Culture and History of Tenerife

Tenerife’s original inhabitants were rather primitive cave-dwellers called the Guanches. They arrived from North Africa around 200 BC and let a simple live even compared to stone-age times until the Spanish arrived.

In 1496 Tenerife was the last of the Canary Islands to be conquered by the Spanish, marking the end of the Conquista on the archipelago.

But the Guanches fought a brave fight. Before they complied, there were numerous battles. The Battle of Acentejo, for instance - in spanish: La Mantanza de Acentejo – after which the city La Mantanza inTenerife's north is named. This battle was also the only one in which the indigenous people of Tenerife, the Guanches, managed to defeat the spanish army. A success they couldn’t repeat in the Battle of La Victoria de Acentejo, which also gave name to the city La Victoria.

In this brutal battle many Guanches were killed and those who weren’t were sold or sent into slavery. After the conquest, and in the following century, there was a mass movement of colonization and repopulation with the arrival of immigrants from the territories of the Spanish Empire. The natives, who complied with the Spanish, started working on the sugar cane plantations. Over the following decades all this led to a multicultural, colonial society.

Among the Canaries, Tenerife was the island most populated, by the middle of 16th century. 10.000 people were living on the island, a quarter of which were descendants of the Guanches.

Back then the most important harbor of the island was in Garachico. Unfortunatly it was the one most hit by desasters as well. In 1645 a storm flood destroyed a great part of it and killed 80 people. Half a century later the town of Garachico almost burned to its grounds in a devastating fire. But the final end was the eruption of the Vólcan de Garanchico, which buried the whole city under streams of lava. The surviving tradesmen moved to Puerto de la Cruz and started over here. Today, three centuries later, a new harbour is being built in Garachico, but still storm and floods inhibit the constructions. Still the village is considered one of the most beautiful places in Tenerife, with its old buildings that magically survived the eruption of the Montaña Negra.

In the 19th century the Canaries were declared a Spanish province, its sole capital being Santa Cruz de Tenerife. This changed in 1927 when the archipelago was divided into two provinces, with two capitals: Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.

In the 21th century two places on the island were named UNESCO World Heritage. First was, in 2004 the city of San Cristobal de la Laguna, which is named after its founder Alonso Fernandez de Lugo and home to the only University of Tenerife. Second was Spain’s largest mountain – the Teide and the surrounding area, which became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007.