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Basque Country History
The Basque Country is today confined to a smaller area than at certain times throughout history, indeed it still claims to have pockets of south-west France and the community of Navarre as part of its territory. It has always fought to protect its language and its culture for many years and has managed to stave off a number of attacks in its past
It is unclear as to where the Basque people came from although there are some pieces of evidence that are thought to date back 7,000 years which would make them the oldest and purist people group in the Iberian region. It is also thought that their language, spoken by 30 per cent of the population, was in use before any other Indo-European language, giving some idea as to why it is so jealously guarded.
When the Romans descended on the Iberian Peninsula the Basque people largely retained their laws and leadership and managed to stand firm against the Romanisation process. In later colonisation attempts they guarded their territory against the Visigoths, the Vikings and even the Muslims, while other groups just avoided the area to the north of Spain.
The Basques have established something of a reputation for a seafaring people. It is said of them that they reached North America hundreds of years before Columbus set sail while when Columbus did eventually head west in the 15th century he had a number of Basque sailors with him.
More recently, and unsurprisingly, the Basques intensely opposed the nationalism that General Franco brought and taught in the 20th century. They attempted to stand firm during the Civil War and so Franco declared two of the provinces ‘traitor provinces’. They received little economic investment, however Franco was still unable to fully suppress the region as in the 1950s a regionalist movement gathered pace. Further, the separatist group ETA was established in the 1960s with strong support for a homeland which was outworked in acts of violence.
By the time Franco died and the new constitution was brought into play the Basque’s were able to take on a very much official autonomy again. And so with the Statute of Autonomy that was issued in the early 1980s the Basque people were ruled from their own land even if not as fully as they would have hoped for.