The Canary Islands, also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in Macaronesia in the Atlantic Ocean. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are 100 kilometres west of Morocco and the Western Sahara. They are the southernmost of the autonomous communities of Spain. The islands have a population of 2.2 million people and are the most populous special territory of the European Union.
The Province of Las Palmas is a province of Spain, consisting of the eastern part of the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, capital city of this province and of the island of Gran Canaria, is the largest city in the Canary Islands.
Marranos is one of the terms used in relation to Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted or were forced by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns to convert to Christianity during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy or were suspected of it, referred to as Crypto-Jews. "Crypto-Jew" is the term increasingly preferred in scholarly works, instead of Marrano.
A converso, "convert", was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendants.
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews".
Gran Canaria, also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa and is part of Spain. As of 2023 the island had a population of 862,893 that constitutes approximately 40% of the population of the archipelago. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital of the island, is the biggest city of the Canary Islands and the ninth of Spain.
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish converso New Christian population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.:17
Limpieza de sangre, also known as limpeza de sangue or neteja de sang, literally "cleanliness of blood" and meaning "blood purity", was a racially discriminatory term used in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires during the early modern period to refer to those who were considered to be Old Christians by virtue of not having Muslim, Jewish, Romani, or Agote ancestors. In both empires, the term played a major role in discrimination against suspected crypto-Jews or crypto-Muslims. Over the years it manifested into law which excluded New Christians from almost every part of society. In Spain's American colonies, it helped define the casta system and was expanded to include those who were not of indigenous or African descent.
A cabildo insular is the government and administration institution of each of the seven major islands in the Canary Islands archipelago: Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro. The island of La Graciosa falls under the jurisdiction of the cabildo of Lanzarote.
The Xuetes are a social group on the Spanish island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, who are descendants of Majorcan Jews that either were conversos or were Crypto-Jews, forced to keep their religion hidden. They practiced strict endogamy by marrying only within their own group. Many of their descendants observe a syncretist form of Christian worship known as Xueta Christianity.
The history of the Jews in Mexico began in 1519 with the arrival of Conversos, often called Marranos or "Crypto-Jews", referring to those Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism and that then became subject to the Spanish Inquisition.
The Sephardic Jews that were exiled from Spain and the Mediterranean area in 1492 and 1497, coupled with other migrations dating from the 1700s and during World War II contributed to Dominican ancestry.
The Diocese of San Cristóbal de La Laguna, also called Diocese of Tenerife or Diocese Nivariense, is a diocese located in the city of San Cristóbal de La Laguna in the Canary Islands and a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the Archdiocese of Sevilla in Spain. The diocese includes the islands of Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The bishop of this diocese is Bernardo Álvarez Afonso.
Tourism is an essential part of the economy of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located in the Atlantic Ocean, 100 kilometres west of Morocco. Seven main islands and six islets make up the Canary Islands. They had 16 million visitors in 2023. Tourists seeking sunshine and beaches first began to visit the Canaries in large numbers in the 1960s. The Canary Islands are a leading European tourist destination with very attractive natural and cultural resources.
The Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. An open Jewish community did not flourish in the colony because Judaism was prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition. However, many migrated to mountainous parts of the island, far from the central power of San Juan, and continued to self-identify as Jews and practice Crypto-Judaism.
The conquest of the Canary Islands by the Crown of Castile took place between 1402 and 1496 and described as the first instance of European settler colonialism in Africa. It can be divided into two periods: the Conquista señorial, carried out by Castilian nobility in exchange for a covenant of allegiance to the crown, and the Conquista realenga, carried out by the Spanish crown itself, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs.
Sephardic Bnei Anusim is a modern term which is used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of an estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardic Jews who were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th century in Spain and Portugal. The vast majority of conversos remained in Spain and Portugal, and their descendants, who number in the millions, live in both of these countries. The small minority of conversos who did emigrate normally chose to emigrate to destinations where Sephardic communities already existed, particularly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, but also to more tolerant cities in Europe, where many of them immediately reverted to Judaism. In theory, very few of them would have traveled to Latin America with colonial expeditions, as only those Spaniards who could certify that they had no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry were supposed to be allowed to travel to the New World. Recent genetic studies suggest that the Sephardic ancestry present in Latin American populations arrived at the same time as the initial colonization, which suggests that significant numbers of recent converts were able to travel to the new world and contribute to the gene pool of modern Latin American populations despite an official prohibition on them doing so. In addition, later arriving Spanish immigrants would have themselves contributed additional converso ancestry in some parts of Latin America.
The history of the Jews in Peru begins with the arrival of migration flows from Europe, Near East and Northern Africa.
As in the rest of Spain, the majority religion in the Canary Islands is the Catholic Church. The Catholic religion has been the majority since the Conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century. This religion would largely replace the Canarian aboriginal religion through the prohibition of the latter and syncretism. According to a survey conducted in 2019, Canary Islands is the fifth autonomous community in Spain with the highest percentage of people who declare themselves to be Catholics after the Region of Murcia, Extremadura, Galicia, Aragon, and Castile and León. 76.7% of the population is Catholic.
