Iñigo Artieta

A Lekeitian historical figure of the 15th century, he was a sailor, soldier, shipowner and merchant.

Iñigo de Artieta was born in a wealthy merchant family from Lekeitio  town, also known as Arteyta. He was the son of Nicolás Ibáñez de Artieta.  Married to Marina de Arriaga, he had at least one son,  named Juan Nicolás de Artieta.

Between the years 1477 and 1498 his ships operated in the Mediterranean, commercially linking the Iberian Peninsula with the Balearic Islands, and these with the Italic Peninsula (Genoa, Pisa, Naples, Venice, Gaeta …) and Sicily. Among the items they carried there were groceries such as sardines, tuna, wheat and salt.

During these trips around the Mediterranean he also devoted himself to “corso” (Corsican) and captured several  ships. He also purchased fabrics and other items at the request of  Santa María de Lekeitio Church.

Piracy was a scourge for sea trade at the time. The middle ages sea campaign carried out by merchant ships – with  king issued license(Corsican patent)- in order  to pursue, visit and capture ships from countries against which the king was at war, was named “corso”  (Corsican). The “Corso” was born as a private overseas war in order to defend the trade ships from the pirates’ attacks.  However, many of the sailors who had a Corsican patent took the least opportunity to practice piracy. When a war conflict ended and the peace treaties were signed, all the “Corso” and piracy actions carried out at that time were forgiven and, consequently, they could not be claimed at court.

It is also known that Iñigo Artieta was one of those in charge of taking “Boabdil el Moro”back to Africa in 1492, after the fall of Granada.

More information (basque):

Iñaki Madariaga Valle http://lekitxozaharra.blogspot.com