History of the Basques

In the 1990s Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza published his findings according to which one of the main European autosomal components, PC 5, was shown to be a typically Basque trait believed to have receded owing to the migration of Eastern peoples during the Neolithic and Metal Ages.

One of the most notable towns on account of its size and continuity was La Hoya in southern Álava, which may have served as a link, and possibly a trading centre, between Portugal (Vila Nova de São Pedro culture) and Languedoc (Treilles group).

The Vascones show the closest identification with current Basques, but evidence points to Basque-like people extending around the Pyrenees and up to the Garonne, as evidenced by Caesar's testimony on his book De Bello Gallico, Aquitanian inscriptions (person and god names), and several place-names.

Calahorra itself became episcopal see in the 4th century, with its bishop holding an authority over a territory that extended well into the lands of present-day central Rioja (Sierra de Cameros), Biscay, Álava, a large part of Gipuzkoa and Navarre.

Enlisting the Church on his side to strengthen his power in Vasconia, he restored Frankish authority on the high Pyrenees in 778, divided the land between bishops and abbots and began to baptize the pagan Basques of this region.

[25] Apart from the vanished previous tribal boundaries, the great development between the death of Hydatius and the events accounted for in the 580s is the appearance of the Basques as a "mountain roaming people", most of the times depicted as posing a threat to urban life.

However, Reformist ideas, imported via the vibrant Ways of Saint James and sustained by the Kingdom of Navarre-Bearn, were subject to intense persecution by the Spanish Inquisition and other institutions as early as 1521, especially in bordering areas, a matter with close links to the shaky status of Navarre.

In 1620 the de jure separate Lower Navarre was absorbed by the Kingdom of France, and in 1659 the Treaty of the Pyrenees upheld actual Spanish and French territorial control and determined the fate of vague bordering areas, so establishing customs that did not exist up to that point and restricting free cross-border access.

However, King Philip II of Spain's failed Armada Invencible endeavour in 1588, largely relying on heavy whaling and trade galleons confiscated from the reluctant Basques, proved disastrous.

With their overseas and customary cross-Pyrenean trade—and by extension home rule—under threat, the royal advance was responded by the western Basques with a trail of matxinadas, or uprisings, that shook 30 towns in coastal areas (Biscay, Gipuzkoa).

[42] In the wake of the events, an expedition led by the Duke of Berwick dispatched by the Quadruple Alliance broke into Spanish territory by the western Pyrenees (April 1719) only to find Gipuzkoans, Biscayans and Álavans making a formal, conditional recognition of French rule (August 1719).

[45] The vibrant trade that followed added to a flourishing building activity and the establishment of the pivotal Royal Basque Society, led by Xavier Maria de Munibe, for the encouragement of science and arts.

At home, the need for technical innovations—not encouraged any longer by the Spanish Crown during the last third of the 18th century—the virtual exhaustion of the forests supplying the ironworks, and the decline of the Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas after the end of its trade monopoly with America heralded a major economic and political crisis.

[46] On a positive note the Spanish customs exactions imposed over the Ebro favoured a more European orientation and the circulation of innovative ideas—labelled by many in Spain as "un-Spanish"—both technical and humanistic, such as Rousseau's 'social contract', hailed especially by the Basque liberals, who widely supported home rule (fueros).

[50] The offensive on the ground was accompanied by an attempt to discredit the sources of Basque self-government as Castile granted privileges, notably Juan Antonio Llorente's Noticias históricas de las tres provincias vascongadas... (1806–1808), commissioned by the Spanish government, praised by Godoy,[51] and immediately contested by native scholars with their own works—P.P.

With the Peninsular War in full swing, two short-lived civil constituencies were eventually created directly answerable to France: Biscay (present-day Basque Autonomous Community) and Navarre, along with other territories to the north of the Ebro.

On 18 October 1812, the acting Biscayan Regional Council was called in Bilbao by the Basque militia commander Gabriel Mendizabal, with the assembly agreeing on the submission of deputies to Cádiz with a negotiation request.

[55] The end of the Trienio Liberal in Spain brought to prominence the most staunchly Catholic, traditionalists, and absolutists in Navarre, who attempted to restore the Inquisition and established in 1823 the so-called Comisiones Militares, aimed at orthodoxy and scrutiny of inconvenient individuals.

However, the Carlist ideology was not in itself prone to stand up for the Basque specific institutions, traditions, and identity, but royal absolutism and Church,[57] thriving in rural based environments and totally opposed to modern liberal ideas.

The pro-fueros liberals strong at the moment in war and poverty stricken Pamplona confirmed most of the above arrangements, but signed the separate 1841 "Compromise Act" (Ley Paccionada), whereby Navarre ceased officially to exist as a kingdom and was made into a Spanish province, but keeping a set of important prerogatives, including control over taxation.

Other theatres of war in Spain (Castile, Catalonia) were no exception, with the Carlists undergoing a wide number of setbacks that contributed to the eventual victory of King Alfonso XII's Spanish army.

The large numbers of workers which both required were initially drawn from the Basque countryside and the peasantry of nearby Castile and Rioja, but increasingly immigration began to flow from the remoter impoverished regions of Galicia and Andalusia.

The Basque Country, hitherto a source of emigrants to France, Spain and America, faced for the first time in recent history the prospect of a massive influx of foreigners possessing different languages and cultures as a side-effect of industrialisation.

The railway provision for the Basque coast entailed not only a more fluent freight shipping, but a quicker expansion of the seaside spa model of Biarritz to San Sebastián, providing a steady flow of tourists, elitist first and middle class later—especially from Madrid.

In July 1936, a military uprising erupted across Spain, in the face of which Basque nationalists in Biscay and Gipuzkoa sided with the Spanish republicans, but many in Navarre, a Carlist stronghold, supported General Francisco Franco's insurgent forces.

Another big atrocity of this war, immortalised by Picasso's emblematic mural, was the April 1937 aerial bombing of Gernika, a Biscayne town of great historical and symbolic importance, by Adolf Hitler's Condor Legion and Benito Mussolini's Aviazione Legionaria at Franco's bidding.

One was a new wave of immigration from the poorer parts of Spain to Biscay and Gipuzkoa during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in response to the region's escalating industrialization aimed to supply the Spanish internal market as a result of a post-war self-sufficiency policy, favoured by the regime.

But ETA was only one component of a social, political and language movement rejecting Spanish domination but also sharply criticizing the inertia of the Basque Country's own conservative nationalists (organized in the PNV).

The crisis left the newly established Basque autonomous government from Vitoria-Gasteiz (led initially by Carlos Garaikoetxea) facing a major strategic challenge related to the dismantling of the traditional shipbuilding and steel industry now subject to open international competition.

Economic confidence was largely restored during the mid-1990s when the autonomous government's bet on modernization of manufacturing, R+D based specialization, and quality tourism started to bear fruit, counting on flowing credit from local savings banks.