The Canary Islands (Spanish Islas Canarias (28° 06′N, 15° 24′W) are an African archipelago of the Kingdom of Spain consisting of seven islands of volcanic origin in the Atlantic Ocean. They are located off the north-western coast of mainland Africa (Morocco and the Western Sahara). They form an autonomous community of Spain. The Canary Islands were formed by the Canary hotspot.

Etymology

The islands’ name is likely derived from the Latin term Insula Canaria, meaning Island of the Dogs, a name applied originally only to the island of Gran Canaria. It is thought that the dense population of an endemic breed of large and fierce dogs, like the Presa Canario, was the characteristic that most struck the few ancient Romans who established contact with the islands by the sea.

History

Pre-colonial times

When the Europeans began to explore the islands they encountered several indigenous populations living at a Neolithic level of technology. Although the history of the settlement of the Canary Islands is still unclear, linguistic and genetic analyses seem to indicate that at least some of these inhabitants shared a common origin with the Berbers of northern Africa. The pre-colonial inhabitants came to be known collectively as the Guanches, although Guanches was originally the name for the indigenous inhabitants of Tenerife.

The islands were known to the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans, and are mentioned in a number of classical sources. For example, Pliny the Elder describes a Carthaginian expedition to the Canaries, and they may have been the Fortunate Isles of other classical writers. Although largely forgotten in the Western world until their rediscovery, they may have been visited occasionally by Arab and Mediterranean travelers in the Middle Ages.

Spanish conquest

In 1402, the Spanish conquest of the islands began, with the expedition of Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle, nobles and vassals of Henry III of Castile, to the island of Lanzarote. From there, they conquered Fuerteventura and Hierro. Béthencourt received the title King of the Canary Islands, but still recognized King Henry III as his overlord.

Béthencourt also established a base on the island of La Gomera, but it would be many years before the island was truly conquered. The people of La Gomera, as well as the inhabitants of Gran Canaria, Tenerife, and La Palma, resisted the Spanish 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 not accepted by the natives nor by the Castilian residents of the island. A crisis swelled to a revolt which lasted until 1459 with the final expulsion of the Portuguese. Finally, in 1479, Portugal recognised Castilian control of the Canary Islands in the Treaty of Alcaçovas.

The Spanish continued to dominate the islands, but due to the topography and the resistance of the native Guanches, the absolute pacification was not completed until 1495, when the conquest of Tenerife and La Palma was completed by Alonso Fernández de Lugo, after which the Canaries were incorporated into the Castilian kingdom.

After the conquest

After the conquest, the Spanish imposed a new economic model based on single-crop cultivation—first sugar cane; then wine, an important item of trade with England. In this era, the first institutions of colonial government were founded. Both Gran Canaria, since 6 March 1480 a colony of Castile (from 1556 of Spain), and Tenerife, a Spanish colony since 1495, had separate governors.

The towns of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife became a stopping point for the Spanish conquerors, traders, and missionaries on their way to the New World. This trade route brought great prosperity to some of the social sectors of the islands. The islands became quite wealthy and soon were attracting merchants and adventurers from all over Europe. Magnificent palaces and churches were built on the island of La Palma during this busy, prosperous period. The Church of El Salvador survives as one of the island’s finest examples of the architecture of the 1500s.

The Canaries’ wealth invited frequent attacks by pirates and privateers. Ottoman-Turkish admiral and privateer Kemal Reis had ventured into the Canary Islands in 1501, while the fleet of Murat Reis the Elder had captured Lanzarote in 1585. The most significant attack took place in 1599, when the Dutch commander Johan Van der Does attacked the capital Real de Las Palmas with 74 ships, 12,000 men (the city had 3,500 of the island of Gran Canaria’s 8,545 inhabitants), and 150 landing craft. They attacked the Castillo de la Luz, which gave itself up when the city was evacuated. The Canary cavalry pushed the invaders back to the zone of Tamaraceite, and the Dutch then besieged the city, demanding the delivery of all its wealth. They received 12 sheep and 3 calves. Furious, the pirate sent 4,000 soldiers to the meeting of the Canaries, which had sheltered in Santa Brígida. 300 Canary soldiers ambushed the Dutch in Monte Lentiscal, forcing them into retreat and killing 150 of them. The Dutch returned to Las Palmas, attempting to burn it down. The Dutch invaders continued to attack and pillage Maspalomas, San Sebastian of La Gomera, and Santa Cruz de La Palma. This attack occurred during the time when the Dutch were fighting to achieve independence from Spanish rule of the Netherlands.

Another noteworthy attack occurred at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which was attacked by Horatio Nelson (then Rear Admiral of the Blue) on 25 July 1797. Nelson was shot in the right arm with a musketball, fracturing his humerus bone in multiple places. Since medical science of the day counselled amputation for almost all serious limb wounds (to prevent death by gangrene), Nelson lost almost his entire right arm and was unfit for duty until mid-December. This vain attempt to conquer the largest of the seven Canary Islands cost the British almost 400 men, and it was their last attempt.

Eighteenth to nineteenth centuries

Because of the crises of single-crop cultivation in the eighteenth century and onward, Spain’s American colonies in the nineteenth century caused severe recessions on the islands. A new cash crop, cochineal (cochinilla), came into cultivation during this time, saving the island’s economy.

Owing to economic crises in the archipelago, a series of emigrations, primarily for the Americas, took place during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. From 1840 to 1890, as many as 40,000 Canary Islanders emigrated to Venezuela alone. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Spanish feared an American assault upon the islands, so fortified them; the assault never came.

Early twentieth century

At the beginning of the 20th century, the English introduced a new cash-crop, the banana, the export of which was controlled by companies such as Fyffes.

The rivalry between the elites of the cities of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife for the capital of the islands would lead to the division of the archipelago into two provinces in 1927, though this has not laid to rest the rivalry between the two cities, which continues to this day.

During the time of the Second Spanish Republic, workers’ movements with marxist and anarchist ideologies began to develop, led by figures such as Jose Miguel Perez and Guillermo Ascanio. However, outside of a few municipalities, these organizations were a minority.

Franco regime

In 1936, Francisco Franco travelled to the Canaries as General Commandant. From the Canaries, he launched the military uprising of July 17. He quickly took control of the archipelago, with the exception of a few focal points of resistance on the island of La Palma and in the town of Vallehermoso, on Gomera island. Despite the fact that there was never a proper war in the islands, they were one of the places where the post-war repression 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.

Opposition to Franco’s regime did not begin to organize 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.

Today

After the death of Franco there was a pro-independence armed movement based in Algeria, the MPAIAC. Now there are some pro-independence political parties, like the CNC and the Popular Front of the Canary Islands but none of them openly calls for an armed struggle.

Following the end of the dictatorship and the installation of a democratic constitutional monarchy, a bill of autonomy was put forth for the Canaries which was approved in 1982. In 1983, the first autonomous elections were held, and were won by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). The current ruling parties are the nationalist Canarian Coalition and the conservative Partido Popular (PP), in spite of socialist victory in the 2007 autonomous elections.

Political geography

The Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands consists of two provinces, Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, whose capitals (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife) are co-capitals of the autonomous community. Each of the seven major islands is ruled by an island council named cabildo insular.

The international boundary of the Canaries is the subject of dispute between Spain and Morocco. Morocco does not agree that the laws regarding territorial limits allow Spain to claim for itself sea-bed boundaries based on the territory of the Canaries, because the Canary Islands are autonomous. In fact, the islands do not enjoy any special degree of autonomy as each one of the Spanish regions is considered an autonomous community. Under the Law of the Sea, the only islands not granted territorial waters or an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are those that are not fit for human habitation or do not have an economic life of their own, which is clearly not the case of the Canary Islands.

The boundary is relevant for possible seabed oil deposits and other ocean resource exploitation. Morocco therefore does not formally agree to the territorial boundary; it rejected a 2002 unilateral Spanish proposal.

The Islands have 13 seats in the Spanish Senate. Of these, 11 seats are directly elected, 3 for Gran Canaria, 3 for Tenerife, 1 for each other island; 2 seats are indirectly elected by the regional Autonomous Government.

Economy

The economy is based primarily on tourism, which makes up 32% of the GDP. The Canaries receive about 10 million tourists per year. Construction makes up nearly 20% of the GDP and tropical agriculture, primarily bananas and tobacco, are grown for export to Europe and the Americas. Ecologists are concerned that the resources, especially in the more arid islands, are being overexploited but there are still many agricultural resources like tomatoes, potatoes, onions, cochineal, sugarcane, grapes, vines, dates, oranges, lemons, figs, wheat, barley, corn, apricots, peaches and almonds.

The economy is € 25 billion (2001 GDP figures). The islands experienced continuous growth during a 20 year period, up until 2001, at a rate of approximately 5% annually. This growth was fueled mainly by huge amounts of Foreign Direct Investment, mostly to develop tourism real estate (hotels and apartments), and European Funds (near 11 billion euro in the period from 2000 to 2007), since the Canary Islands are labelled Region Objective 1 (eligible for euro structural funds). Additionally, the EU allows the Canary Island’s government to offer special tax concessions for investors who incorporate under the as Zona Especial Canaria (ZEC) regime and create more than 5 jobs.

The combination of high mountains, proximity to Europe, and clean air has made the Roque de los Muchachos peak (on La Palma island) a leading location for telescopes like the Grantecan.

The islands are outside the European Union customs territory and VAT area, though politically within the EU. Instead of VAT there is a local Sales Tax (IGIC) which has a general rate of 5%, an increased tax rate of 12%, a reduced tax rate of 2% and a zero tax rate for certain basic need products and services (eg telecommunications). The ISO 3166-1 α-2 code IC is reserved for representing them in customs affairs. Goods subject to Spanish customs and excise duties and Value Added Tax (VAT), such as tobacco or electronic goods, are therefore significantly cheaper in the Canaries. Spanish magazines usually have a similar or higher price than in the peninsula since VAT is substituted with air transport costs. The islands’ country calling code is (+34) and the Internet country code is the same as Spain’s (.es). The currency is the euro.

Canarian time is Western European Time (WET) (or GMT; in summer one hour ahead of GMT). So Canarian time is one hour behind that of mainland Spain and the same as that of the UK, Portugal and Ireland all year round.

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