Canary Islands – San Antonio

Columbus / Indigenous Peoples’ Day

October 9, 2023

Next Monday is the day this year for us to honor Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples’ Day.  

Now let me tell you how both the Canary Islands and San Antonio tie into this day of remembrance.

When I was working on my family genealogy I learned my maternal grandfather was a decendent of Manuel Dominguez. In 1778, Manuel, his wife Juana, and their four children set sail in one of the nine Spanish ships headed for New Spain. In the history books, this is called the Canary Islands Migration to Louisiana, 1778-1783.  

Doing further research in our local  library, I came across a book titled “The Canary Islanders in Texas: The Story of the Founding of San Antonio”.  Intrigued, I checked it out and began reading. In the Foreward: “Admiral Christopher Columbus, sailing on his epic voyage of 1492, docked at the harbor of Gran Canaria in late August to repair damaged maritime equipment and enlist additional mariners … Thus, from the beginning of Columbus’ voyage of encounter with the New World, Canary Islanders impressed their mark on the annals of America.”

After the discovery of the New World in 1492 by Christopher Columbus, Spain and Portugal set out to colonize the entire Western Hemisphere.

The Spanish Crown learned of the promise of wealth in vast continents that had been previously unknown to Europeans. They sent forces to colonize the land, convert the Indigenous populations, and extract resources from their newly claimed territory. These new Spanish territories officially became known as viceroyalties, or lands ruled by viceroys who were second to—and a stand-in for—the Spanish king.

If you are interested in the Indigenous populations that inhabitant this area, read the “Native American Occupation (1500-1700) article in the Mission Trails Prehistory & History section.

Civilized societies are hierarchically organized, with complex political and economic systems. Commonly cited features of civilization include private property, division of labor, monetary systems of exchange, literacy, technologies, and codified legal systems.

Faraway Texas, was the second to last province to be explored and occupied in North America during the transition from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries. Texas possessed vestiges of governance in three frontier institutions:

(1) the provinces in the Viceroyalty of New Spain;

(2) the missions (ecclesiastical); and

(3) the presidios, the military sent to protect missions.

As late as the second decade of the eighteenth century, Texas lacked any trace of municipal administration.

Philip V, King of Spain

In 1722, the marquis of Aguayo, a dynamic governor of Texas, recommended royal authorities in Mexico City and Madrid initiate ten towns adjacent to missions and presidios. After getting slowed down in the Viceroy bureaucracy for nine years, it finally reached the King. Instead of ten towns, Phillip V funded only one municipality – the one on the San Antonio river and San Pedro stream.  

The king offered land grants, irrigation rights, horses, titles of minor nobility for heads of households and subsistence allowances, tools for farming and construction of homesteads, and the opportunity to serve in the government they would initiate.

Canary Islands

Volunteers recruited from the Canary Islands. Fifty-four travel-weary, but robust, pioneers finally trudged into the plaza of Presidio San Antonio de Bexar on March 9, 1731.  

And so it was in 1731, the Canary Islanders founded a city in accordance to the prevailing Laws of Indies.  They established a municipal government in the form of a cabildo, between the San Antonio presidio and the San Antonio mission.  

San Antonio

“This was the town of San Antonio at the time of its founding.  A handful of nearly illiterate farmers, with scarcely any protection, in an unknown land, living under the constant danger of unexpected attacks from savage Indians.  Apart from the Canary Islanders, the soldiers’ families lived in the fort, making up a total population of around 300 people.  However, when the cabildo was elected, all of its members were Canary Islanders.

The first of August 1731, the first municipal government in Texas took office. 

Armando Curbelo Fuentes, The Canary Islanders in Texas: The Story of the Founding of San Antonio