History of the Canary Islands

While we’re making our way to San Telmo Park, let me tell you about the history of the Canary Islands. These islands have been inhabited since the 6th or 5th century BC by the Guanches, descendants of the Berber peoples from North Africa. Back then, the Canary Islands were largely unknown to the rest of the world, so they stayed off the radar throughout antiquity. The Guanches lived here in isolation for centuries, surviving on barley farming, goat herding, hunting and fishing. They had their own language, their own traditions, and followed neither Christianity nor Islam. But all that started to change in the 14th century. In 1312, a Genoese sailor named Lancelotto Malocello landed on one of the islands—Lanzarote, which is named after him. It wasn’t so much a discovery as a rediscovery, since the islands were vaguely known before, but had more or less been forgotten. After that, things took a darker turn. The Guanche people, seen as “savages” by European standards of the time, began to be captured and taken to Europe and North Africa as slaves. In the early 1400s, the French explorer Jean de Béthencourt arrived and was named King of the Canaries by the King of Castile. Despite that title, Béthencourt only managed to establish control over three islands—Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and El Hierro. The remaining four were still home to the Guanches, who fiercely resisted European rule and the push for Christian conversion. For decades, Spain and Portugal battled for control of the islands, trying to take over one after the other. Gran Canaria fell in 1483, followed by La Palma in 1493, and finally Tenerife in 1496, after a long and bloody resistance. In the middle of all this, in 1492, Christopher Columbus stopped off in Las Palmas for a short stay before setting off on his historic voyage to the Americas. Sadly, the conquest of the Canaries was brutal. Many Guanches were killed, others were enslaved, and some were forced to convert to Christianity. Over time, their culture was almost entirely erased. In the centuries that followed, the islands became an important hub in the Atlantic slave trade. Sugar cane was cultivated here and shipped to the Americas, colonial buildings sprang up, and the Canary Islands became a key stopover point between Europe, Africa and the New World. European traders would head to Africa with goods, exchange them for slaves, take those slaves to the Americas, then return to Europe with products like sugar, cotton and coffee—a vicious cycle that caused immense human suffering. For over 300 years, ships from across Europe passed through the Canaries, making the islands a crossroads of global trade. In the 19th century, the region began opening up economically and politically, and tourism started taking off. In 1982, the Canaries became an autonomous community within Spain, and they joined the European Union ten years later. Today, with more than 2 million inhabitants, the Canary Islands still carry traces of their Guanche heritage, mixed with Spanish influences, giving them a unique cultural identity. It’s a long and complex history—but one that’s left behind a rich legacy that continues to fascinate visitors from around the world.