History

The history of the first settlers is in many ways a mystery but it is known that the island of Fuerteventura was initially colonized by groups from the Berber-Maghrebi area of northwest Africa about the first millennium BC. According to most chronicles from antiquity to the conquest, these first settlers, called mahos, lived in small villages and subsisted mainly on livestock, shellfish and subsistence agriculture.

Until the fifteenth century the island is mentioned in various chronicles and authors such as Plutarch or Pliny the Elder refer to it in their work and that Phoenicians, Andalusians, Mallorcans, Portuguese or Genoese made expeditions to the island. Called by its inhabitants as Erbania, at the arrival of the European conquerors in 1402, led by the Normans Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de La Salle, it was divided into two kingdoms separated by the isthmus of La Pared: Maxorata, to the north, and Jandía to the south on the peninsula of the same name. In 1405 Guize and Ayoze, kings of Maxorata and Jandía respectively, surrendered to the Europeans along with their men and the conquest was concluded and Bethencourt went to Castile to ask for recognition of the Crown of Castile and support in the conquest. Fuerteventura became a manor dependent on the Catholic Monarchs in 1476. The first settlements after the conquest are the Vega del Río Palmas and Betacuria, the latter being the capital of the island until the nineteenth century.

Engraving of the expedition of Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de la Salle to the island of Lanzarote

Until the seventeenth century the population that at the time of the conquest was around 1200 inhabitants grows to 3000 and expands to the north of the island. During this period the pirate raids of supply and pillage were constant but one of them, that of the Berber pirate Xabán de Arráez, will control a good part of the island for six months and will almost completely destroy the capital town of Betancuria. This fact means that from the court of Castile, Felipe II, he imposed on the Lord of the island that the defense of the island is in the hands of a military command with preparation and several fortified towers are built on the coast such as those of the Barranco de la Torre, El Tostón or Caleta de Fuste. The military command of the island, the colonel, will end up gaining power and influence given the permanent absence of the Lord, who at that time holds the house of Árias and Saavedra, for having established his residence in Tenerife. The Colonel ends up exercising the functions of Lord and even the position ends up becoming hereditary. In 1708 the Colonel moved to La Oliva creating the regiment of Militias and acquiring most of the lands in the north of the island.

It will be the Cortes of Cádiz in the early nineteenth century that end with the Lordship and the Coronelato dividing the island into municipalities, one for each parish, and taking charge of the Cabildo of the government of the island. It is in this century when Fuerteventura stops depending on the cultivation of cereals and takes off due to the introduction of several crops such as orchilla, barrilla or cochineal, the island becomes a reference exporter of these products. But technological advances and various periods of drought gradually end exports and many majoreros choose to emigrate to other islands or to South America. During this century and the beginning of the twentieth century, salt, lime, tomatoes and cattle were also exported to the Canarian market to the rest of the islands and those of Puerto Cabras (later Puerto del Rosario) and Gran Tarajal were constituted as commercial ports.

Port of Puerto Cabras in the early twentieth century

It will only be until the entry of the tourism sector on the island, in the 60s of the twentieth century, when it has resurfaced economically and increased the population to double it in the last 20 years and move it around the tourist centers of the coast. Currently, exports have also resumed thanks to the cultivation of aloe vera or the production of majorero cheese.