Settlement of the Canary Islands during the Byzantine era

On diseases affecting the Guanche, why so? the only disease that could possibly be of great impact would be the plague which isn't until the middle ages. I'd imagine given how old small pox is and the genetic links between the berbers and the gaunche peoples they'd have been exposed to smallpox at some point long before the era to which I refer (600-650AD and beyond).

I gave the inland empires as examples of my theory, though i agree with you. We could also see a situation where the coastal kingdoms that develop expand militarily inland and the technology has alternate routes to spread.

A significant amount of Guanche died of influenza, smallpox, and other diseases they had little immunity to, although being involved in conflict with the Spanish probably didn't help the disease environment. The reason being is they had been isolated from the mainland for too long
 
A significant amount of Guanche died of influenza, smallpox, and other diseases they had little immunity to, although being involved in conflict with the Spanish probably didn't help the disease environment. The reason being is they had been isolated from the mainland for too long

I see, possibly not as devastating maybe?
 
They'd probably find and colonize Madeira before long. Maybe with luck the Azores. I'd love to see Bermuda too, but that's asking a bit too much. Cape Verde is a potential as well toward the south.

Depending on population pressures I think those are reasonable. Madeira was known for centuries before our POD, maybe as early as the Roman period. The Azores were known to Portuguese and Viking sailors and first appeared on maps in the 1300's. Cape Verde is far but I've read that one of the dangers sailing in the Canaries is that ships get swept southwest down the African coast so even if they rarely visited it seems plausible that they'd know those islands were there.

I think part of the reason it took so long to colonize those places in OTL is that the locals of the Canary islands were renowned for being really terrible sailors and genetic studies have showed that they rarely even ventured between the islands. One theory is that the islands were a prison dumping ground for Morocco which is how a bunch of people with no sailing experience ended up on islands.
 
Last edited:
I think part of the reason it took so long to colonize those places in OTL is that the locals of the Canary islands were renowned for being really terrible sailors and genetic studies have showed that they rarely even ventured between the islands. One theory is that the islands were a prison dumping ground for Morocco which is how a bunch of people with no sailing experience ended up on islands.

Not sure I buy that theory given environmental evidence shows the islands were inhabited centuries before the supposed dumping of prisoners. The indigenous Canarians were definitely not frequent sailors, as you said.
 
Hey everyone, so on the possibility of a Byzantine/Roman remnant of a Kingdom of the Guache on the Canaries, I continued looking into the area. Essaouira/Mugador is thought to be the point from which Juba's navy reached the canaries. Mugador was a dye production point and there wasn't incentive to settle the canaries at the time. Now during the time of the Arab conquests of N. Africa, most of it fell pretty rapidly except for Cueta under the Byzantine/Roman governor (Count Julian, said to have re-directed the Arabs to Hispania leading to their said conquest). Suppose while the Arabs are pre-occupied with the conquest of Hispania, Julian were to organise an evacuation of the cities peoples to Mugador and from there to the Canaries, establishing himself as King there. We've already put forth that this potential Kingdom might discover the the Azores, Funchal is somewhat close to the canaries. Could they bypass N. Africa and sail all the way to Asturias and Galicia?
 
Top