Ancient and pre-Hispanic times of a woman (830 AD).
Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre,
Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Before the arrival of humans, the Canaries were inhabited by prehistoric animals including the giant lizard (
Gallotia goliath), the
Tenerife and
Gran Canaria giant rats, and giant tortoises,
Geochelone burchardi and
Geochelone vulcanica. Although the original settlement of what are now called the Canary Islands is not entirely clear, linguistic, genetic, and archaeological analyses indicate that
indigenous peoples were living on the Canary Islands at least 2,000 years ago, possibly 3,000, and that they shared a common origin with the
Amazighs on the nearby North African coast. Reaching the islands may have taken place using several small boats, landing on the easternmost islands Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. These groups came to be known collectively as the
Guanches, although
Guanches had been the name for only the indigenous inhabitants of Tenerife. According to a 2024 study by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, there is archaeological evidence that the Romans were the first to establish contact with the islands, during the period from the 1st century
BCE to the 1st century CE. There was no overlap with the occupation by the people who were inhabiting the islands at the time of the Spanish conquest, who had first arrived sometime between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. As José Farrujia describes, "The indigenous Canarians lived mainly in natural caves, usually near the coast, above sea level. These caves were sometimes isolated but more commonly formed settlements, with burial caves nearby". Archaeological work has uncovered a rich culture visible through artefacts of
ceramics, human figures, fishing, hunting and farming tools, plant fibre clothing and vessels, as well as cave paintings. At Lomo de los Gatos on Gran Canaria, a site occupied from 1,600 years ago up until the 1960s, round stone houses, complex burial sites, and associated artefacts have been found. Across the islands are thousands of
Libyco-Berber alphabet inscriptions that have been extensively documented by many linguists. The social structure of indigenous Canarians encompassed "a system of
matrilineal descent in most of the islands, in which inheritance was passed on via the female line. Social status and wealth were hereditary and determined the individual's position in the social pyramid, which consisted of the king, the relatives of the king, the lower nobility, villeins, plebeians, and finally executioners, butchers, embalmers, and prisoners". Their religion was
animist, centring on the sun and moon, as well as natural features such as mountains. Juba dispatched a naval contingent to re-open the dye production facility at
Mogador in what is now western Morocco in the early first century
AD. That same naval force was subsequently sent on an exploration of the Canary Islands, using Mogador as their mission base. The names given by Romans to the individual islands were
Ninguaria or
Nivaria (Tenerife),
Canaria (Gran Canaria),
Pluvialia or
Invale (Lanzarote),
Ombrion (La Palma),
Planasia (Fuerteventura),
Iunonia or
Junonia (El Hierro) and
Capraria (La Gomera). From the 14th century onward, numerous visits were made by sailors from
Mallorca,
Portugal, and
Genoa.
Lancelotto Malocello settled on Lanzarote in 1312. The Mallorcans established a
mission with a bishop in the islands that lasted from 1350 to 1400.
Castilian conquest settlement of Tenerife In 1402, the Castilian colonisation of the islands began with the expedition of the French explorers
Jean de Béthencourt and
Gadifer de la Salle, nobles and
vassals of
Henry III of Castile, to Lanzarote. From there, they went on to conquer Fuerteventura (1405) and El Hierro. These invasions were "brutal cultural and military clashes between the indigenous population and the Castilians" lasting over a century due to formidable resistance by indigenous Canarians. Béthencourt received the title King of the Canary Islands, but still recognised King Henry III as his overlord. It was not a simple military enterprise, given the aboriginal resistance on some islands. Neither was it politically, since the particular interests of the nobility (determined to strengthen their economic and political power through the acquisition of the islands) conflicted with those of the states, particularly Castile, which were in the midst of territorial expansion and in a process of strengthening of the crown against the nobility. presenting the captured native Guanche kings of
Tenerife to the
Catholic Monarchs Historians distinguish two periods in the conquest of the Canary Islands:
Aristocratic conquest (): This refers to the early conquests carried out by the nobility, for their own benefit and without the direct participation of the Crown of Castile, which merely granted rights of conquest in exchange for pacts of vassalage between the noble conqueror and the Crown. One can identify within this period an early phase known as the Betancurian or Norman conquest, carried out by
Jean de Bethencourt (who was originally from Normandy) and
Gadifer de la Salle between 1402 and 1405, which involved the islands of
Lanzarote,
El Hierro, and
Fuerteventura. The subsequent phase is known as the Castilian conquest, carried out by Castilian nobles who acquired, through purchases, assignments and marriages, the previously conquered islands and also incorporated the island of
La Gomera around 1450.
Royal conquest (): This defines the conquest between 1478 and 1496, carried out directly by the Crown of Castile, during the reign of the
Catholic Monarchs, who armed and partly financed the conquest of those islands which were still unconquered:
Gran Canaria,
La Palma and
Tenerife. This phase of the conquest came to an end in the year 1496, with the dominion of the island of Tenerife, bringing the entire Canarian Archipelago under the control of the Crown of Castile. Béthencourt also established a base on the island of La Gomera, but it would be many years before the island was fully conquered. The natives of La Gomera, and of Gran Canaria, Tenerife, and La Palma, resisted the Castilian invaders for almost a century. In 1448, Maciot de Béthencourt sold the lordship of Lanzarote to Portugal's Prince
Henry the Navigator, an action that was accepted by neither the natives nor the Castilians. Despite
Pope Nicholas V ruling that the Canary Islands were under Portuguese control, the crisis swelled to a revolt which lasted until 1459 with the final expulsion of the Portuguese. In 1479, Portugal and Castile signed the
Treaty of Alcáçovas, which settled disputes between Castile and Portugal over the control of the Atlantic. This treaty recognized Castilian control of the Canary Islands but also confirmed Portuguese possession of the
Azores,
Madeira, and the
Cape Verde islands, and gave the Portuguese rights to any further islands or lands in the Atlantic that might be discovered. The Castilians continued to dominate the islands, but due to the topography and the resistance of the native Guanches, they did not achieve complete control until 1496, when Tenerife and La Palma were finally subdued by
Alonso Fernández de Lugo. As a result of this "the native pre-Hispanic population declined quickly due to war, epidemics, and slavery". The Canaries were incorporated into the
Kingdom of Castile.
After the conquest and the introduction of slavery during his voyage to
New Holland in 1699 After the conquest, the Castilians imposed a new economic model, based on single-crop cultivation: first
sugarcane; then wine, an important item of trade with
England. Gran Canaria was conquered by the
Crown of Castile on 6 March 1480, and Tenerife was conquered in 1496, and each had its own governor. There has been speculation that the abundance of
Roccella tinctoria on the Canary Islands offered a profit motive for
Jean de Béthencourt during his conquest of the islands. Lichen has been used for centuries to make dyes. This includes royal purple colors derived from
R. tinctoria, also known as orseille. of
El Hierro by Leonardo Torriani, 1592 during the
Anglo-Spanish War, 1657 in order to sell into enforced labour The objective of the Spanish Crown to convert the islands into a powerhouse of cultivation required a much larger labour force. This was attained through a practice of enslavement, not only of indigenous Canarians, but large numbers of Africans who were taken from North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Whilst the first slave plantations in the Atlantic region were across
Madeira,
Cape Verde, and the Canary Islands, it was only the Canary Islands which had an indigenous population and were therefore invaded rather than newly occupied. Because this agriculture industry was largely based on sugarcane, the Castilians converted large swaths of the landscape for sugarcane production and the processing and manufacturing of sugar, largely enabled by slave labour. The cities of
Santa Cruz de Tenerife and
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria became a stopping point for the Spanish traders, as well as
conquistadors, and missionaries on their way to the
New World. This trade route brought great wealth to the Castilian social sectors of the islands and soon were attracting merchants and adventurers from all over Europe. As wealth increased, enslaved Africans were also forced into more domestic roles for the richer Castilians on the islands. Research on the skeletons of some of the enslaved from the burial site of Finca Clavijo on Gran Canaria has shown that "all of the adults buried in Finca Clavijo undertook extensive physical activity that involved significant stress on the spine and appendicular skeleton", a result of relentless hard labour, akin to the physical abnormalities found within other enslaved groups from sugarcane plantations around the world. Another noteworthy attack occurred in 1797, when
Santa Cruz de Tenerife was attacked by a British fleet under
Horatio Nelson on 25 July. The British were repulsed, losing almost 400 men. It was during this battle that Nelson lost his right arm. Apart from the passage of
Christopher Columbus, the Canary Islands were the site of some of the most important fleets in Western history. Such as the fleet of the
Virginia Company in 1606, which marked the foundation of
Fort Jamestown -the first permanent English settlement in what is now the
United States- and the passage of the
First Fleet through Tenerife, which marked the first European settlement in
Australia in
Botany Bay.
18th to 19th century (1678–1741),
corsair and
merchant from Tenerife who participated in the
Spanish treasure fleet, the Spanish-American trade route The sugar-based economy of the islands faced stiff competition from Spain's
Caribbean colonies. Low sugar prices in the 19th century caused severe recessions on the islands. A new cash crop,
cochineal (
cochinilla), came into cultivation during this time, reinvigorating the islands' economy. During this time the Canarian-American trade was developed, in which Canarian products such as cochineal, sugarcane and rum were sold in American ports such as
Veracruz,
Campeche,
La Guaira and
Havana, among others. By the end of the 18th century, Canary Islanders had already emigrated to Spanish American territories, such as
Havana,
Veracruz, and
Santo Domingo,
San Antonio, Texas and
St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. These economic difficulties spurred mass emigration during the 19th and first half of the 20th century, primarily to the Americas. Between 1840 and 1890 as many as 40,000 Canary Islanders emigrated to
Venezuela. Also, thousands of Canarians moved to
Puerto Rico where the Spanish monarchy felt that Canarians would adapt to island life better than other immigrants from the mainland of Spain. Deeply entrenched traditions, such as the Mascaras Festival in the town of
Hatillo, Puerto Rico, are an example of Canarian culture still preserved in Puerto Rico. Similarly, many thousands of Canarians emigrated to the shores of
Cuba. During the
Spanish–American War of 1898, the Spanish fortified the islands against a possible American attack, but no such event took place.
Romantic period and scientific expeditions , Tenerife, by
Alfred Diston, 1827 Sirera and Renn (2004) distinguish two different types of expeditions, or voyages, during the period 1770–1830, which they term "the Romantic period": First are "expeditions financed by the States, closely related with the official scientific Institutions. characterised by having strict scientific objectives (and inspired by) the spirit of Illustration and progress". In this type of expedition, Sirera and Renn include the following travellers: • J. Edens, whose 1715 ascent and observations of Mt. Teide influenced many subsequent expeditions. •
Louis Feuillée (1724), who was sent to measure the meridian of El Hierro and to map the islands. •
Jean-Charles de Borda (1771, 1776) who more accurately measured the longitudes of the islands and the height of Mount Teide • the
Baudin-Ledru expedition (1796) which aimed to recover a valuable collection of natural history objects. The second type of expedition identified by Sirera and Renn is one that took place starting from more or less private initiatives. Among these, the key exponents were the following: •
Alexander von Humboldt (1799) •
Buch and
Smith (1815) •
Broussonet •
Webb •
Sabin Berthelot. Sirera and Renn identify the period 1770–1830 as one in which "In a panorama dominated until that moment by France and England enters with strength and brio Germany of the Romantic period whose presence in the islands will increase".
Early 20th century in 1912 At the beginning of the 20th century, the British introduced a new
cash-crop, the
banana, the export of which was controlled by companies such as
Fyffes. 30 November 1833 the
Province of Canary Islands had been created with the capital being declared as Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The rivalry between the cities of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife for the capital of the islands led to the division of the
archipelago into two provinces on 23 September 1927. During the time of the
Second Spanish Republic,
Marxist and
anarchist workers' movements began to develop, led by figures such as Jose Miguel Perez and
Guillermo Ascanio. However, outside of a few municipalities, these organisations were a minority and fell easily to Nationalist forces during the
Spanish Civil War.
Franco regime In 1936,
Francisco Franco was appointed General Commandant of the Canaries. He joined the military revolt of 17 July which began the
Spanish Civil War. Franco quickly took control of the archipelago, except for a few points of resistance on La Palma and in the town of
Vallehermoso, on La Gomera. Though there was never a war in the islands, the post-war suppression of political dissent on the Canaries was most severe. During the Second World War,
Winston Churchill prepared plans for the British seizure of the Canary Islands as a
naval base, in the event of
Gibraltar being invaded from the Spanish mainland. The planned operation was known as
Operation Pilgrim. Opposition to Franco's regime did not begin to organise until the late 1950s, which experienced an upheaval of parties such as the
Communist Party of Spain and the formation of various nationalist, leftist parties. During the
Ifni War, the Franco regime set up
concentration camps on the islands to
extrajudicially imprison those in Western Sahara suspected of disloyalty to Spain, many of whom were colonial troops recruited on the spot but were later deemed to be potential
fifth columnists and deported to the Canary Islands. These camps were characterised by the use of forced labour for infrastructure projects and highly unsanitary conditions resulting in the widespread occurrence of
tuberculosis.
Self-governance by
Santiago Calatrava, and an icon of contemporary architecture in the Canary Islands, (
Santa Cruz de Tenerife) (as of 2018) After the death of Franco, there was a pro-independence armed movement based in
Algeria, the
Movement for the Independence and Self-determination of the Canaries Archipelago (MAIAC). In 1968, the
Organisation of African Unity recognized the MAIAC as a legitimate
African independence movement, and declared the Canary Islands as an African territory still under foreign rule. == Islands ==