AHC: Roman Colonization of the Canaries?

What POD would be necessary to give the Romans an impetus to colonize the Canary Islands?

The Canary islands themselves? Probably if the Guanche were raiding trade from the British Isles to the Mediterranean. Interfere in the tin trade, and the Romans come with an army, conquer the islands, and settle them/fortify them.

Any sort of threat that makes the cost of ignoring them greater than the cost of dealing with them.
 
The Canary islands themselves? Probably if the Guanche were raiding trade from the British Isles to the Mediterranean. Interfere in the tin trade, and the Romans come with an army, conquer the islands, and settle them/fortify them.

Any sort of threat that makes the cost of ignoring them greater than the cost of dealing with them.

The Guanche didn´t know rafts so it would be impossible for them to become a raiding people.
 
I love this, the Guanche become a blue water sailing people, the Romans nick the tech, invade, and then hopefully develop the technology further.

Me Gusta!
 
Possibility: A Roman Emperor looking for a PR stunt decides to cross Ocean to plant the standard on these remote islands, just so he can say he expanded Rome's borders to the farthest reaches of the earth.

It amounts to little more than a delegation of envoys and some troops landing there and making a big show of extracting tribute or making a trade deal with the locals, and allying with some local tribal leaders. Lasts a few years, and is quickly relegated to a historical footnote.

However, connecting the islands to the Mediterranean civilization more thoroughly then before kickstarts their own civilization, with the adoption of shop building. From there, well, it wont take much to attract more attention from the Romans again.
 
What POD would be necessary to give the Romans an impetus to colonize the Canary Islands?

Sugar introduced into Rome by the 2nd century AD, sugar growing land around the Mediterranean is overplanted, Rome goes for a conquest of the Canary Islands?

The situation of the Guanche as a isolated people remind me of the Sentinelese of the Andaman islands.

Other people visited them and the Guanche didn't try and kill them, so that's probably not the most apt comparison.
 
I like the idea of a Roman-influenced Canaries becoming a tributary to the empire, maybe a portion of the Vandals and Suebi invade the island and establish a tropical Germanic kingdom?
 
The Romans knew about the Canary Islands, Pliny the Elder said the named for their large dogs and the people their worshiped dogs but I don't think there was anything there to draw the Romans attention.

The best reason the Romans would take control of the islands is a place to exile people to who maybe to important or controversial to kill although the Romans did love their circuses and Crucifixions.
 

Sulemain

Banned
A sugar colony seems like a good way of making such a scheme viable, but as has been said their needs to be a motivation in the first place.
 
Sugar introduced into Rome by the 2nd century AD, sugar growing land around the Mediterranean is overplanted, Rome goes for a conquest of the Canary Islands?

A sugar colony seems like a good way of making such a scheme viable, but as has been said their needs to be a motivation in the first place.

Scenario: Roman traders in India hear about a sweet granumous substance and try to bring some home, whete it catch on in cooking. A regular trade is established and below are the possible outcomes:
  1. Sugarcane goes West earlier in Persia then in Mesopotamia
  2. Someone just take sugar canes from India straight to the Roman Empire; unfortunately, it might be tried in inappropriate places or the canes could die during the travel
  3. The Roman Empire just keep sending silver to India in exchange for sugar, which would be a luxury product
 
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