operated directly out of these Gaudí buildings, especially Casa Batlló, which looks like a garment as its design. These buildings are pride of Spain’s slavery practices. So, Joseph Batlló, is yet another shadowy figure of slavery we need to discredit and who is further proof of the trail of slave blood money that created Antoni Gaudí, and all the other major artists such as Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Enric Sagnier– who’s buildings you can find on a street area called “Illa de la Discòrdia” (the Block of Discord).
Before he died, Phillip D. Curtain, one of the best historians on the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, had his works covered by many universities, and this was a key subject, how Spain kept up slavery, despite what is taught in text books. One of these works was published by Rutgers university about Puerto Rico and Spain’s continued slavery, done by David Stark. The Curtin numbers are a highly contested topic, even today, but this is the guy who proved fewer slaves were stolen that originally reported, so the numbers we all see today, have been very much so double and triple checked. We know now, that for at least 50 years after 1817’s deadline to get out of slavery, Catalonians still were dealing in slavery, and THIS is confirmed why they fared better the rest of Spain, as they like to brag so much in print and in those tours I did. Barcelona moved 700,000 slaves from west Africa to the Caribbean and funneled the money back to Barcelona/Catalunya, and if you watch this documentary here – Negrers. La Catalunya esclavista / Slavers: Catalonia and the Slave Trade , you’ll see that perfectly explained and documented. You think anyone stopped these Catalonian people from bringing that money in from the Caribbean after slavery was banned because they were feeling sorry for Cuba and slaves? Not a chance. The messed-up thing about it is Antonio López got the largest amounts of his money from violating anti-Slavery rules more than 2 decades after Britain told them to stop slavery, and he made a major player in Cuba well into 1840s. 😳 The way he did this is he was shipping them in as cargo on his business boats for importing and exporting goods the slaves produced, and also using pirate techniques to avoid any opposing forces. Barcelona’s existence today is all thanks to not getting out of slavery as agreed, just like their partners in crime, Portugal, so there is no way it can deny slavery at all. It only led me to ask, just like I asked when I went to Lisbon, “where are these Blacks who were brought back to Spain?” Well, just like Blacks stolen and put in Portugal, the Black in Spain were marginalized, racism destroyed them, they were pushed into tiny neighborhoods and denied rights. People were complaining ‘where did all these Blacks come from’ when the protests in Barcelona came about, and many people thought there were illegals or recent immigrants, but no, they were African descendants from the slaves brought to Spain from Africa. They’re hated like Latinos from the Caribbean are hated in Spain, for not have clean lineage, or what Castilians called ‘limpieza de sangre,’ the purity of (Spaniard) blood and all stem from what are the oppressive, exploitive Spaniards were known for in their ‘dirty wars.’ They will say a Dominican is of Dirty Lineage and look down on him, in Spain. If you had indigenous American blood (Mestizo style) then you were ok but if you had African blood you were dirty lineage, which is European supremacy. This is why Dominicans today hate themselves and surely don’t want you to call them Blacks. So, if you went to a place like Seville, back in the day so slavery in Spain, it would be flooded with Africans, because it’s a place closer to the Atlantic sea. That south of Spain is where one could find the most slaves in the 17th century on, but the entry points were Valencia, Baleares and Barcelona since they were right on the water, and Seville and Granada served as a major marketplace where all could meet to get slaves. Some of the, or course, got there because of the Moors enslaving sub-Saharan Africans, let’s not forget this. However, the large majority of Blacks who were brought to Spain, as slaves, magically disappeared or were race mixed so much they disappeared into thin air, if you believe Spain. Most likely, they were kllled, deported or left for mistreatment. The ones being inspired by Foundations Black Americans in the USA, those people have come out of the shadows of Spain, so clearly some still exist, but the fact that they have to hide, that’s still a shame. But the Catalunya flags are not for solidary overy anti-slavery, it’s for solidarity FOR SLAVERY, for what the Catalonian Negreros did to the Caribbean. Barcelona would be OVER if not for Cuba specifically. Remember, these guys from Barcelona controlled Cuba and even that Bacardi you drink today, this is all from wealthy Catalonians people during the 1800s, such a Don Facundo Bacardí Masó, who got that money from slave money! They took their slave earnings and move to sell slave products in the market, then into Barcardi business which needs the sugar cane from the slaves, 40% of Cuba was Blacks then. See, there is direct correlation for just about everything Catalonians were successful in, and exploiting the people and natural resources of Spaniard colonies. THIS is where all the money came from, until, of course, and fell apart when Spaniards started to kill each other and implode with all that slavery getting to their heads and their ruling classes trying to exploit Catalonians like they were Blacks and other marginalized groups in those dirty wars. When Spain could no longer enslave Africans publicly, it just all imploded and their civil war popped off more frequently, which created renewed reminders to Catalunya to separate from its brother, Spain, NOW THAT SLAVERY WAS OVER AND THEY DIDN’T OWN ANY MORE COLONIES so can’t profit from slave labor. People have the knowledge know of how exploiting Cuba was ‘necessary’ to keep Barcelona alive, and continues business build on the backs of slaves had to continue, like Bacardi Rum– which has to ensure they have an anti-slavery statement they make every year, due to people discovering its history. 🤡
Back in Barcelona, as I walked freely in the streets, I could see that nobody even understood what they were looking at when they were inspecting the Gaudi pieces. You could just look at every building Gaudí made and see that he had to have been paid a fortune to make these buildings. I went to the outside of La Sagrada Familia, because I couldn’t get in. It was too packed, it was peak tourist season, the line was way too long and there were too many pick pockets. I did, however, get to go into La Pedrera/ Casa Milà, before I knew the link between Gaudí and the blood money. I only learned about the connection of Gaudí when I did that walking tour and was like DAFUQ? 🤔 It’s the main attraction when you say that you want to go to Barcelona! You go and see huge crowds of people at everyone one of the Gaudí fascades and like the I was at, you could go in. He was making these buildings that looked like they were growing out of the earth or something, he was inspired by fairytale with organic designs, as if you could imagine a building made out of nature, with the curvature you find all over the works he made. I’d never seen anything like it in real life, but I knew that the work of the ship “Moya” on the sci-fi show Farscape was completely a rip off of Gaudí’s style but it’s how I learned of Gaudí in the first place, a decade or more ago, via one of my buddies from Spain. It was an organic ship, everything was like flowery in look, no one can deny it now. Gaudí is known all around the world. I remember talking about Barcelona with a stranger and this lady went on and on about Gaudí, and I just hit her with “shame that he did it all using slave money” just to watch her expression. 🤣 I’m cracking people’s heads with this information I’m sharing here but how does one ignore this history of Catalunya and Gaudí when he is directly connected to slavery blood money! Oh, that messes everyone up. Gaudí died on June 10, 1926—more on that in a second, so people say “DUH… slavery was over by then. DUH.” I told you Antonio López and Joan Güell orchestrated the rise of Eusebi Güell to thrive with the fortunes and power of both of these men combined, and Eusebi became the richest man in Spain and Cuba, and ultimately the patron of Gaudí. Gaudí knew where this guy was getting his blood money from, but do you think that stopped him from taking it? Did that stop anyone from buying these Catalonian products? Of course not. Eusebi Güell was down there in Cuba exploiting the slaves they had down there, right up to the day that Cuba earned its independence. His hands were in many operations in Cuba and Puerto Rico, in the big 3 of slavery, SUGAR, COTTON and TOBACCO. Antonio López and Eusebi Güell build modern day Barcelona! The Güell family came from broke people who were just farmers, and they weren’t doing too well back home, Joan Güell moved to Dominican Republic then to Cuba to try his luck. He saw his ticket out of poverty, using slavery in Cuba. He had zero power other than his white skin when he went there, and magically got connected in to become a rich person. This is what they call SELF MADE in Barcelona when talking about him. He helped launch the industrial industry back in Barcelona with that slave money, while his son helped spark the real estate boom. The money wasn’t only coming from there, it was coming from the Philippines too because López owned that industry too there because Spain still occupied that place until 1821 and still operated locally. This is the importance of the Philippines to Barcelona’s exploitation money, because all of those good produced also came from Philippines in addition to the Caribbean, and now you understand the significance of the star, bar and triangle Catalunya flags that are an ode to their conquests and exploits in Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico where Antonio López DOMINATED and used that blood money to establish modern day Barcelona.
Eusebi Güell got back to Barcelona he saw a weird cabinet and wanted to buy it, so he tracked down the maker, Gaudí. From that one cabinet, Gaudí was suddenly in demand. This raised the eyes of MANY in that society and everyone thought they were clapping those cheeks of each other, seriously, they were that close off of meeting over a cabinet. Gaudí was given more than 100+ projects to finance his entire life from Eusebi Güell, out of nowhere. It was highly suspicious to their society because Gaudí did anything he was told to do, and all his bills were pay for by Güell. People say Gaudí was highly conflicted with himself and would go every single day to the catholic church to confess something new to the priests. After his benefactor died, Gaudí wasn’t so well dressed and wasn’t taking care of himself, likely because all the money wasn’t coming in like it was before Güell died and left him without that slave money. Everyone noticed Gaudí was looking like a homeless bum without the slave money coming in, they said Gaudí fell off and the respect he had was in the gutter. The people of the Barcelona thought he was a bum, seriously, they thought he was someone going around begging for money. Remember, he was the head of the Catalan Renaissance, the modernization of Barcelona, his nickname was “God’s Architect!” He went crazy, and moved inside of La Sangrada Familia he was building where his located his workshop and dedicated who whole day to working on the building and eating lettuce dipped in MILK, only, and started looking homeless. He had a lot of issues on his mind that drove him to suddenly go ultra-religious. So, when he was on the way to confess one day, looking homeless, one of those street trains (trams) ran him over—I’m not sure how they did that because those things are slow, and the driver is right in the front with a full view of the street. Anyway, one train almost hit him, in front of him, and when he took a step back to save himself, a train going the opposite direction mowed him down down between bother them, ping ponging to his death under them. The trains ran him over and kept going, and not only that, all of the passing taxis of the day just saw him, looking like a poor person, and decided to let him die in the streets like someone unfit to be in their modernist, slave-money rich society, with beautiful Gaudí-created buildings. They all just passed him dying on the floor without even a second though. This Catalunya was a heavily Catholic place at the time too, and no Catholics bothered to help his poor-appearing man dying in the streets. These were supposed to be sympathetic people, but that was not the mentality of the rich people and snooty people of Catalunya at that time, they were uppity from all that slave money, better than the rest of Spain, remember? He was on the streets without a wallet that would have his ID, so nobody even knew who he was on top of that. You would think that someone, out of all those people in that busy area, would have taken him to the hospital—nope, this rich-from-slavery groups of people had no respect for life, despite being Catholics, and nobody took him to the hospital as they passed by. He laid there dying for hours on end, and a doctor saw him and inspected him and just figured “ehh he’s going to die anyway nothing to do here” and left him. A policeman took him to the hospital finally, since his body was blocking traffic, and because he looked poor, the doctors in the hospital did not decide to give him top notch care. Seriously, NOBODY KNEW HE WAS Gaudí!!! 🤦🏾 So, it was an amazing indictment of the kind of people who lived in Catalan, at least at that time, and one of their biggest treasures, Antoni Gaudí, was killed by a society that thought it was so fancy from all that slave money that these supposedly good Catholics let a seemingly poor man die like a dog in the street. The irony is beyond one of the most amazing stories ever, because his art moved Barcelona out of the stone ages, made it a cultural center that attracted a lot of money to the city based on slave money, and the man who sparked the renaissance with slavery blood money, was mowed down like a dirty sewer rat and his people just let him DIE, all because they had centuries of training on treating people as lesser-than. Won’t HE do it?
As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.
