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Huelva is the first place in Spain where golf and football were played.
Most sailors who accompanied Christopher Columbus were from Moguer, Palos de la Frontera
and San Juan del Puerto.
Huelva isn’t one of Spain’s best-known provinces. That’s the way things are. Many people will say:
“Yes, that’s where Columbus set sail from with the caravels”, and not much else.
Nevertheless, Huelva has a long and very interesting history. There exist remains of human
settlements from Neolithic and even earlier times. In fact, recent finds have revealed that it’s
one of the oldest inhabited places in the West, going back over five thousand years. That’s what
became clear following the archaeological discoveries made in the Seminary area of Huelva capital,
on the site of a settlement inhabited continuously by different cultures from the end of the fourth
millennium B.C.
The province’s history has always been bound in with its mineral wealth. And in prehistoric times
minerals were so important that they even gave their names to the Iron Age, Bronze Age, Stone Age
etc. How could Huelva have kept itself out of these activities? Its copper mines are what gave rise
to the founding and rapid development of human colonies in the region. All these peoples have left
their mark in the form of the numerous and spectacular standing stones that are a feature of the
province’s landscape.
The culmination of all this development came with Tartessos – one of the most mythical, fascinating
and unknown civilizations of ancient Europe. There are numerous references to this strange culture –
from the Bible to classical Greek authors such as Strabo – which tell of a rich, powerful people,
often referred to in connection with the lost continent of Atlantis (it has even been said recently
that an area near Hinojos matches the description which Plato gave of one of its cities). The
best-known king of the Tartessians was Arganthonios who, besides being king, had the good fortune
to be enormously rich and to have an incredibly long life.
Tartessos mysteriously disappeared and little by little all the inhabitants of the province began
to mix their own distinctive culture with the cultural influx from Rome. Huelva and its towns and
villages near the coast became famous throughout the Roman Empire thanks to “Garum”, a favourite
delicacy of the period, made from the entrails of fish.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths and Byzantines became obsessed with the whole
region, and vied with one another for control of Huelva until, in the 8th century, the Muslims
came onto the scene and conquered almost the entire Iberian Peninsula in one fell swoop. It wasn’t
until the 13th century that Huelva was re-conquered by the Christians: by 1262 the whole province
was under the authority of King Alfonso the Learned.
By the way, it was during the siege of the
city of Niebla that gunpowder was first used in the West for military purposes.
Nothing much happened in Huelva for a while until, in the 15th century, a gentleman named
Christopher Columbus arrived at La Rábida Monastery with some strange theories about reaching
“Cipango” (Japan) by sailing westwards, when everyone knew that there was nothing in that
direction.
The fact is that he had to persuade Friar Antonio de Marchena, who obtained an audience with
the King and Queen so that Columbus could explain his plans to them. After some haggling as
per custom, Columbus got them to finance his exploit. He didn’t manage to reach Asia, because
America was in between. As a result of this discovery many of Huelva’s localities still have
a “Columbus” feel to them that takes us back to an era of voyaging and adventure.
During the centuries which followed Huelva remained in the shadows while Seville and other Spanish
areas got all the limelight. Even today people not only in other European countries, but even here
in Spain still know nothing about the province.
There were those who did have their eye on the province, though –the pirates who prowled the high
seas and coast of the whole of Europe; especially the Barbaries, who made the South of Spain their
special patch. Thus from the 16th century onwards a line of lookout towers or beacons was built all
along the coast of Huelva. The remains of these fortifications are still standing today, some of
them very well preserved: Punta Umbría’s Beacon Tower; The Catalán Tower, in El Terrón (Lepe); and
the Fig Tree Tower, which gives Matalascañas beach its characteristic outline.
In the 19th century several British companies set up in Huelva in order to open new mine workings,
particularly in the inland regions near the mountains, and to take over the workings which had been
in operation since Roman times. The influence of this British presence can still be seen today in
the architectural styles of a great number of buildings; in the surnames of many Huelvans and the
colour of their eyes and hair; and –of course!– in the introduction into our country of a new sport:
football. Not for nothing is Huelva’s football team known as “The Senior Member of the Spanish
Football”…
During the troubled history of the first half of the 20th century Huelva scarcely got a mention,
although in the Second World War it had an important role in the story “The man who never was”, an
impressive espionage and counter-espionage operation between Germans and allies which was made into
a film; the core of the plot is the discovery of the corpse of a British man on the beaches at Punta
Umbría.
Now that communications were better, after the industrial boom of the 60’s and 70’s, Huelva started
a new phase of development based on certain products of its agriculture and fisheries (strawberries,
prawns and ham: the Huelvan “big three”); and, of course, on tourism, with the advantage of its
abundant natural resources and of having escaped the sprawling of the concrete jungle that had
happened in other resort areas during past decades.
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