HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 130

that of a poet for the “middle brow” reader.
A more just view would see him as the nat-
ural product of his time and place, in which
he was grossly overpraised but a poet by no
means as despicable as many later observ-
ers have suggested. Among the best known
of Campoamor's writings are Doloras (1845),
Pequeños poemas (1871), and Humoradas
(1886).

the archipelago was administratively
divided into two provinces: Las Palmas
(including the islands of Gran Canaria,
Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and some unin-
habited islets) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife
(comprising the islands of Tenerife, La
Palma, Gomera, and Hierro). These prov-
inces have an area of 1,279 square miles,
and 1,528 square miles, respectively.
Although the Canary Islands have been
recognized since the 1970s as one of Spain's
autonomous regions, the central govern-
ment has firmly repressed most of the
extreme elements who have demanded
independence and have intermittently

Canary Islands (Islas Canarias)
This Atlantic archipelago, lying southwest
of Spain and northwest of Africa (about 60
miles from the continents's coast at its
nearest point), became a training ground
for the exploration and conquest of the
New World. The islands were known to
the ancients, including the Romans, who
gave them the name “Canis Islands” for
the wild dogs that roamed there. However
the Canaries were generally neglected by
Europeans until the late 14th century and
were not definitively claimed by Spain
until the 1470s. During the next two
decades the larger islands, inhabited by
people of North African origin called
guanches, were successively conquered by
Castilian expeditions. The Spaniards' tac-
tics and techniques would soon be
employed against the Amerindians, and
some of the conquistadores of the Ameri-
cas learned the art of mastering an indige-
nous population in the Canarian
campaigns. By the early 1500s the entire
archipelago had been mastered, and the
guanches were virtually extinct. The subse-
quent history of the Canary Islands has
been comparatively tranquil, with their
importance considerably diminished since
they ceased to be a way station on the
trade route to Spanish America. In 1927

El Teide volcano on Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Getty)