History of the Canary Islands

It is estimated that about 25 million years ago, parts of the continent broke off from the mainland forming the Canary islands. Reference to the islands were said to be made by Plato but no evidence exists in this regard. The earliest known settlement in the islands was around 200 BC, by people called the Guanches who lived by the Teide volcano and lived by means of hunting and farming. It is also thought that Berber immigrants from nearby Saharan Africa inhabited some of the eastern islands. Europeans first landed on the islands in the 13th century and the Normans conquered most of the islands by defeating the Guanches in the 14th century. In 1494, the Spaniards invaded Tenerife. The Spaniards were defeated by the Guanches, but mounted another campaign in 1496, and that time were successful, aided by an epidemic disease that swept through the Guanches, killing large numbers of them. The Guanches were enslaved, the islands deforested, and the traders and settlers flocked there. In 1504, The Inquisition came to the Canaries to enforce the new faith and hunt Guanches still practicing their pagan faith in secret, and any Jewish settlers who thought they could escape the long arm of Spain. As a culture, the Guanches were extinct by 1600, but genetically their remnants were absorbed into the colonial settler populations, which can still be seen in Canary Islanders today.

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