Tabarca Island

The island of Tabarca, of Nueva Tabarca or Plana, officially Isla Plana or Nueva Tabarca (in Valencian, Illa Plana or Nova Tabarca), is an island in the Mediterranean Sea located about 22 kilometers from the Spanish city of Alicante, about 8 km from the port of Santa Pola and just over 4,300 meters (2.35 nautical miles) from Cape Santa Pola. It is the largest island in the Valencian Community and the only one inhabited. Administratively it is considered a rural part of Alicante, and the city is located on it of Tabarca, which had 51 inhabitants in 2019.

Toponymy

The island has received various names throughout history. The Greeks probably knew it as Planesia, while the Romans gave it the name Planaria. The Ceuta geographer Al-Idrisi mentions it under the name ابلناصة (ablanāșa), clear derivation from Planesia. In medieval times it was mainly called Saint Paul, since according to tradition this was the place where the apostle disembarked, although perhaps the place name either a derivation of Apollo or Pallas Athena, or even a popular etymology from the Latin palus ("wetland", referring to the Albufera de Elche), which would pass through metathesis to pauls and from there to pol. However, it was also called Plana, given its main physical characteristic. In medieval Latin it was known as Alones [insula], due to the belief that ancient Alonis was located in Alicante and not in Villajoyosa as is now believed. Although it was generally considered an island, it has also been called islet of Santa Pola due to its small size. With the arrival of Genoese refugees from the Tunisian island of Tabarka in 1770, it changed its name to New Tabarca. This comes from the Arabic طبرقة (ṭabarqa^tu), which in turn derives from Thabraca, the name of the settlement original Numidian. The fortified city is sometimes referred to as San Pablo (in Valencian Sant Pau).

Physical geography

Satellite photography from the Santa Pola Cape; Tabarca appears in the lower right corner.

The island covers a total area of 30 ha, with a maximum length of 1800 m from NW to SE and a maximum width of 450 m. It presents a significant narrowing in its western third, where the port and the two beaches, which creates an isthmus that separates the city from the rest of the island. Its relief tends to be flat, with a maximum altitude of 15 m above sea level. Near the main island are the islets of La Nao (Nau), La Galera and La Cantera. Other smaller rocks surround the island: l'Escull Roig, la Sabata, l'Escull Negre and Cap del Moro. The entire coast is rugged and in the southern part of the island coastline is the Llop Marí cave. Geologically, it is possible that it was part of the Santa Pola promontory and the continental shelf suggests so with its advance towards the SE. The surface of the island is made up of a fossiliferous Miocene conglomerate, calcoarenites, and a large basaltic clearing to the N and E, which was probably already exploited by the ancient people of Elche and which is extended by cliffs and cliffs. The entire island was swept away by sea erosion in the Quaternary, which produced the current plain. It lacks trees and vegetation is sparse. The city is located in the western part of the island, geographically a small peninsula of it. In the eastern part there is only an old house-barracks of the Civil Guard that fulfilled radiotelegraphy missions, the tower of San José, the lighthouse, the cemetery and some cultivated fields.

Island Map

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Interactive map — Tabarca Island

Climate

The climate is dry Mediterranean, with an average annual temperature above 17 °C, maximums of 35 °C in August and minimums of 5 °C in January. Rainfall is very irregular throughout the year, and does not they exceed 300 mm. The dominant winds in spring-summer are the east and the milk; while during autumn-winter the winds from the first and fourth quadrants (north, master and west) predominate. The average wind speed is not very high, 21 km/h during the day and 17 km/h at night, which they indicate the goodness of the prevailing wind regime in the area, although speeds of 167 km/h have sometimes been recorded, as occurred on January 20, 1978.

History

Materials from the Roman period have been recovered on the island, which show that it must have been populated even then, although no remains of buildings have been located that attest to a stable settlement. However, there are remains of a necropolis and shipwrecks with amphoras, as well as perhaps industrial buildings. It is probably identified with the Planesia of the ancient Greeks, which Strabo described as a dangerous island due to the abundance of reefs, a fact that could be confirmed by the several wrecks of Roman ships have been found in the vicinity of the island. Another argument in favor of this hypothesis is that the Ceuta geographer al-Idrisi mentions the island as بلناسية (Blanāsīa), clear derivation of the Greek name.

The first news about the need to establish some fortification date from the XIII century. In 1337 the construction of a tower was authorized, but it is unknown if it was carried out. Whatever it was, in 1427 he proposed to organize a good defensive system to prevent it from being occupied by the Barbary corsairs who came from Algiers, who used it as a base for their actions against Campo de Alicante and Bajo Vinalopó. During this time it was It was popularly known as Isla de San Pablo (Illa de Sant Pau), since according to tradition this was the place where the apostle landed. It was also known as Isla Plana (Illa Plana), although chroniclers persist in the names Alones Insula and Islote de Santa Pola. In the time of Felipe III, the idea of building a large fortification was considered, but it was discarded due to the expenses that its maintenance would entail. Despite everything, in 1760 the first buildings on the island began to be built, by the hand of the Count of Aranda, who had also promoted the colonization of Sierra Morena.

Original plan of fortification as planned, which is preserved in the National Historical Archive.

The history of present-day Tabarca begins in 1768, when Carlos III, urged by the Trinitarian friar Alonso Cano Nieto, managed to redeem a group of 323 people of Ligurian origin who, under the government of the Republic of Genoa, had settled on the Tunisian island of Tabarka. This island, which was about three hundred meters from the North African coast, had been subdued by Ali I, bey of Tunis, in 1741 and had reduced its inhabitants to slavery and taken to Algiers. In that state they remained until October 14 of 1768, in which the rescue began, promoted by Carlos III and entrusted in secret to the provincials of Castilla of the two redeeming orders: fr. Alonso Cano Nieto, footwear Trinitarian, and fr. Antonio Manuel de Artalejo, barefoot Mercedarian. The redemption lasted until December 8 of the same year. The Tabarquinos probably arrived by sea to Cartagena and, from there, in carts to Alicante, where, after the thanksgiving procession of the captives, they were temporarily installed in the old Royal College of the Company of Jesus, empty after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. The traditional date of his arrival in the city is March 19, 1769. Finally the Count of Aranda managed to transfer him to the island of Santa Pola, in order to allow them to recover their daily habitat, as well as to continue exercising fishing as their predominant activity. In addition, the count had estimated that a stable civilian population on the island would be a great advantage in maintaining the square. Therefore, not only was a fort built, but a town with city status was also built, which took the name Nueva Tabarca. during the captivity in Algiers. This entire episode appears in the same baptism book of the parish of San Pedro and San Pablo as follows:

"It is clear that among the many islands that populate the Mediterranean, there is a very small name called Tabarca, distant from the firm land of Africa little more than a stone throw. It was protected and governed by the distinguished Republic of Genoa and inhabited by an immemorial time of Christians. This island was taken by the king of Tunisia in a thousand seven hundred forty-one year, all being captive under this barbaric king. Fifteen years and months were these miserable tobacconists crying in Tunisia their captivity. Until the war between Tunisia and Algiers moved, without failing to be captive, they became the Algerian, from Tunisia they went to Algiers, in whose transit many women stopped on the road, with the greatest penalty and work. These bastards were tobacconists under the yoke of the Algerian twelve years and months. However, having passed most of the people to Algiers, there were some Tabarchin families in the city of Tunisia, for whose ashes were several the pilgrimages made by the Reverend Father John the Baptist Riverola, Augustinian, priest of the people, from Algiers to Tunisia and from Tunisia to Algiers, to visit, assist and comfort his beloved people; and when the most was impossible his redemption and less thought of After they were in Alicante, they thought of looking for a place provided, to make decent rooms for these redeemed families, and the Prime Minister Governor and President of the Council, the H.E. Count of Aranda, influenced the monarch, so that the island of Plana de San Pablo would be chosen for its abode and rest. "

First book of Baptisms of the parish of New Tabarca.

Each family was assigned a numbered house on the island, with a formal act and regular receipt. In addition, the colonists were granted a series of privileges and exemptions, exempting them from the service of arms and from the payment of direct and indirect taxes to which the towns of the monarchy were subject. Security was entrusted to a galley and for the development of fishing, six rigged boats were granted. The Genoese origin of its current inhabitants is easy to verify through a historical follow-up of the most common surnames, some phonetically Hispanicized: Buzo, Capriata, Chacopino (Jacopino), Colomba, Russo, etc.

View of the city from the Campo.

The first houses were finished in 1770, the year in which the Tabarquinos moved to the island. The works were carried out by the military engineer Fernando Méndez de Ras, who built walls, batteries, bastions, tongs, doors, warehouses and glacis. The works concluded with the construction of houses for the settlers, underground vaults where military supplies were stored, stables, the church, the governor's house and the Town Hall houses, in case it ever had it (which never happened). In addition, a whole series of essential facilities for island life were built, such as a laundry, a cistern for rainwater, bread, lime and plaster ovens, etc.

Nine years after the beginning of colonization, between March 24 and 25, 1779, a commission in charge of compiling a list of residents traveled to the island, corresponding to the real residential and work situation of each one, whose report suggested a clear situation of decline: the land was hardly worked due to the poor quality of the land, the boats were in disuse and lacking in maintenance, the majority of the settlers lived bordering on misery, the fortress was already beginning to crumble, there was a lack of water, etc. Therefore, a specific plan was necessary to activate the resident population, which resulted in the arrival of José Rouge as interim commander of the Plaza.

However, the new geopolitical situation at the end of the XVIII century and beginning of the XIX century forced a change in the objectives of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea, which drastically reduced the military importance of the island and, therefore, the number of the garrison. In addition, in 1835, with the implementation of the constitutional system, all the privileges and exemptions that they enjoyed were withdrawn the tabarquinos. In the Dictionary of Madoz (1845-1850) Tabarca is already described in a phase of certain decline:

For the government of the pobl[ation] and of the island there is an alc[alde] p[edit] dependent on the fast[edit] of Alicante, named by the Political Gefe, a military governor or commander, and an alc[alde] of the sea, named the commander of the prov marine [incia]. It is built with regular walls and a spacious cast[illo] called by Saint Paul [...] Understand about 100 houses living, among them the governor and the priest's; they are all in poor condition, and are distributed in 2 main streets, 6 alleys and a square square [...] with an algibe on each side. Serves from prison a tower sit[each] at 300 rods of dist[ance] of the c[iudad], in which there is also a parr[esia] igl [oquial] (Saint Paul) [...] The trade It is void; it only has 7 small grocery stores that provide the people with everything necessary to life, and an oven that supplies the bouquet of bread. Pobl[ation]: 100 vec[inos], 500 alm[as] [...]

Madoz Dictionary

Finally, the garrison, along with the governor, left the island in 1850, when the island's decline really began, not recovering until well into the 1960s. In 1854 the lighthouse was inaugurated, which became a school for lighthouse keepers.

Due on the one hand to the continued decline in the population, and on the other to the special protection plans drawn up since the middle of the XX century, the few new constructions have been located inside the walled enclosure and in the area of the isthmus, thus conserving the island as a whole an appearance similar to what it had in the XVIII. Since the 1980s, restoration works have been carried out on most of the island's buildings such as the walls, the lighthouse, the church and, with The Governor's House was larger due to its advanced state of ruin. On April 14, 1983, the island was declared a marine reserve, "in order to preserve the marine fauna and flora of the area and serve as a repopulation base in benefit of the ecological richness of the adjoining waters". Although the original houses have been replaced Throughout the years, the only specifically new housing complex is made up of a small group of semi-detached houses in the southwestern part of the walled enclosure, designed by the architect Juan Luis Gallego.

It is the only inhabited island (along with La Graciosa) in Spanish territory free of the 2020 coronavirus disease pandemic.

Demographics

In 1970 Tabarca had a population of 242 inhabitants, but this has been declining at a good pace given the scarcity of livelihoods, which have produced an emigration directed mainly towards Santa Pola and Elche. In 2003 it had 111 inhabitants and in 2009 only 73. This marked population decline is caused by, among other factors, a precarious economy, the lack of services and the possibility of finding better jobs on the peninsula.

Politics

Port of Tabarca.

It belongs to the city of Alicante and, although it is considered a rural district, administratively it is part of the southern district of neighborhoods that also includes Palmeral, Aguamarga and Urbanova.

Economy

Although the economy was initially based on fishing, as well as supporting the military detachment that existed on the island, today the main economic activity is tourism. In the summer months, Tabarca can receive around 3,000 visitors a day.

Public services

Until recently, Tabarca was supplied with water through two cisterns that are located in the Plaza de la Carolina, as well as through tanks that left from Alicante. Currently there are pipes that supply the island with water and electricity from the peninsula. At the eastern end of the island is the parish cemetery.

Transportation

The island is connected by regular catamaran lines with Alicante and Santa Pola, there are also seasonal services to Guardamar del Segura, Cabo Roig and Torrevieja. Due to the small size of the island, there are no roads inside and hardly any vehicle traffic.

Heritage

Architectural heritage

Door of the Trancada or San Gabriel

Church of Saint Peter and Paul

Faro de Tabarca in the 1860s photographed by J. Laurent

The entire island was declared a Historic-Artistic Site on August 27, 1964, with the affiliation of materials from the High Imperial period to the 17th century XIX.

• Muralla: Its perimeter adapts to that of the island and was mostly built according to the original plans. It is built in stone, with the exterior faces in sillery. There are sections of walls that are very deteriorated and even crumbling over the sea, and the hives have almost disappeared. However, several reconstruction and rehabilitation work has been carried out since 1980. The wall has three doors, all Baroque style:
  • Puerta de Levante or San Rafael (Porta de Llevant o de Sant Rafel): It is located east and it is the way of communication between the city and the countryside, where the port is located. Before it, an antemural must have been built to allow the monitoring of the countryside and the sea on both sides.
  • Door of the Trancada or San Gabriel (Porta de la Trancada o de Sant Gabriel): It is the west gate and gives way to the old quarry where the stone was extracted to perform the buildings of the city. In that islet, the construction of a shipyard and a tower was foreseen, which did not happen. In the surroundings of the gate are found burials and dumps of Roman times.
  • Puerta de Tierra, de Alicante or San Miguel (Porta de Terra, d'Alacant o de Sant Miquel): It is the smallest and opens to a small cove in which the port was located, of which only the small sprawl formed by the natural rock is recorded.

• Church of Saint Peter and Paul (Stage of Sant Pere i Sant Pau(c): In 1769 there was already a small chapel, which was extended to church and blessed in 1770. The current building is free, single nave and side chapels. Under his pavement there are three vaults with graves. It has two doors, one on the front of the west and another on the south facade, where the NS axis started, in principle, to the castle that never came to be built. Both the portico and the openings of the windows are of baroque inspiration, dominating in them the curves and the winged surfaces. Following the church, a building was built for the priest's house and schools.

• House of Governor (Casa del Governador(c): As the castle was never built, the Governor’s house was built on a side of the square, on the house that had been built for stables, in order to install a “decent and interim accommodation that it has for the Governor and Town Hall”. Together it is a two-storey building and covered in four waters. Part of the ground floor reflects the use of storage that was initially planned, highlighting above all the large free spaces, supported by the double intermediate arcade. It is now fully restored and has a hotel.

• Torre de San José (Torre de Sant Josep): Its background is in the constructions made in the 14th and 15th centuries and is located in the western third of the countryside. The current building, the work of Baltasar Ricoud, has a pyramidal trunk with a square plant and around it was designed a pit that was never built. The access door is at high altitude on the ground, from which you can access through a small staircase. Inside there is a square courtyard. The faces of the facades are smooth and the corners were equipped with hooks that have disappeared when the building was abandoned. During the centuryXIX was used as a state prison. On November 12, 1838, in the course of the First Carlist War, 19 sergeants of the Carlist side were shot in this tower by order of the Board of Salvation and Defense of the Kingdom of Valencia (the liberal side). A commemorative plaque was installed in the citadel of New Tabarca in 1996.

• Faro (Far(c): It was inaugurated in 1854, according to plans of Agustín Elcoro Berocíbar, and it is a large building that served as a barn school. It is formed by a lower body of cubic volume of two floors intended for housing. On it the prismatic tower that supported the lighting mechanism, now dismantled. Stylistically it belongs to neoclassicism, although its chronology is somewhat late. In 1971 a new shaft of reinforced concrete was built on its side, which was nevertheless demolished in 1998 to recover the original lighthouse.

Natural heritage

• Tabarca Island Marine Reserve: Located in the waters surrounding the island, it was declared in 1986, making it the first marine reserve of Spain. It is an authentic refuge for both flora and marine fauna.

• Cueva del Llop Marí: It is located on the southern side of the island, under the walls. It has two adjoining mouths with access by sea and is visited by small limestone boats, with a tour of 100 meters. According to the popular legend is the refuge of a horrible sea monster, of a smooth and viscous body with an armed mouth of teeth of different sizes and shapes, to which the tobacconists persecute at night.

Urbanism

City plan in the first decade of the centuryXXIwith the walled enclosure and the port.

Tabarca's urban scheme responds to the Spanish tradition of creating new cities, of which there is a long experience in America and, already in the century XVIII, with the formation of the towns of Sierra Morena, as well as the Pious Foundations of Vega Baja del Segura. Formally, it reflects the baroque utopian approach, as it is walled on the western limit of the island while the rest, called the field, was devoted to agriculture which, along with fishing, would constitute the sources of subsistence for the inhabitants.

The plan is made up of two main axes, one EO and the other NS, which intersect in the large central plaza, called Carolina in honor of the king, and which was projected with a peripheral portico that was never carried out. The purpose of the two axes is clear from the original plane. The longest EW axis is functional and serves mainly to connect the city with the outside, as two of the three gates of the fortification are at its ends. Its imaginary extension continues to the tower of San José and beyond, to the lighthouse. The transversal axis is rather symbolic, and should have linked the church with the castle and the governor's house that would be found inside. These last two buildings, however, were never built. The remaining streets are arranged parallel to the two main axes, forming an orthogonal framework with the longest sides in the EW direction. The streets, made up of two rows of houses facing opposite streets, leave inside a courtyard that runs the entire length of the block.

The urban system is completed by a series of squares. Apart from the central square (La Carolina), there is the Plaza del Conde next to the Levante gate and the Baillecourt gate, next to the Trancada gate. Another one opens in front of the church, while the one that was supposed to open in front of the castle was never carried out.

Culture

Almadraba Building, headquarters of the New Tabarca Museum.

• New Tabarca Museum: It is located in the Almadraba building, an old warehouse mainly used for tuna fishing. The museum, founded in 2004, focuses on the study and dissemination of the relationships that the coastal populations have established, over time, with its natural environment, using as a paradigm the island of Tabarca, and thus exposing its natural, terrestrial and marine space, together with its historical set.
• Major parties: they are celebrated in honor of St.Paul, patron of the island, and St.Peter.

Language

Tabarca is the only town in the Alicante municipal area in which the daily use of Valencian is preserved, since given its isolation the linguistic substitution in favor of Spanish has not been as pronounced as in the capital. It is notable that in barely two years the Genoese who inhabited the island replaced Ligurian with Valencian, and that they have not preserved any trace of their original language, apart from their surnames. However, the survival of the Alicante dialect in the island is highly threatened due to the marked emigration and the absence of educational resources.

Tabarca in literature and cinema

The writer from Malaga Salvador Rueda, precursor of modernism, settled in Tabarca at the beginning of the XX century at the initiative of Gabriel Miró and thanks to the efforts of the engineer Antonio Sanchís Pujalte, who he said had turned Tabarca into the Island of Poets. During his stay, in May 1908, the Center for Writers and Artists and the Scientific and Literary Athenaeum offered him a tribute that lasted for two days, in which, among other things, Rueda was granted the title of adoptive son of Alicante and was given a piece of land on the island, where he the poet decided to build his residence.

Tarbení writer Miguel Signes Molines, who shared prison with Miguel Hernández after the civil war, wrote the novel Tabarca. It tells the story of a republican political activist who, persecuted by the Franco regime, takes refuge in Tabarca. Signes' work was made into a film in 1996 under the title Tabarka and, under the Directed by Domingo Rodes, it was filmed entirely on the island. In 1996, the Menorcan author Ponç Pons wrote the youth novel Memorial de Tabarca, whose outcome takes place on the island. In 2012, the crime novel Two lobsters for you... from this boat was published, by María Jesús Toro, set in mid-century Tabarca XX, in full tourist takeoff.