The Canary Islands originate 30 million years ago, when submarine cracks spewed out lava due to a braking of the continental plate. Since then the geography of the Canary Islands is the geography of its volcanoes, found spread over all its territory. They are hundreds, sometimes various craters make up a single volcano. In particular, in Tenerife, Teide (3,718 metres), in Lanzarote, the spectacular Timanfaya National Park (5,198 hectares) and in El Hierro, Los Lajiales.
Life has spawned itself on the lava in the form of vines which produce excellent clear wines, specially in La Geria (Lanzarote). Artists like Cesar Manrique have created constructions within the volcanoes, an example being Jameos del Agua, also in Lanzarote. Like the furrows of the earth, the footstep of life leaves its mark.
The Canary Islands have long been coveted by people from overseas. The first to conquer the islands of Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and El Hierro, were the Normans, Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de la Salle back in 1402. These islands were all submited by Bethencourt to Castillian rule, together with the island of El Hierro, aroun 1430. Yet, neither Bethencourt nor his successors were able to conquer either Gran Canaria. La Palma or Tenerife, the islands which would have made the whole venture an economic success.
It was not until some seventy years later that the Catholic Monarchs decided to complete the conquest. On the 24th June, 1478. Juan Rejón and his army disembarked in La Isleta on the island of Gran Canaria. They set up the military base of Real de Las Palmas, the site around which the modern city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has grown. Castille responded, in this way, to the threat represented by the Portuguese, who had been marauding along the African Coast up to the Gulf of Guinea and had revealed a certain unhealthy interest in the Canary Islands. Juan Rejón and his army put paid to the Portuguese pretensions and, in so doing, reclaimed part of the ancient Visigothic Kingdom for ints righful heir, the Kingdom of Castille.
The native canarios fought bravely to the end in 1483. Ten years later. La Palma also succumbed, without great resistance to Alonso Fernández de Lugo. Tenerife held out longer only falling, after a brave fight, in 1496.
Europe could now boast of a warm South in the islands. Sugar platations were set up in Gran Canaria and the first European businessmen established a healthy export business to the Continent. Canary wines, above all from the island of Tenerife, were shipped to England and the British colonies in the Indies throughout the 16th and 17th century, meeting with the enormous approval of great figures of the times, who were later to sing their praises, such as Shakespeare or Sir Walter Scott. Cochineal was also exported from the islands. The cochineal insect, which feeds on the nopal cactus, was vital to dyeing processes in the 19th century and therefore represented an important source of income until synthetic dyes became popular. The North suddenly found a whole store of exotic products to be enjoyed, the fruits of the vibrant and fertile islands in the South.
The South now famous for its bananas, tomatoes and a wide selection of tropical and sub-tropical fruits: famous also for its sun-drenched beaches visited by millions of tourist all year round, year in, year out. Tourists who never fail to be amazed by the wealth of different scenery to be enjoyed, by the beauty of the architecture and the rich treasure of folklore, arts and crafts all gilded with a magnificent blend of the best in European and Latin American tradition. And just as there are traces of Latin America in the Canary tradition, so the Canary islanders have also left their mark in the other Continent. The trade winds and warm currents did not only waft Columbus and three caravelles across the waters but also the first settlers of Montevideo, the first canary islanders to Cuba where they took root to produce the ethnic strain of "el guajiro" or to Louisiana where the Spanish spoken still echoes the gentle cadences of the Canary accent of the 18th century - and to Caracas, to such an extent that, even today, it is considered to be the second or third most important "Canary" city.
The were canary islanders in the legendary defence of El Alamo and many more continued to fight for independence, elsewhere in the Republic of South America and later, to forge the true Latin American character in the Arts, Politics, Law and other spheres of Public life.
The history of the Canary Islands is inextricable from the History of Europe and Latin America over the last five hundred years. The different was waged on the Continent all gradually spilled over into the Atlantic and no Canary Island was spared European naval attacks. Perhaps the most famous, or infamous, of these were the feats of the Dutch Admiral, Van der Does who destroyed the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1599 or Admiral Lord Nelson who lost his right arm in battle off the coast of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in July 1797.
Nowadays, these islands steeped in European tradition and spiced with Latin American exoticism continue to be coveted by adventurers from afar who come, not in search of new territories to conquer, but to find solace, a warm welcome, a refuge and to discover much, much more than the long stretches of sun-drenched beaches announced in all the tourism brochures.
