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The Villa y Puerto de Tazacorte is a Spanish municipality located in the west of the island of La Palma and belonging to the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands).

History

Source of San Miguel Arcángel (Patron of La Palma and Tazacorte). This monument is located next to the town hall building and is the symbol of the municipality.

Alonso Fernández de Lugo began the conquest of La Palma at the mouth of the Las Angustias ravine, where the Port of Tazacorte is located today, on September 29, 1492. He disembarked without resistance, which allowed a subsequent peaceful settlement in the plain of Tazacorte, an enclave where the first camp was erected and the hermitage of San Miguel was erected, who since then became the patron saint of Tazacorte and of the entire island of La Palma. Therefore, this temple is the patronal temple of La Palma dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel.

After successive sales and transfers, in 1513, the fertile Hacienda de Tazacorte was acquired by the Flemish Jacome Groenenberg, who would Hispanicize his name into Jácome Monteverde. From now on, the property will be dedicated to the cultivation of sugar cane, in an exploitation regime of semi-feudal characteristics. The anchorage at El Puerto de Tazacorte was the second most important on La Palma, after the capital. Since the XVI century, national and foreign vessels that exported sugar cane, wine and other products from the country stopped at its roadstead. At the end of the XVIII century the peasants of Tazacorte were poor in wealth, poorly eaten and poorly dressed, and as their main food they ate fern roots.

In August 1812, the municipality of Los Llanos was formed with the population of the same name as the head, plus El Paso, Argual and Tazacorte as the main payments. In 1815, the productivity and profitability of sugar cane, which is a demanding plant, began to decline, and production dwindled in the depleted soils of the region. In 1830 the last sugar mill in Tazacorte was closed and, from those dates on, they were replaced by self-consumption crops. However, from 1850 Tazacorte found in fishing and the cultivation of cochineal two economic activities that brought wealth to some and means of subsistence for others.

Since 1890, to the tobacco, sugar, and shipments of cochineal that were still placed in foreign markets, they added the growing production of tomatoes, first, and then bananas.

20th century

The end of the Great War reopened the European markets for bananas and tomatoes. Starting in 1919, the British company Fyffes Limited leased the farms from the largest owners in the municipality. The company improves the banana plantations by selling more and more quantities and at a better price so that in the mid-twenties 70% of the population of Tazacorte worked around the export of bananas.

In 1923, the Tazacorte settlement was the most populous nucleus of the municipality of Los Llanos, with 2,316 inhabitants, and the most economically developed in the Aridane Valley.

In 1925, for three days they declared themselves an independent country from Spain, of which the following verses were written: "With bicheros, sticks and reeds / let us shout with a loud voice / Viva Tazacorte free / and independent from Spain." During their three days of Independence, with their hunting rifles they did not allow anyone to cross their borders, until a Spanish warship arrived that fired a shell that passed over the entire sky of the country, falling on the Argual mountain, which although it was part of the foreigner is still a few hundred meters from their capital, which caused their surrender. However, although they did not achieve Independence from Spain, they did so that same year in the municipality of Los Llanos de Aridane. On September 16, 1925, the dictatorial government of Primo de Rivera granted the decree by which Tazacorte obtained the independence of Los Llanos. Its first mayor was the teacher and president of the Patriotic Union, Miguel Medina Quesada.

In August 1926, a plague epidemic was declared in Tazacorte that affected a large number of the population.

On April 14, 1931, after the municipal elections, King Alfonso XIII went into exile from Spain and the Second Republic was declared.

In Tazacorte, liberals and republicans celebrate the change of regime in the streets and throwing flyers, then begins a period of intense political activity in the municipality. With democracy begins the direct participation of the popular classes in politics, which in Tazacorte brings great union development and an important rise of communism. In 1931 the Various Trades Union was refounded, to which, in just three years, the 800 wage earners and small farmers registered in Tazacorte joined. In 1932, the Communist Workers' and Farmers' Association was formed, which won by an absolute majority, obtaining six councillors, the municipal elections of 1933 and in the general elections of 1936, it obtained 72.2% of the votes for the Popular Front.

In August 1931 the newspaper Tribuna appeared, which the following year changed its name to Tribuna Libre, a header that was published until 1935 under the direction of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez García, a journalist returned from Argentina.

The coup d'état and military pronouncement of July 17 and 18, 1936 against the government of the Second Republic was known in Tazacorte, throughout the morning of July 18, through radio stations. At that time, Francisco Pulido is mayor, who, after the military uprising, leaves municipal control in the hands of a commission sponsored by the Various Trades Union. This commission declares a general strike to which the workers respond in an absolute way, paralyzing the town, only irrigation continues to prevent the crops from being lost.

In 1979, in the first democratic municipal elections, he won the candidacy of the Communist Party.

Geographic location

	North: Tijarafe
West: Atlantic Ocean		This: The Plains of Aridane
	South: The Plains of Aridane

Economy

Evolution of outstanding debt

The concept of outstanding debt includes only debts with savings banks and banks related to financial credits, fixed-income securities and loans or credits transferred to third parties, excluding, therefore, commercial debt.

Graphic of evolution of the city council's living debt between 2008 and 2014

Living city council debt in thousands of Euros according to data from the Ministry of Finance and Ad. Public.

The outstanding municipal debt per inhabitant in 2014 amounted to €597.40.

Demographics

The municipality, which has an area of 11.37 km², has 4,620 inhabitants and a density of 406.33 inhabitants/km² according to the 2017 municipal register of the INE.

Graphic of demographic evolution of Tazacorte between 1930 and 2017

Population of law according to population censuses of the INE.Population according to the 2017 municipal register.

Between 1920 and 1930, this municipality appeared because it was segregated from the municipality of Los Llanos de Aridane.

Population by nuclei

Breakdown of the population according to the Continuous Register by INE Population Unit.

Tazacorte neighborhoods.

Foreign population

Foreign nationals (2011)
Position	Nationality	Population
1. a	Venezuela	301
2. a	Germany	292
3. a	United Kingdom	39
4. a	Cuba	36
5. a	Italy	33
6. a	Switzerland	24
7. a	Colombia	19
8. a	Netherlands	17
9. a	France	16
10. a	Austria	12
11. a	Sweden	7
12. a	Argentina	7
13. a	Romania	6