Short History of Gran Canaria

There is a lot of myth and legend about the early history of the Canary Islands and some even believed them to be the lost land of Atlantis. Others consider them to have been the site of the magical, mystical Fortunate Islands, the blissful paradise of both Celtic and Greek mythology.

It is believed that Gran Canaria was already populated at around 500 B.C., although there are several theories for the origins of its early inhabitants. But what seems to be confirmed is that Gran Canaria’s natives, widely known as Guanches although Canarios is actually the correct historical term, originally came from North Africa and that they were descendants of the Berber people. The Guanches lived very primitively – as the unsophisticated tools and weapons found on the island bear witness to – mostly in caves and under rock spurs. Their most civilised achievement were earthenware modelled without a potter’s wheel.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe forgot about the Canary Islands for almost 1000 years and until the rediscovery of the Canaries by Mediterranean sailors in the early 14^th century, the 30,000 Guanches on the island of Gran Canaria lived a relatively peaceful life. This then changed drastically, as throughout the 14^th century the Italians, Portuguese and Catalans sent their ships to the islands to bring back slaves and furs to their countries. At the beginning of the 15^th century, the rapid process of the conquest of the islands began.

In Gran Canaria, the Guanches fiercely resisted the Spanish invasion but by 1483 Pedro de Vera had completed the conquest, which Juan Réjon began five years earlier. Many Guanches were killed or committed suicide rather than surrender to the Spanish. Those who survived were forced into slavery and to convert to Christianity, and soon started to die out.

Contacts with the New World (because of the high emigration to Latin America due to collapses of local industries), where Cuba had won freedom from Spain in 1898, led to calls for Canarian independence but most people simply wanted the division of the archipelago into two separate provinces (Gran Canaria and Tenerife), which eventually came about in 1927.

Going back in time to the year 1912, the Island Council’s Law was brought into force, which led to a number of infrastructure projects such as the airport, reservoirs and the principal motorway network of the island, laying the foundation stone for the development of the tourism industry. Another key date in the history of the Canary Islands is 1982, when the Autonomous Government Statutes were passed.