An agricultural landscape with a history
The Ensenada Land Registry—carried out between 1749 and 1759 as part of the investigation which took place in the territories of the Crown of Castile to find out about, register and value the property, income and liabilities of the inhabitants and settlements for the preparation of a new fiscal system- provides important data which are the source of information for researching the economic, social and legal bases of Castilian society under the Old Regime. The data from the “General Response” in the Registry show that the population of the municipalities of Fuenlabrada, Getafe and Leganés (near Madrid) in the middle of the 18th century, were clearly rural and of a marked peri-urban character, which was conditioned by the capital of the Kingdom of Spain. Agriculture was then the dominating force compared with other sectors, and furthermore most other jobs were involved with the transforming and commercialising of farm products (bakers, straw-vendors, weavers, peddlers, wheat and flour merchants and winemakers).