Isleños (Spanish: [isˈleɲos]) are the descendants of Canarian settlers and immigrants to present-day Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, Texas, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and other parts of the Americas.

Formerly used for the general category of people, it now refers to the specific cultural identity of Canary Islanders or their descendants throughout Latin America and in Louisiana, where they are still called isleños.

The term isleño is still used in Hispanic America, at least in those countries which had large Canarian populations, to distinguish a Canary Islander from a peninsular (continental Spaniard).

Although almost all descendants of Canary Islanders who immigrated to the Americas from the 16th to the 20th century are incorporated socially and culturally within the larger populations, there remain a few communities that have preserved at least some of their ancestors' Canarian culture, as in Louisiana, San Antonio in Texas, Hatillo, Puerto Rico, and San Carlos de Tenerife (now a neighborhood of Santo Domingo) in the Dominican Republic The Canary Islander immigration to the Americas began as early as 1492, with the first voyage of Columbus,[citation needed] and did not end until the early 1980s.

[7] Consequently, during the late 17th and 18th century, hundreds of Canarian families moved to Venezuela, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, with others going to places like Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina or the south of the present United States.

After the liberation of the Latin American countries from Spanish rule (1811–1825), Spain retained only Cuba and Puerto Rico as colonies in the Americas.

The diminished output of vidueño canario (an internationally traded white table wine) after the 1640 emancipation from Spanish rule of Portugal, whose colonies were its preferred market, put thousands of Canarians out of work, causing many of them to immigrate to the Americas with their families.

There was discussion in governmental circles of the islands being overpopulated, and the Spanish crown decided to institute the "El Tributo de Sangre (the tribute of blood).

Commerce in cochineal dye expanded in the Canary Islands during the 19th century well into the 1880s, when trade in this product plummeted, which, together with the coffee boom and the war crisis in Cuba, depressed the economy.

The usual form of administration to manage the emigration from the islands prevailed, with corruption and fraud governing the actions of the Canarian ruling classes.

Louisiana's Isleños have shared some aspects of Canarian culture for over 200 years with the Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican peoples in those Caribbean countries influenced by earlier waves of settlers from the Canary Islands, who first arrived in the Americas in the late 16th century.

Of the Latin American countries, Cuba was most affected by the immigration of Canary Islanders, and their presence influenced the development of the Cuban dialect and accent.

The tributo de sangre ended in 1764, but poverty and overpopulation in the Canary Islands still caused many Canarians to immigrate to Puerto Rico and other parts of Latin America.

300 Canarians arrived in 1955, when Trujillo encouraged Spanish immigration to his country to raise the white population, but most of them left and went to Venezuela because of the harsh conditions.

Venezuela experienced significant economic and political change between these centuries, and Canarians played key roles during the turbulent period of revolts and independence movements that resulted in these changes, roles largely inspired by the social, economic, and political conditions faced by the first wave of Canarian immigrants to the region.

Those that decided against searching for land took jobs as laborers on cacao estates or became menial workers such as shopkeepers or transporters of goods, while others became involved in the business of contraband.

[18] A rallying cry for Canarians during this protest was “Long live the King and death to the Vizcayans,” referring to the peninsulares who held positions of power in government and the Caracas Company.

[18] The Canarians were not looking to rid themselves of the Spanish crown, but to shake themselves of the power of the Caracas Company and peninsulares who threatened the contraband economy.

[18] Other accounts, however, don’t see the ignorance as a factor in decision-making, instead arguing that Isleños identified and sided with the movement they believed would be most sympathetic to their cause and their goals.

During the 20th century, another group of Canarians settled in Mexico in the early 1930s, and as with Galician and other Spanish immigrants of the time, there were high rates of illiteracy and impoverishment among them, but they adapted relatively quickly.

While the Spanish Civil War was still being fought in Spain, the prominent Canarian intellectual Agustin Millares Carlo from Las Palmas became an expatriate in Mexico in 1938.

Another expedition was led in 1519 by López de Sosa, who was appointed by the Spanish government to replace Dávila and recruited 200 of his neighbors on Gran Canaria to participate in the conquest of Central America.

[9] The number of Canary islanders who emigrated to Argentina before the 19th century was very low, although three companies of soldiers from Tenerife who were with Pedro de Mendoza when he founded Buenos Aires in 1535 decided to stay, they intermarried with natives and/or other Spanish settlers.

In Colombia, in 1536, Pedro Fernández de Lugo led an expedition of 1,500 people, 400 of whom were Canarians from all the different islands that make up the archipelago[21]), for the conquest of the area around what became Santa Marta.

[7] In the 16th century, many people who emigrated to the Americas from there were, in fact, Spaniards from the mainland of Europe or foreigners, making it difficult to know how many of the immigrants were actually Canarians.

It is known, however, that since the 16th century, the Canary Islands were a transit point for European vessels bound for the Americas (many of them to Brazil), and it is likely that some of them were carrying Canarians to the Portuguese colony.

Due to the difficult circumstances of travel, several expeditions that had left Lanzarote for Uruguay were forced to end their passage in other places, such as Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina island.

Rixo Alvarez speaks of the expeditions of Polycarp Medinilla, a Portuguese based in Lanzarote, and Agustín González Brito, from Arrecife.

There were other publications distributed in the Canary Islands that opposed the emigration movement, and the Canarian press depicted a very negative view of the quality of life for migrants in Brazil.

[23] Due to proximity of Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire to South America and the establishment of economic ties between the Netherlands (the ruler of Curaçao) and Viceroyalty of New Granada (which includes present-day countries of Colombia and Venezuela), Canarian settlers from nearby Venezuela lived on the islands; children from affluent Canarian Venezuelan families were educated on the islands.