Explore Marblehead’s Lost History of Iberian Ties

Uncovering such surprising historical connections will be front and center at the upcoming Salem State University-Marblehead Museum symposium “To Drive a Great Trade for Bilbao: Rediscovering New England’s Iberian Ties, 1640s–c.1830” taking place on Saturday, Nov. 8 from 1:30-5:30 p.m. in the Petrowski Room, Marsh Hall (Salem State University’s Harrington Campus).

Local and Spanish curators and historians will come together with area residents to explore how trade in cod once nurtured a network of relationships between North Shore seaports and Iberian port cities, including Marblehead’s especially-strong Bilbao connection, which helped open the door to Spanish support for armed resistance to British rule in 1775.

The symposium is taking place in conjunction with the Marblehead Museum’s new special exhibition Bilbao Bound now on view at the Museum’s 170 Washington St. gallery through Dec. 24. For the full program and to register for the event, please log onto
bit.ly/3L2v6Hl (Remote attendees register at bit.ly/47gkNIu).

These offerings are part of an initiative to recover the history and legacies of New England’s Iberian ties bringing together the Marblehead Museum, the Itsasmuseum Bilbao, and the Salem State History Department and made possible by Iberdrola and Avangrid, the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the General Society of Colonial Wars, American Ancestors, the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, the España Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution and the Fundación Consejo España-
EE.UU, the Salem State University History Department, and generous private donations.