Alonso de Espinosa facts for kids

Alonso de Espinosa (born 1543, died sometime after 1594) was a Spanish priest and a historian from the 1500s. He was the first official historian of the island of Tenerife, which is part of the Canary Islands.

Very little is known about Alonso de Espinosa's early life. We first hear about him in the late 1500s when he was in Guatemala. There, he had become a member of the Dominican Order, a group of Catholic priests.

While he was in Central America, Espinosa heard amazing stories about the reported miracles of Our Lady of Candelaria. This was a special statue of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. It had been on the island of Tenerife for a very long time, even before the native people, called the Guanches, became Christians. Both the Guanches and later the Spanish conquerors respected and honored this statue.

Inspired by the fame of this statue, Espinosa soon found someone from the group that looked after it. He decided to research and write a history of the statue and its miracles.

His Famous Book

The result of his research was a book called Guanches of Tenerife. It was published in Seville, Spain, in 1594.

Even though Espinosa's main goal was to record the history of Our Lady of Candelaria, his book is also a rare and important record of the Guanches people. He also gives a good account of how the Spanish conquered and settled the Canary Islands.

Espinosa divided his book into four parts:

• The first part describes the island of Tenerife. It tells about its early history and its native people, the Guanches. He wrote about their customs, what they ate, how they dressed, their marriages, how they trained for war, and how they buried their dead.
• The second part gives a detailed history of the Our Lady of Candelaria statue. It covers everything from its mysterious appearance on the east coast of the island to Espinosa's own time.
• The third part focuses on the Spanish invasion, conquest, and settlement of Tenerife.
• The fourth and final part lists various cures and other miracles that people said the statue performed.

Espinosa's book was reprinted in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1848. It was part of a series called Biblioteca Isleña. Later, in 1907, Sir Clements Markham translated the book into English, and it was published in London. The book also includes a short list of words from the Guanche language, along with nine sentences.

See Also

In Spanish: Alonso de Espinosa (fraile) para niños

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