Canary Islanders


Canary Islanders, or Canarians, are the people of the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain near the coast of Northwest Africa. The distinctive variety of the Spanish language spoken in the region is known as habla canaria or the canario. The Canarians, and their descendants, played a major role during the conquest, colonization, and eventual independence movements of various countries in Latin America. Their ethnic and cultural presence is most palpable in the countries of Uruguay, Venezuela, Cuba and the Dominican Republic as well as the US territory of Puerto Rico.

History

The original inhabitants of the Canary Islands are commonly known as Guanches. They are most probably descendants of the Berbers of North Africa.
The islands were conquered by Castile at the beginning of the 15th century. In 1402, they began to subdue and suppress the native Guanche population. The Guanches were initially enslaved and gradually absorbed. As a result, genetic analyses of modern Canarians show mainly a mixture of predominant European and also North African genes, with low frequencies of sub-Saharan genes, sometimes with substantial variation between individuals.
After subsequent settlement by Europeans, the remaining Guanches were gradually assimilated by the settlers and their culture largely vanished. Alonso Fernández de Lugo, conqueror of Tenerife and La Palma, oversaw extensive immigration to these islands during a short period from the late 1490s to the 1520s from mainland Europe, mostly Castile and Portugal. At subsequent judicial enquiries, Fernández de Lugo was accused of favoring Genoese and Portuguese immigrants over Castilians.

[|Ancestry]

The native inhabitants of the Canary Islands possess a gene pool that is predominantly European, with specific contributions from Andalusians, Castilians, Galicians, and Portuguese, as well as from Normans, Genoese, and Flemings, alongside a variable input from the native Guanche population. Guanche genetic markers have also been found recently in Puerto Rico and, at low frequencies, in peninsular Spain after later emigration from the Canary Islands.

Population genetics

Uniparental markers

The most frequent mtDNA haplogroup in Canary Islands is H, followed by U6, T, not-U6 U and J. Two haplogroups, H and U6, alone account for more than 50% of the individuals. Significant frequencies of sub-Saharan maternal L haplogroups is also consistent with the historical records on introduction of sub-Saharan female slave labour in Canary Islands. However, some Sub-Saharan female lineages are also found in North African populations, and as a result, some of these L lineages could have been introduced to the Islands from North Africa. A 2009 study of DNA extracted from the remains of aboriginal inhabitants found that 7% of lineages were haplogroup L, which leaves open the possibility that these L lineages were part of the founding population of the Canary Islands. Sub-Saharan female lineages have been found in frequencies of 10% or more in some islands.
A 2003 genetics research article by Nicole Maca-Meyer et al. published in the European Journal of Human Genetics compared aboriginal Guanche mtDNA to that of today's Canarians and concluded that "despite the continuous changes suffered by the population, aboriginal mtDNA lineages constitute a considerable proportion of the Canarian gene pool". According to this article, both percentages are obtained using two different estimation methods; nevertheless according to the same study the percentage that could be more reliable is the one of 73%.
File:Bimbaches.jpg|thumb|Painting of Bimbache of El Hierro by Leonardo Torriani, 1592
Although the Berbers are the most probable ancestors of the Guanches, it is deduced that important human movements have reshaped Northwest Africa after the migratory wave to the Canary Islands and the "results support, from a maternal perspective, the supposition that since the end of the 16th century, at least, two-thirds of the Canarian population had an indigenous substrate, as was previously inferred from historical and anthropological data". mtDNA haplogroup U subclade U6b1 is Canarian-specific.
A 2019 genetics research article confirms that most lineages observed in the ancient samples have a Mediterranean distribution, and belong to lineages associated with the Neolithic expansion in the Near East and Europe. This phylogeographic analysis of Canarian ancient mitogenomes, the first of its kind, shows that some lineages are restricted to Central North Africa, while others have a wider distribution, including both West and Central North Africa, and, Europe and the Near East.
Y-DNA, or Y-chromosomal, lineages were not analysed in this study; however, an earlier study giving the aboriginal y-DNA contribution at 6% was cited by Maca-Meyer et al., but the results were criticized as possibly flawed due to the widespread phylogeography of y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b1b, which may skew determination of the aboriginality versus coloniality of contemporary y-DNA lineages in the Canaries. Regardless, Maca-Meyer et al. state that historical evidence does support the explanation of "strong sexual asymmetry...as a result of a strong bias favoring matings between European males and aboriginal females, and to the important aboriginal male mortality during the Conquest".
Indeed, according to a recent study by Fregel et al. 2009, in spite of the geographic nearness between the Canary Islands and Morocco the genetic ancestry of the Canary islands males is mainly of European origin. Nearly 67% of the haplogroups resulting from are Euro–Eurasian, R1b, J, I and G ). Unsurprisingly the Castillian conquest brought the genetic base of the current male population of the Canary Islands. Nevertheless, the second most important haplogroup origin is Northern Africa. E1b1b, E1b1a and E1a, and T haplogroups are present at a rate of 33%. According to the same study, the presence of autochthonous North African E-M81 lineages, and also other relatively abundant markers from the same region in the indigenous Guanche population, "strongly points to that area as the most probable origin of the Guanche ancestors". In this study, Fregel et al. estimated that, based on Y-chromosome and mtDNA haplogroup frequencies, the relative female and male indigenous Guanche contributions to the present-day Canary Islands populations were respectively of 41.8% and 16.1%.

Mitochondrial DNA

A genetic study analyzing the modern-day Canarian population showed a prevalence of European maternal lineages in Canary Islanders followed by Northwest African ancestry in all Islands except La Gomera:
Island/NW African mtDNASample
size		% U6% LTotal
La Gomera4650.01 %10.86 %60.87 %
El Hierro3221.88 %12.49 %34.37 %
Lanzarote4920.40 %8.16 %28.56 %
Gran Canaria8011.25 %10 %21.25 %
Tenerife17412.09 %7.45 %19.54 %
La Palma6817.65 %1.47 %19.12 %
Fuerteventura4216.66 %2.38 %19.04 %

A mithocondrial DNA analysis of ancient, around 1000 years old, Guanche remains indirectly estimated the current maternal Northwest African lineage to be higher than European:
MtDNANorth AfricanEuropeanSub Saharan
Canary Islands50.2%43.2%6.6%

A mithocondrial DNA study that analyzed the teeth of the XVIII century Canary Islanders showed more presence of Northwest African maternal ancestry than European:
MtDNANorth AfricanEuropeanSub Saharan
Canary Islands73%21.5%5.5%

Autosomal DNA

An autosomal study in 2011 found an average Northwest African influence of about 17% in Canary Islanders with a wide interindividual variation ranging from 0% to 96%. According to the authors, the substantial Northwest African ancestry found for Canary Islanders supports that, despite the aggressive conquest by Castile in the 15th century and the subsequent immigration, genetic footprints of the first settlers of the Canary Islands persist in the current inhabitants. Paralleling mtDNA findings, the largest average Northwest African contribution was found for the samples from La Gomera.
IslandNAverage NW African ancestry
La Gomera742.50 %
Fuerteventura1021.60 %
La Palma721.00 %
El Hierro719.80 %
Lanzarote1316.40 %
Tenerife3014.30 %
Gran Canaria3012.40 %
Total Canary Islanders10417.40 %

Another recent study by Guillen-Guio et al. 2018 sequenced the entire genomes of a sample of 400 adult men and women from all the islands except La Graciosa to determine the relationship of Canarian genetic diversity to the more frequent complex pathologies in the archipelago. The study indicated that Canarian DNA shows distinctive genetic markers, the result of a combination of factors such as the geographic isolation of the islands, the adaption to the environment of its inhabitants and the historic admixture of the Pre-Hispanic population of the archipelago, with European and from Sub-Saharan area individuals. Drawing on these data, it was estimated that the Canarian population is, on average at an autosomal level, 75% European, 22% North African and 3% Sub-Saharan. According to the authors "the proportion of SSA ancestry we observed in Canary Islanders likely originated in the postconquest importation of enslaved African people.". This study reported the below Genomic Ancestry Proportions in Canary Islanders.
Source: Genomic Ancestry Proportions in Canary Islanders
In addition, recently a study that analyzed 1024 donors of all the islands suggested two different results depending on the model used. One of them evaluated the global ancestry of the subjects, indicating an ancestry on an autosomal level of 76,4% European, 20,8% North African, and 2,8% Sub-Saharan. However, when a specific model to evaluate the ancestry of admixed populations was used, this showed that the autosomal DNA of Canarian people is 71,4% European, 26,7% North African, and 1,9% Sub-Saharan, being the highest North African and Sub-Saharan components at an individual level 38,2% and 9,5% respectively.
EuropeanNorth AfricanSub-Saharan
El Hierro68,3%31,0%0,7%
La Palma76,5%22,4%1,1%
La Gomera65,8%31,0%3,2%
Tenerife75,3%23,6%1,1%
Gran Canaria73,7%23,6%2,7%
Fuerteventura67,2%31,1%1,7%
Lanzarote67,1%30,9%2,0%