At Sea
Our last day at sea bound for Las Palmas, seat of the regional government of the Canary Islands, the last of the sequence of volcanic islands along the Atlantic Ridge that we shall visit and the first that is, politically, part of Europe. Having started in the Americas, sailing from Ushuaia in Argentina to the Falkland Islands, we crossed the Antarctic Convergence to visit South Georgia. Then we made our way along the spine of the Atlantic Ridge visiting Tristan da Cunha, St Helena and Ascension Island - remnants of Britain's colonial past, variously described by wistful travel writers as "the last pink bits" or "the tea-time islands" - to arrive in Africa, at the Cape Verde Islands. Three more days at sea and we have arrived in Europe, for the Canary Islands are part of Spain and therefore part of the flourishing European Union.
But how European are the Canary Islands? Like the Cape Verde archipelago, these islands lie off the coast of Africa. Of all the islands we have visited in this 7,600 mile voyage, these were the only ones to have been inhabited before the arrival of the Europeans at the beginning of the fifteenth century. And thereby hangs a tale. The aboriginal inhabitants of these islands were the Guanche, a people of Berber origin who made the short sea crossing many centuries before the arrival of the first Europeans. The Canary Islands thus had a settled African population well before slaves were brought over to the Cape Verde Islands to be "seasoned". The Canary Islands were claimed early by Spain, an important first step in a westward expansion that saw the Spanish masters of the New World - and beneficiary of Potosi silver - by the sixteenth century. The Guanche worked as slaves on the Canaries, building roads and agricultural terraces, eventually dying out through disease, exploitation or assimilation, the latter less visible in the Cape Verde islands as the Berber are a fair-skinned people. During the time of General Franco, the Canary Islands were a hotbed of opposition to the fascist state. A movement for regional autonomy arose, with independistas stressing their distinctive origins against a Spanish narrative of an autentico ser, the racial and religious purity that Spain had celebrated since the expulsion of the Moors and the Jews in 1492. Yet when the local museum service proposed an exhibit on the Canary Islands' African roots in the early 1980's there was a storm of protest. With Spain set to join the European Union - it acceded in 1986 - the last thing anyone on the island wanted was to be categorized as part of Africa. The European Union operates a re-distributive system, with an impoverished periphery the beneficiary of funding generated by the central motor economies.
In a sequence of contrasting islands along the Atlantic ridge, there has been no greater contrast than that between Cape Verde - which achieved independence from Portugal before Portugal acceded to the European Union - and the Canaries.
Our last day at sea bound for Las Palmas, seat of the regional government of the Canary Islands, the last of the sequence of volcanic islands along the Atlantic Ridge that we shall visit and the first that is, politically, part of Europe. Having started in the Americas, sailing from Ushuaia in Argentina to the Falkland Islands, we crossed the Antarctic Convergence to visit South Georgia. Then we made our way along the spine of the Atlantic Ridge visiting Tristan da Cunha, St Helena and Ascension Island - remnants of Britain's colonial past, variously described by wistful travel writers as "the last pink bits" or "the tea-time islands" - to arrive in Africa, at the Cape Verde Islands. Three more days at sea and we have arrived in Europe, for the Canary Islands are part of Spain and therefore part of the flourishing European Union.
But how European are the Canary Islands? Like the Cape Verde archipelago, these islands lie off the coast of Africa. Of all the islands we have visited in this 7,600 mile voyage, these were the only ones to have been inhabited before the arrival of the Europeans at the beginning of the fifteenth century. And thereby hangs a tale. The aboriginal inhabitants of these islands were the Guanche, a people of Berber origin who made the short sea crossing many centuries before the arrival of the first Europeans. The Canary Islands thus had a settled African population well before slaves were brought over to the Cape Verde Islands to be "seasoned". The Canary Islands were claimed early by Spain, an important first step in a westward expansion that saw the Spanish masters of the New World - and beneficiary of Potosi silver - by the sixteenth century. The Guanche worked as slaves on the Canaries, building roads and agricultural terraces, eventually dying out through disease, exploitation or assimilation, the latter less visible in the Cape Verde islands as the Berber are a fair-skinned people. During the time of General Franco, the Canary Islands were a hotbed of opposition to the fascist state. A movement for regional autonomy arose, with independistas stressing their distinctive origins against a Spanish narrative of an autentico ser, the racial and religious purity that Spain had celebrated since the expulsion of the Moors and the Jews in 1492. Yet when the local museum service proposed an exhibit on the Canary Islands' African roots in the early 1980's there was a storm of protest. With Spain set to join the European Union - it acceded in 1986 - the last thing anyone on the island wanted was to be categorized as part of Africa. The European Union operates a re-distributive system, with an impoverished periphery the beneficiary of funding generated by the central motor economies.
In a sequence of contrasting islands along the Atlantic ridge, there has been no greater contrast than that between Cape Verde - which achieved independence from Portugal before Portugal acceded to the European Union - and the Canaries.
