Blanca is a Spanish municipality in the Region of Murcia, located in the "Vega Alta del Segura".

In fact, to protect and fortify the port and the inlands, some of the best masons in Europe were sent to build and create communities by the fortifications and bridges under construction.

Blanca is in fact one of the rare area where wounded soldiers, orphans and widows could take refuge, regardless of their religion or nation.

We have to go to the year 713, with the arrival of the Arab conquest, to find permanent human presence in the town of Blanca.

In the thirteenth century, it was known by the name of "Negra", apparently because of the color of the black mountain near to the castle and population center.

However, after his death, ten years later, anarchy and lawlessness propagated in the Kingdom of Murcia, causing the Alcaraz Pact signed with Castile in 1243, which required the submission to the Crown as a protectorate.

With the death of the eldest son and Castilian heir, Fernando de la Cerda, the struggle began for the succession to the throne of Castile.

Future Sancho IV, promised, in a document dated 25 March 1281, to reward the Order of Santiago by donating the Ricote Valley, including Negra (Blanca), if they help him in his struggle for the crown.

When being proclaimed king in Seville 19 November 1285, Sancho IV fulfills his commitment and gave to the Order of Santiago the Ricote Valley, their neighbourhoods, villages and places, for the support provided (1).

Peace did not last many years in the Ricote Valley because James II of Aragón invaded the Kingdom of Murcia, in 1296, to reward himself for the help given to the other party, i.e.| the Infants de la Cerda, in the struggle for succession of the throne against his uncle.

During this occupation, Negra and its castle were given to the counselor Bernardo de Sarria, although the santiaguista commander of Ricote claimed to replace them to John Osores on 19 September 1303.

The change of the name Negra to Blanca probably took place between the years 1353 and 1362 by the influence of Dona Blanca de Borbón, Queen of Castile, who was abandoned by King Pedro I and defended by Fadrique, Master of the Order of Santiago, and by Sancho Sanchez de Moscoso, the santiaguista commander of Ricote (2).

The Advancer (Counselor) of the Kingdom of Murcia, Martin Alonso de Valdivieso, required the freedom of a Moor from Blanca, who was captured upon request of a Jew of Elche.

It caused the abandonment of Blanca's people marching with the troops of the King of Granada after a foray into the Kingdom of Murcia.

The domain of the Order of Santiago on Blanca and the rest of the Ricote Valley would be extended until the nineteenth century.

The Muslim population hoped, with this conversion to Christianity, to get rid of the fiscal pressures to which they were subject all the time.

The expulsion of the new Christians of the Ricote Valley - now suddenly called Moriscoes - decreed in 1613 by Philip III left in ruin the lands of Blanca.

The present church dedicated to St. John the Evangelist was rebuilt at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century by the stonecutter brothers Lucas and Antonio de la Lastra.

Freed from the control by the Order of Santiago, in 1851, and after the revolutionary events and the restoration of the monarchy of Cánovas del Castillo in Alfonso XII, Blanca faces the entrance of the new century, better prepared than some of the surrounding municipalities.

Also in 1894, Blanca suffered several collapses from the hillsides being destroyed several buildings, including a home-hospital and shelter for the poor.

During the twentieth century, the turbulent political and social periods were lived in the town with regularity as the rest of the region.

The 1936 elections, which were won by a coalition of leftist parties called "The Popular Front", returned to cause violent altercations throughout the Region.

As a result of this violence, Blanca missed a significant number of religious art, especially in religious imagery (saved from the same attacks one of the most prestigious and appreciated image of the "Christ tied to the column" of a Salzillo style and authorship of Sanchez Tapia).

This is not surprising because the economy of the municipality at the beginning of the century was based on agriculture, esparto (10) and the sale of timber, what gradually disappeared with the advent of synthetic fibers.

These circumstances and the closure of cannery industries and the abandonment of logging forced the emigration of many local residents to other places.

However, Blanca's inhabitants do not surrender to adversity and fight together to face future times in a remarkable effort to develop their city.

The running of the bulls is a very old tradition that has been held for over three hundred fifty years, and it is a unique event in the Region of Murcia.

During the morning the atmosphere that prevails throughout the entire running route of the bulls, is a limitless joy, in which dance and parade of bands encourage all who join the festivities, and where everyone is welcome.

[citation needed] In these lines Irene Molina explained years ago, in 1999, which were her impressions in the face of event occurred between Blanca and the Italian brother Anguillara Sabazia.

A representation of fifty-five inhabitants of Blanca traveled on 4 May 1998 to Italy for visiting Anguillara and for consolidating the twinning.