Lessons from the Canaries: the first contact between Europeans and Canarians c. 1312-1477 ANTONIO TEJERA GASPAR & EDUARDO AZNAR VALLEJO* Europe and the Canaries in the late Middle Ages The first contacts between the prehistoric cul- tures of the Canary Islands and western civili- zation occurred in the European expansion of the late Middle Ages. Their ultimate colo- nization was intimately related to this expan- sion, driven by new economic forms, including ‘commercial capitalism’ or ‘pre-capitalism’, which affected economic and intellectual struc- tures throughout Europe, the economic char- acterized from then on by innovation, risk and increasing turnover; and the intellectual by the concept of ‘profit’ in place of ‘service’. The practical transition can be seen in the technology that supported expansion: transport (new types of ships, cartography, systems of navigation, etc.); financial systems (non- monetary payment, insurance, commercial credit, etc.); and mercantile institutions (commercial societies, consulates, postal ser- vices, etc.). The potential of economic and technological development was both cause and effect in the concept of national states. Governments bene- fitted through the mercantilist policies of mono- poly and market regulation. In the Atlantic archipelagos, these emerging capitalist interests were linked and strengthened by expansion and resettlement in new lands, a process not fully developed until well into the 15th century, corresponding to the demographic recovery of Europe after the Black Death. Expansion into new territories, such as the Canaries, followed various colonial policies and processes: new commercial enclaves in the new lands; protectorates or areas of political influence; and actual colonization, char- acterized by intrusive settlements and ‘re- modelling’ of interior structures in the colonial territory. Enclaves and protectorates, based in a long Mediterranean tradition and usually occurring together, purported to influence and exploit existing native structures without replacing them. Colonization itself was a relative novelty in the expansion. European expansion into the Canary Islands was a true colonization, characterized by the numerical predominance of the intrusive settlers, and by its trans-oceanic character. Several stages of increasing speed and intensity can be distinguished, running from the first third of the 14th century to the beginning of the 16th century. Rediscovery The first stage is known as the ‘Rediscovery’, C. 131 2 (?)-1402. The term ‘rediscovery’ is used because the Canary Archipelago was known in Classic Anti- quity; it fell into oblivion during the Middle Ages, when the geo-historical space surround- ing the Mediterranean Sea was fragmented into three civilizations: western Christian, Islam and Byzantium. Medieval knowledge of the Cana- ries, however, must have been far from pro- found, as the imprecise nature of information from that era indicates. These ‘Fortunate Isles’, after the papal investiture of Don Luis de la Cerda, were set in both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, provoking a reaction by the English king, who considered his domin- ions affected. In this stage of pre-colonization, * Canary Islands. Eduardo Aznar Vallejo, Departamento de Historia, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands. ANTIQUITY 66 (1992): 120-29 Antonio Tejera Gaspar, Departamento de Prehistoria, Antropologia e Historia Antigua, University of La Laguna, Tenerife,