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The term "guanche" for the aborigines of the Canary Archipelago actually belongs to the people of Tenerife, who at the time of the conquest numbered about 15.000.
They had divided the island into nine demarcations, each with its own chief or "mencey".
Tenerife was the last Canary island to be conquered by the Catholic Monarchs. |
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Sugar cane was the only cultivated plant grown for export during the middle of the 16th Century but little by little wine, the famous Malvasía grape, began to take prominence with trade directed toward Europe, the Portuguese colonies and the Spanish West Indies, and eventually became the major key to the island economy.
This boom began to fade in the last part of the 17th Century and by the mid-18th was irreversible. |
Emigration to America thus became one of the solutions most utilised by the people, as much during that period as in those to follow. Natives of Tenerife became founders of Montevideo (Uruguay), San Antonio, Texas and San Bernardo, Louisiana, USA.
The cultivation of bananas at the end of the 19th Century immediately became the main agricultural product of the archipelago. |
As well, the British presence on the island laid the foundations for an early tourism trade, which would begin in earnest, as in the rest of the Canaries, in the 1960's.
Today it is the prime economic motor of Tenerife. |
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