After the conquest, a large part of the population of Gran Canaria was made up of black and mulatto slaves brought from the African continent, and in Lanzarote there were so many Moors that they populated almost the entire island. It was the ethnic and social reality of the archipelago in not so distant times.
This is indicated by Antonio M. López, promoter of the Tarha Project for research and dissemination of the ancient history of the Canary Islands, who points out in an interview with Efe that, as memory "is very weak, and Canarians are not free from this defect, it is advisable from time to time to go to documentary sources to find out what the ethnic and social reality of the archipelago was like."
In this regard, Antonio M. López specifies that in more than 600 years of documented history, the island way of life only underwent significant changes during the European conquest process; then, with the implementation of export crops; after the Industrial Revolution and, from the 1960s, with the arrival of mass tourism.
Slaves for arduous tasks
In the case of Gran Canaria, after the conquest, there were black and mulatto slaves brought from the African continent to be employed in the work of the sugar mills and the cultivation of sugar cane, among other arduous tasks, but who, after the death of their masters, were freed, probably by testamentary mandate "as was Christian custom among members of the wealthy classes."
A significant number of black people, from the slaves employed at that time in the towns of Ingenio and Agüimes, moved inland, to the Tirahana caldera, where they formed several neighborhood communities; one in the parish of the now tourist municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana.
This is testified in 1687 by the historian Tomás Marín de Cubas, who assures that from Guinea "blacks were brought for the mills and settled in Tirajana, and were freed by the death of their masters, where many live there today in the form of a town, and they are men of valor."
In 1607, according to the historian and priest Santiago Cazorla León, the marriage formed by the blacks Antón Pérez Cabeza and Juana
García abandoned Agüimes and settled in the Tirajana ravine, probably in the place later called the Negroes' ravine.
In Tunte, their descendants founded the brotherhood of San Sebastián and it is recorded that two centuries later, in 1817, the titular parish priest prevented them from taking the statue of their patron saint out in procession, "thus insulting their own," as the indignant members of the brotherhood denounced before the Cathedral Chapter.
Well into the 18th century, the historian Pedro Agustín del Castillo, father of the first Count of Vega Grande, speaks of Tirahana as a place of "416 residents, many blacks, who maintain their color as dark as if they came now from Guinea."
Such was the importance of the black population in Gran Canaria that the Franciscan José de Sosa testified that in 1677 a militia of blacks, mulattoes and Creoles had been formed for the defense of the island.
In any case, the demographic weight of these groups little favored by colonial society –blacks, mulattoes, Creoles and foreigners– was echoed by an investigation ordered by King Charles I of Castile in September 1536 in order to address the complaint of Governor Bernardino de Ledesma that there were more Berber and black slaves than residents on the island.
The Mahorero Moors
Antonio M. López also explains that, at the beginning of the 15th century, the seigniorial regime in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura undertook its expansion not only towards the rest of the archipelago, but also towards neighboring Berbería, from where they brought numerous slaves and camels.
These slave raids gave rise to conflicts between these lords and the tribes settled on the continental coast bordering the Canary Islands and who, in retaliation, besieged the seigniorial outpost in their territory, the tower of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña, and dared to cross the water and counterattack the islands within their reach.
Thus, the engineer Leonardo Torriani wrote that, around 1590, "many of the Moors were baptized and remained free" in Lanzarote "who, working and cultivating the land as neighbors and inhabitants, have increased so much that three quarters are all Moors."
Torriani was scandalized because the Canarian Moors used the expression "if God wills," undoubtedly a translation of the Muslim insh Allah, and which has been frequently used in the Canary Islands until very recently, continues the disseminator.
For the promoter of Proyecto Tarha, the cosmopolitan character of the Canary Islands, unlike that of large cities, is due "to the happy paradox that its own condition as small islands makes it difficult to form closed human groups, something undeniably positive and desirable," and also to the "lack of a sharp separation between the rural and urban environment."
However, the intense migratory flow of recent times, especially of people with greater purchasing power than the average Canarian and from large cities where anonymity and personal isolation prevail, makes "the necessary conversation and rest" difficult to achieve, as in the past, a real and effective integration and avoid the formation of "ghettos" on the islands, so López hopes that the traditional values of empathy, solidarity and hospitality will survive without diluting the rich Canarian cultural heritage.
