Canary Islands

In the view of some authorities, the Canaries are the Fortunatae Insulae of antiquity. The islands were probably known to the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. As described by the Roman scholar Pliny, large numbers of wild dogs (Latin, canes), roamed the islands, which he therefore named Canaria. Arab mariners reached the group in the 12th century, and it was visited in 1334 by French navigators. Pope Clement VI awarded the islands to Castile in 1344. The French mariner Jean de Bethéncourt began the conquest of the islands in 1402 and was made king of the Canaries in 1404 by the Castilian ruler Henry III. Claimed by Portugal, the islands were recognized as Spanish possessions by a treaty negotiated in 1479. Spanish conquest of the islands was completed by the late 1490s. The indigenous population, the Guanche, a Berber people, eventually became extinct.