The oldest historical remains found in our district date back to the Lower Palaeolithic and were found in caves in the Montgrí massif. The prehistoric period is characterised by the establish of settlements in elevated places, because the plain of the Ter delta was then made up of marshes, ponds and flood zones. Neolithic settlements like La Fonollera or Puig Mascaró show this characteristic. In the Gavarres and L’Ardenya hills there are a large number of remains of dolmens, menhirs and various megalithic tombs which have survived since the Bronze Age.

The best-known civilisation from this period is that of the Iberians, which developed in part of the Peninsula from the 8th century BC onwards. The tribe or people who inhabited our lands were the Indiketes. Of the archaeological remains found to date, the Iberian town of Ullastret is particularly important for its impressive walls, its size and the discoveries made there. This civilisation was profoundly marked by the arrival in the 6th century BC of Greeks from Phoecia, who founded the town of Empúries; this commercial outpost traded Greek goods for the Iberians’ crops, leading the latter to adopt certain cultural details of the Phoecians. Very different was the contact with the Romans: the arrival of the imperial troops in the 3rd century BC heralded a profound and long-lasting change in all respects, the Iberians being totally absorbed into the empire’s administrative, economic and social system. The Indiketes’ hilltop villages gradually disappeared, to be replaced by a new system of agricultural production focused on villas, large houses dedicated to working the land with slave labour. Some examples of villas in our region are found in Pla de Palol in Platja d’Aro, Vilarenys (Vall-llobrega), and so on.

The crisis and decline of the Roman Empire caused the dismembering of all of the networks it had created. The area suffered the invasions and attacks of the so-called barbarians: in the 6th century, it was conquered by the Visigoths, who left little mark on it and were driven out by the Moors in the 8th century. But the Frankish king Charlemagne repulsed the Muslim advance, and the Baix Empordà came to form part of a no-man’s land called the Spanish March, designed to halt the attacks of the two sides. The territory was divided into a series of counties ruled over by feudal lords who swore allegiance to the Frankish throne. But by the 11th century these lords no longer pledged their loyalty to anyone. Much of the territory of the present-day Baix Empordà formed part of the county of Empúries. Its history tells of a succession of warmongering lords whose actions caused great suffering to their impoverished subjects.

The medieval period was especially intense in warfare, conquests and other politico-military events. The Count of Barcelona attained predominance over the rest and came to be recognised as the king, to whom the other feudal lords, like ours, swore allegiance as vassals. Behind King James I and the Count of Empúries, men from the Empordà embarked on the conquest of Mallorca (repopulated with people from the Empordanese coast) and Valencia, and then on the Mediterranean adventure that led to the conquest of Sardinia, Sicily, Naples and even Athens and Neopatria.

But the common people’s lives were hard, scourged not only by taxes but also by plagues and epidemics that caused many deaths, plus floods and other natural catastrophes, not to mention frequent coastal raids by corsairs and pirates from the 11th century onwards.

In 1486, King Ferdinand the Catholic decreed the Arbitrational Ruling of Guadalupe which annulled the so-called Mals Usos or ‘abuses’ and symbolically brought an end to feudalism. Nevertheless, unrest remained rife in the countryside and spilled over into a string of wars in the late 15th century.

In the 16th century the landowning peasants saw a certain economic recovery, the number of farmhouses increased and the population rose slightly. But the poor and landless peasants and some of the disfavoured rural nobility were dissatisfied with their lot and turned to banditry; two particularly famous bands were those led by the lord of Vulpellac and the lord of Castell d’Empordà and Sant Feliu de la Garriga.

The 17th century was rife with disasters, including more plagues and the Reapers’ War, all of which caused a severe drop in population which was partly offset by the arrival of Occitan refugees fleeing the French wars of religion. The various conflicts had led to the presence in the region of armies which represented an economic burden for the population, who could barely keep themselves alive. In 1689 the region was invaded by the French troops of Marshal Noialles, and in 1702 the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, terminating in 1714 with the victory of the Bourbon king Philip V and the loss of Catalonia’s liberties in the form of the Decree of Nueva Planta (‘new organisation’). The Baix Empordà came under the jurisdiction of Girona.

A certain period of peace in the 18th century favoured a recovery of the economy. Permission for the Catalans to trade with the Americas and the progressive disappearance of pirates led to the construction of large farmhouses, the drying of ponds and the laying of irrigation channels, and in the towns, trades were revived and with them the markets, and coastal towns began to spring up as harbours for exporting the local products across the Atlantic. But at the end of the 18th century the ‘Great War’ broke out between Spain and France (1793-95), followed some years later by the Napoleonic invasion and the sadly famous Peninsular War (1804-1814).

The mid-19th century brought another economic reactivation, accompanied by a cultural revival known as the ‘Catalan Renaissance,’ embracing republicans, democrats, nationalists, liberals, and all kinds of recreational and cultural associations. This movement was very active in the Empordà. The region’s first trade unions emerged in industries like the cork trade, and in general there was a great deal of activation of political life.

But this boom period was abruptly halted by the phylloxera epidemic which killed off most of the Empordanese vineyards in the last quarter of the 19th century, provoking a great economic and social disaster in the area and one of the biggest waves of Catalan emigration to the Americas. Some of these emigrants returned home with great fortunes in the early 20th century, becoming known as ‘indianos’ or ‘americanos’. Also in the early 20th century, the cork industry suffered serious setbacks and lost competitiveness in the markets, as did the coral trade, which came into competition with the powerful Italian market. Spain benefited somewhat from its neutrality in the First World War, but it had lost its colonies, its economy remained stagnant, and intense political and social unrest finally led to the Civil War (1936-39) and the rise to power of the dictator Francisco Franco. Like the rest of the country, the Baix Empordà suffered greatly from the disasters of the war and the massive emigration of republicans, mainly to France.

Under the dictatorship, the country remained impoverished until the middle of the 20th century, when a series of new measures stimulated a timid economic recovery. In the 1950’s tourists began to discover the region. The Costa Brava took advantage of the influx of foreign currencies and began an economic reactivation that is now plain to see. But as usual, the worst consequences were for the natural environment, due to rampant construction made possible by the lack of coherent town plans, which defaced many magnificent points of the coastline. Fortunately it now seems that with the arrival of political stability, and with the efforts of all concerned, this phenomenon has been halted, and there still remain many beautiful and authentic spots to enjoy.