Lanzarote is believed to have been the first Canary Island to be settled. The
Phoenicians may have visited or settled there, though no material evidence survives. The first known record came from
Roman author
Pliny the Elder in the encyclopaedia
Naturalis Historia on an expedition to the Canary Islands. The names of the islands (then called
Insulae Fortunatae or the "Fortunate Isles") were recorded as
Junonia (
Fuerteventura),
Canaria (
Gran Canaria),
Ninguaria (
Tenerife),
Junonia Major (
La Palma),
Pluvialia (
El Hierro), and
Capraria (
La Gomera). Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the two easternmost Canary Islands, were only mentioned as the archipelago of the "purple islands". The Roman poet
Lucan and the Greek astronomer and geographer
Ptolemy gave their precise locations. It was settled by the Majos tribe of the
Guanches. After the
fall of the Western Roman Empire, interaction with the Canary Islands is unrecorded before 999, when the
Arabs arrived at the island which they dubbed
al-Djezir al-Khalida (among other names). In 1336, a ship arrived from
Lisbon under the guidance of Genoese navigator
Lancelotto Malocello, who used the alias "Lanzarote da Framqua". A fort was later built in the area of Montaña de Guanapay near today's Teguise. Castilian slaving expeditions in 1385 and 1393 seized hundreds of Guanches and sold them in Spain, initiating the slave trade in the islands. French explorer
Jean de Béthencourt arrived in 1402, heading a private expedition under Castilian auspices. Bethencourt first visited the south of Lanzarote at Playas de Papagayo, and the French overran the island within a matter of months. The island lacked mountains and gorges to serve as hideouts for the remaining Guanche population, and so many Guanches were taken away as slaves that only 300 Guanche men were said to have remained. At the southern end of the
Yaiza municipality, the first European settlement in the Canary Islands appeared in 1402 in the area known as
El Rubicón, where the conquest of the Archipelago began. In this place, the Cathedral of
Saint Martial of Limoges was built. The cathedral was destroyed by
English pirates in the 16th century. A diocese was moved in 1483 to
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (
Roman Catholic Diocese of Canarias). In 1586, the
Ottoman admiral
Murat Reis temporarily seized Lanzarote. In the 17th century, pirates raided the island and took 1,000 inhabitants into slavery in
Cueva de los Verdes. Lanzarote and
Fuerteventura would be the main exporters of wheat and cereals to the central islands of the archipelago during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries;
Tenerife and
Gran Canaria. Although this trade was almost never reversed for the inhabitants of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura (due to the fact that the landowners of these islands profited from this activity), producing periods of famine, so the population of these islands had to travel to Tenerife and Gran Canaria. The island of Tenerife is a major focus of attraction for the inhabitants of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, hence the feeling of union that has always existed in the popular sphere with Tenerife. The priest of Yaiza, Don Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo, documented the eruption in detail until 1731. Lava covered a quarter of the island's surface, including the most fertile soil and 11 villages. 100 smaller volcanoes were located in the area called
Montañas del Fuego, the "Mountains of Fire". In 1768, drought affected the deforested island, and winter rains did not fall. Much of the population was forced to emigrate to
Cuba and the
Americas, including a group which formed a significant addition to the Spanish settlers in
Texas at
San Antonio de Bexar in 1731. In 1927, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura became part of the province of
Las Palmas. Several archaeological expeditions have uncovered the prehistoric settlement at the archaeologic site of
El Bebedero in the village of
Teguise. In one of those expeditions, by a team from the
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and a team from the
University of Zaragoza, yielded about 100 Roman potsherds, nine pieces of metal, and one piece of glass. The artefacts were found in strata dated between the 1st and 4th centuries. They show that Romans did trade with the Canarians, though there is no evidence of settlements. The President of the
Cabildo of Lanzarote denied "any threat to Lanzarote's UNESCO status". ==Geography==