Macaronesia (2637 – 910 BCE): The Islands of the Western Wind — Contact and Isolation at the Ocean’s Edge

Regional Overview

In Early Antiquity, Macaronesia stood at the outermost limit of the known Atlantic.
Its two island groups—the Southern Canaries and Cape Verde near Africa’s shores, and the Northern archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores far out to sea—formed a bridge between continents that no one yet fully crossed.
While the northern islands remained wild sanctuaries of forest and seabird, the southern chain became the westernmost horizon of Amazigh exploration, where small groups of voyagers from North Africa brought their language, herding traditions, and spiritual landscapes into a new island world.

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Southern Macaronesia: Guanche–Amazigh Voyaging to the Canaries; Cape Verde Still Empty

The Canary Islands, rising from the Canary Current off northwest Africa, became the first Macaronesian archipelago to host enduring human communities.
By the first millennium BCE, Amazigh (Berber) colonists from North Africa—probably from the western Sahara or coastal Morocco—had reached several of the larger islands: Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera, and eventually El Hierro.
Settlement on the more arid eastern islands (Fuerteventura and Lanzarote) required austere adaptation but succeeded through herding and dry-farming ingenuity.

Subsistence & Lifeways

Islanders practiced barley and pulse cultivation on terraced slopes and in valley bottoms, combined with goat and sheep pastoralism.
They gathered wild figs and coastal shellfish, stored grain in caves and stone silos, and built stone huts or cave dwellings along reliable springs.
Springs and fog-drip were sacred lifelines; their guardianship intertwined with ancestor rites and communal feasts.

Material & Symbolic Culture

With no native metals, the Guanche–Amazigh toolkits remained stone, bone, and fiber-based: polished adzes, grinding stones, hide sandals, leather garments, and woven goat-hair textiles.
Ceramics were plain but functional; basketry and cordage showed high refinement.
Cave burials and occasional mummification on Tenerife and Gran Canaria displayed complex mortuary ritual.
Petroglyphs and idoliform carvings marked sacred peaks and springs, embedding kinship and ritual in the island terrain.

Isolation & Adaptation

Once founded, the communities became self-contained archipelagic societies, with little or no contact with the mainland.
Dryland barley, herding mobility, and grain storage buffered drought years; spring sanctuaries and terracing stabilized fragile soils.
Meanwhile, to the southwest, the Cape Verde Islands—though visible from trans-Saharan wind lanes—remained uninhabited, their volcanic ridges untouched and seabird rookeries untroubled.

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Northern Macaronesia: Atlantic Outliers Beyond Known Worlds

Farther north, beyond the reach of Amazigh navigation or Mediterranean trade, the Azores, Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Selvagens remained unpeopled sanctuaries of wind, cloud, and forest.
The Azores’ volcanic cones and crater lakes, the laurel forests of Madeira, and the Selvagens’ seabird cliffspersisted in ecological equilibrium.
Rainfall and volcanic renewal maintained lush soils; no grazing or fire yet disturbed the canopy.
If Bronze Age mariners of Phoenicia or Iberia ever glimpsed these islands, they left no mark.

Symbolic Echoes

In later Mediterranean mythology, tales of the Isles of the Blessed or Hesperides may faintly echo these unseen lands—conceptual horizons rather than charted geography.
For now, they existed solely within nature’s cycles: forests, seabirds, and the Atlantic wind.

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Environmental Adaptation & Continuity

Across both halves of Macaronesia, isolation defined resilience.
In the south, herding and granary systems stabilized small human populations amid drought and volcanic soils; in the north, pristine ecosystems endured undisturbed.
Orographic rain, fog-drip, and nutrient upwelling sustained life at all altitudes—from laurel forests to guano-enriched headlands—creating natural laboratories of long-term ecological balance.

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Transition

By 910 BCE, Macaronesia embodied two contrasting realities:

• The Canaries, inhabited by self-reliant Guanche–Amazigh communities cultivating grain and memory in volcanic isolation;

• Cape Verde, Madeira, and the Azores, still untouched wildernesses, blank on the human map.

The region stood as the western edge of the known world, where early voyagers halted and where, for the next two millennia, the Atlantic wind would guard islands suspended between myth and discovery.

Southern Macaronesia (2,637 – 910 BCE) Bronze and Early Iron — Guanche–Amazigh Voyaging to the Canaries; Cape Verde Still Empty

Geographic and Environmental Context

Southern Macaronesia includes:

• The Canary Islands (Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro).

• The Cape Verde archipelago (Sotavento and Barlavento groups).

Anchors: Tenerife (Teide massif), Gran Canaria (Caldera de Tejeda), La Palma (Caldera de Taburiente), La Gomera (garajonay–laurisilva), El Hierro (El Golfo fault scarp), Fuerteventura–Lanzarote (low, arid shield islands and malpaísfields), Cape Verde (Fogo stratovolcano, Santo Antão and Santiago highlands, Sal–Boa Vista arid flats).

• Canary Islands: c. 1st millennium BCE, the first Amazigh (Berber) colonists reached select islands (island-by-island trajectories varied).

• Cape Verde: remains uninhabited.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Trades stable; orographic wetness on high islands supported dry-farming niches and springs.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Canaries: pastoral–horticultural hamlets founded in Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma, later El Hierro; Fuerteventura–Lanzarote settled with more arid strategies.

• Staples: barley (dry-farmed), pulses, figs; goat/sheep herding central; wild plant gathering; coastal shellfish/fish supplement.

• Water from springs and fog-drip; terracing in pockets; cave-dwelling and stone huts/complexes.

Technology & Material Culture

• No metals initially; lithic and bone toolkits; polished stone adzes; grinding stones; basketry, tanning, spinning–weaving with plant fibers and goat hair; simple pottery.

• Clothing and sandals from leather/plant fibers; granaries (silos/ caves) maintained grain stores.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Inter-island movement limited and episodic; no persistent contact with mainland after founding pulses (isolation model).

• Coastal footpaths ringed islands; goat transhumance across altitudinal belts.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Funerary practices: cave burials; in some islands mummification (e.g., Tenerife/Gran Canaria) with wrappings and grave goods.

• Rock art (petroglyphs, engravings) and idoliforms; sanctuaries at springs/peaks; ancestor veneration and seasonal feasts after harvests.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Pastoral–dry farming with granary storage buffered drought; spring sanctuaries marked water rights; terracing and soil-stone mulching reduced erosion.

Transition

By 910 BCE, Guanche–Amazigh societies were established across much of the Canary chain; Cape Verde remained pristine.

The tale of the Canary Islands weaves a complex tapestry of exploration, conquest, and the harrowing trade of souls. These once-remote and mystical lands become mere pawns in the grand game of empires, forever altered by the hands of men driven by ambition and greed.

The Castillians conquer the Canary Islands between 1402 and 1496 and Spanish settlers gradually absorb the indigenous Berber populations, the Guanches.

Jean de Béthencourt: Norman Noble, Crusader, and Conqueror of the Canary Islands

Jean de Béthencourt (1362–1425), Baron of Saint-Martin-le-Gaillard, was a Norman noble, soldier, and explorer whose career spanned the Hundred Years’ War, crusades against North African corsairs, and the conquest of the Canary Islands. His life reflected the turbulence of late medieval France, as shifting alliances, piracy, and overseas expansion shaped his rise to prominence.

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I. Early Life and Feudal Struggles in Normandy (1362–1387)

• Born in Grainville-la-Teinturière, Normandy, Jean was the son of Jean III de Béthencourt and Marie de Bracquemont.
• His father, a supporter of King Charles V, fought under Bertrand du Guesclin against Charles II of Navarreand was killed in May 1364 at the Battle of Cocherel.
• Following his father’s death, the Château de Grainville was demolished in 1365, part of royal efforts to dismantle fortresses that could be used by rebellious lords.
• In 1377, at age fifteen, Béthencourt entered the service of Louis I, Duke of Anjou, beginning a long military and courtly career.

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II. Service to the House of Valois and Expeditions in North Africa (1387–1391)

• Between 1387 and 1391, he held the honorary position of chancellor to Louis de Valois, Duke of Touraine(later Duke of Orléans).
• In 1387, King Charles VI of France authorized the rebuilding of the Château de Grainville, restoring Béthencourt’s territorial power.
• As lord of Grainville, he held seven parishes and rights over all trade crossing his land, first as a vassal of Olivier du Guesclin, son of Bertrand du Guesclin.
• Later, during Henry V’s conquest of Normandy (1417–1419), he was forced to acknowledge English overlordship, though he likely engaged in piracy against both French and English vessels during periods of instability.

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III. The Mahdia Crusade (1390) and First Encounters with the Canaries

• In 1390, Béthencourt joined the Mahdia Crusade, an expedition organized by Genoese merchants and led by Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, against the Barbary corsairs of Tunis.
• The campaign, presented as a "crusade," offered participants prestige, a moratorium on debts, immunity from lawsuits, and papal indulgences.
• However, the French knights were unprepared for the terrain, lacked siege equipment, and suffered from internal quarrels, leading to a negotiated withdrawal.
• During this campaign, Béthencourt likely first heard of the Canary Islands, where merchants spoke of orchil lichen, a rare dye highly valuable for the textile industry.

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IV. The Conquest of the Canary Islands (1402–1405)

• Seeking economic opportunities in the dye trade, Béthencourt planned an expedition to the Canary Islands, which at the time were frequented by merchants and Spanish pirates.
• To fund his venture, he sold property in Paris for 200 gold francs and secured a 7,000-pound loan from his uncle, Robert de Bracquemont, the French ambassador to Castile, by mortgaging his estates.
• According to Louis Moréri, King Henry III of Castile had entrusted the conquest of the islands to Bracquemont, who then delegated the mission to Béthencourt.
• Accompanied by Gadifer de La Salle, whom he had met in service under the Duke of Orléans, Béthencourt set sail for the Canaries in December 1401.

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V. Legacy and Impact

• Béthencourt’s conquest of the Canaries marked the beginning of European expansion into the Atlantic, preceding Portugal’s and Spain’s later colonial endeavors.
• His expedition combined feudal ambition, economic opportunity, and religious justification, foreshadowing later European imperial ventures.
• His rule over the islands was later challenged and disputed, leading to his eventual withdrawal from direct governance in favor of Castilian control.

Jean de Béthencourt’s career reflects the shifting dynamics of late medieval Europe, where knightly service, piracy, crusading, and overseas conquest blended in the pursuit of power, wealth, and prestige.

The Canary Islands, known to the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans, are mentioned in a number of classical sources.

For example, Pliny the Elder describes a Carthaginian expedition to the Canaries, and they may have been the Fortunate Isles of other classical writers.

King Juba, the Roman protégé, had dispatched a contingent to reopen the dye production facility at Mogador in the early first century.

That same naval force was subsequently sent on an exploration of the Canary Islands, using Mogador as their mission base.

When the Europeans began to explore the islands they encountered several indigenous populations living at a Neolithic level of technology.

The history of the settlement of the Canary Islands is still unclear, but linguistic and genetic analyses seem to indicate that at least some of these inhabitants shared a common origin with the Berbers of northern Africa.

The precolonial inhabitants will come to be known collectively as the Guanches, although Guanches had originally been the name for the indigenous inhabitants of Tenerife.

Jean de Béthencourt had set sail from La Rochelle on May 1, 1402 with two hundred and eighty men, mostly Gascon and Norman adventurers, including two Franciscan priests (Pierre Bontier and Jean le Verrier, who will narrated the expedition in Le Canarien) and two Guanches who had been captured in an earlier Castilian expedition and have already been baptized.

After passing Cape Finisterre, they put in to Cadiz, where he finds some of his sailors so frightened that they refuse to continue the voyage.

Of the eighty crew with which he set out, Béthencourt sails on with fifty-three.

He arrives at Lanzarote, the northernmost inhabited island.

While Gadifer de la Salle explores the archipelago, Béthencourt leaves for Cádiz, where he acquires reinforcements at the Castilian court.

At this time a power struggle has broken out on the island between Gadifer and Berthin de Berneval, another officer, who sows dissent between the Béthencourt’s Normans and the Gadifer’s Gascons.

Local leaders are drawn into the conflict and scores die in the first months of Béthencourt's absence.

During this time, ...

...Gadifer manages to conquer Fuerteventura and to explore other islands.

Peace is restored to the troubled island of Fuerteventura only with the return of Béthencourt in 1404.

De la Salle and Béthencourt found the city of Betancuria (as capital of the island) in 1404.

Béthencourt receives the title King of the Canary Islands, but still recognizes Henry as his overlord.

This marks the beginning of the Spanish Empire.

Béthencourt also establishes a base on the island of La Gomera, but it will be many years before the island is truly conquered.

The natives of La Gomera, and of Gran Canaria, Tenerife, and La Palma, will resist the Castilian invaders for almost a century.

Bethencourt is defeated by the aboriginals of the island of Gran Canaria (Canarios) in the battle of Arguineguin at the south of the island, acquiring the title of “Great.

He dies in 1422, and is buried in the church of Grainville-la-Teinturiere in Normandy.