The Canary Islands & Early European Colonization

In 1402, ninety years before Columbus discovered the New World, the Spanish began colonizing the Canaries, an island chain less than 100 miles to the Northwest of Africa. Although it took the Spanish longer to conquer some of the islands than it did the rest, the last of the Guanches were defeated by 1495. Although the Norse had tried to colonize parts of Northwest Canada and Europe had tried several times to re-conquer the Holy Land from the Muslims, the Spanish conquest of the Canaries was the first major success that Europeans had at colonization. As such, it foreshadowed how the Spanish and others would colonize the New World.

The Spanish colonization of the Canaries was more successful than the Norse and Crusader expansion efforts for a number of reasons. First, although some of the Canary Islands did have hostile natives, they were not as big a threat as they were in the Holy Land or even Vinland. These natives had not had contact with outsiders for hundreds of years, so their technology was limited. Given the proximity of the islands to the European coast, however, it was easy for Europeans to ship armies of well-provisioned soldiers armed with firearms and cannons to the islands to combat the natives. This technological advantage made controlling the islands much easier than in previous expansion efforts.

The Canaries benefited from having a climate suitable for a cash crop, sugar cane. The money that could be made producing this sugar cane lured settlers to the islands and encouraged trade. Since the main problem with both failed expansion efforts had been a lack of people, this was a vital difference. It meant a steady stream of settlers and that the islands would maintain contact with the mainland.

Cash crops were also a vital component to the success of later European expansion, especially in South America and the Caribbean. Here, like in the Canaries, European colonial powers set up plantation economies using forced labor to produce crops that could be sold on the European mainland. Interestingly, sugar cane was the main crop in the Canary Islands as well as South America and the Caribbean.

Of course, the Spanish did not come in, set up plantations, and colonize the Canary Islands without disturbing the local population. Like the inhabitants of the New World, the inhabitants of the Canary Islands had no immunity to European diseases. Thus, many of them died of diseases that the Europeans accidentally brought with them. At the same time, the Canary islanders had no diseases with which the Europeans were familiar, as had been the case in the Holy Land. Thus, the Guanches died by the thousands from European diseases while the Spanish adjusted well to the Canary climate.