Alonso de Espinosa
XVI Century Spanish priest, chronicler and historian
Alonso de Espinosa (1543–c. 1600) was a Spanish priest and historian of the sixteenth century. He was the first official historian of the island of Tenerife.
Biography
Early life and career
Little is known of his early life. He is first heard of towards the end of the sixteenth century in Guatemala where he had become a Dominican. It was while he was in Central America that he first heard of the reported miracles of Our Lady of Candelaria. This was an image of the Virgin and Child that had been among the Guanches of Tenerife since long before their conversion to Christianity, and had been venerated not only by the Guanches, but later by their conquerors, the Spanish. Inspired by the fame of this image, Espinosa soon found a member of the fraternity which had possession of it, and resolved to research and write a history of the image and its miracles. The result was his Guanches of Tenerife published in Seville in 1594.
Although the author's main purpose was to record the history of Our Lady of Candelaria, the work is also a rare account of the Guanches; he also gives a good account of the conquest and settlement of the Canary Islands by the Spanish.
“Alonso de Espinosa” enters the record as xVI Century Spanish priest, chronicler and historian. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Alonso, Espinosa and Century can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4734506. VIAF identifies the subject as 17366772. The Library of Congress control number is nb98049416. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1543, 1600 and 1594.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alonso de Espinosa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.