Portuguese migration to the Canary Islands: an analysis based on surnames

ROMÁN-BUSTO, J., FUSTER, V., COLANTONIO, S.E.

Anthropologischer Anzeiger

E. Schweizerbart?sche Verlagsbuchhandlung

Lugar: Stuttgart; Año: 2012 vol. 68 p. 243 - 253

0003-5548

As a part of a wider analysis of population and genetic exchange between Spainand Portugal, the long term pattern of Portuguese immigration to the Canary Islands wasstudied by means of the frequency of Portuguese surnames. A database of 1,995,833 individualswas obtained from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (2006). Among the 826 mostfrequent surnames to appear, 79 surnames of Portuguese origin were selected. The distributionof these surnames by municipalities and islands, the Fisher index of diversity, and theLasker inter-population relationship coefficients Rij were considered. These coefficientswere inter-correlated and correlated with other variables that could have influenced the distributionof surnames. From the observed distribution of the frequency of surnames, a non-randommigration pattern conditioned by economic factors was found. The greatest diversity ofsurnames existed in cane cultivating areas after the first arrival of Portuguese immigrants. Alater dispersion of surnames among islands was correlated with the inter-island geographicdistances. In some islands the arrival of new immigrants continued due to their strategic locationwithin the Canary archipelago. The Canary Islands reveal a high frequency and diversityof Portuguese surnames. The results also prove a heterogeneous distribution of these surnamesthroughout the archipelago. In contrast to the Portuguese archipelagos, some Canarylocalities have received immigrants continuously because of their economic importance insugar cane cultivation and strategic geographic location on the maritime routes to Africa andAmerica.