Think of Las Americas in relation to Tenerife and it’s likely you’ll imagine a lively resort town in the South of the island renowned for its nightlife, high-end hotels and tipsy tourists. Well so far, so stereotypical but did you know that Tenerife has very close connections with the Americas?
Settlers from the Canary Islands founded the city of Montevideo, capital and largest port of Uruguay. The US Library of Congress provides this description in a study of the Pre-Columbian Uruguay:
In 1680 the Portuguese, seeking to expand Brazil’s frontier, founded Colonia del Sacramento on the Río de la Plata, across from Buenos Aires. Forty years later, the Spanish monarch ordered the construction of Fuerte de San José, a military fort at present-day Montevideo, to resist this expansion. With the founding of San Felipe de Montevideo at this site in 1726, Montevideo became the port and station of the Spanish fleet in the South Atlantic. The new settlement included families from Buenos Aires and the Canary Islands to whom the Spanish crown distributed plots and farms and subsequently large haciendas in the interior. Authorities were appointed, and a cabildo (town council) was formed.
Canarians were also founding fathers of San Antonio in Texas and San Bernard in Louisiana. In a beautifully precise recording the Texas branch of the Canary Island Descendants Association notes:
On eleven o’clock on the morning of March 9th, 1731, sixteen families (56 people) from the Canary Islands arrived at the Presidio of San Antonio de Bejar in the Province of Texas. By royal decree of the King of Spain, they founded La Villa de San Fernando and established the first civil government in Texas.
In Louisiana the Canarian descendants are no less proud of their roots and celebrate each year with a Canary Islands’ Day in May. They are an active group and maintain a museum and Canarian expos and performances throughout the year.
Looking at the passenger lists of these long ago journeys it is hard to imagine how excited and nervous these brave adventurers were. Leaving the shores of their island homes and taking off into the unknown…
So whether you live in Tenerife or are planning a holiday here, the next time you think of Las Americas, think of a handful of families to whom that phrase meant not a holiday destination but the adventure of a lifetime as they gathered all the possessions they could take with them on the ships across the ocean to the New World.
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