History of Ibiza

For most of it's history, the island or Ibiza has been fought over by European and North African powers. Whilst Catalan and Spanish influences define the island's recent identity, Carthaginian and Moorish customs can still be seen in local cultural traditions. During the modern era, tourism has shaped the island's economy and socio demography. Today, Ibiza and Formentera form the most cosmopolitan region in Spain.

It is believed that the first settlers were Neolithic people who came from the Iberian mainland around 4,500 BC. It is thought that they brought livestock with them and lived as Pastoralists. Axe heads, arrow tips and other utensils were used around 1,600 BC imported from elsewhere in the Mediterranean. By the late Bronze Age, around 800 BC, copper, lead and tin tools and pottery were being traded from Menorca and Mallorca. Settlements spread across Ibiza and Formentera including hill top sites at Punta Jondal and Puig Rodo in Southern Ibiza.

The first colonizers from the east were the Phoenician in 654 BC. The settlers were skilled seafarers and merchants and established a number of ports through the Mediterranean. They first settled in a village on the south coast of Ibiza known as Sa Caleta and survived by hunting and fishing. Fifty years later they moved to a safer hilltop site and sheltered harbour now known as Ibiza Town. They named the new settlement Ibosim (Island of Bes) after Bes, their god of dance.

With the decline of Phoenicia after the Assyrian invasions, Ibiza came under the control of Carthage, also a former Phoenician colony. Ibiza became a pivotal part of the Carthaginian empire. Ibiza became a major trading post along the Mediterranean trade routes, producing dye, salt, fish sauce, silver, lead and wool. Wheat, olives, figs and fruit were farmed and pottery produced on an industrial scale from workshops around Ibosim was exported across the Mediterranean. The island also became regarded as a spiritual centre sacred to the goddess Tanit, the goddess of love, death and fertility. A number of shrines were established across the island, one in particular being in the cave at Es Culleram.

The walled city of Ibosim came under attack by the Roman general Cneus Cornelius Scipio in 217 BC but remained loyal to Carthage rule until the final Punic war. Ibiza was last place used by the fleeing Carthaginian General Mago to gather supplies and men before sailing to Minorca and then to Liguria. After the defeat and destruction of Cartheage in 146 BC, Ibiza negotiated a favorable treaty with the Romans, which spared Ibiza from further destruction and allowed it to continue its Carthaginian-Punic institutions well into the Empire days, when it became an official Roman municipality. For this reason, Ibiza today offers excellent examples of late Carthaginian-Punic civilization. This was an extremely prosperous period fro most Ibizians with the economy continuing to flourish with the export of salt, dye, pottery and fish sauce. Olive presses and millstones were used in farming practices, aqueducts were constructed and fish farms were established. By 70 AD the population had gown to over three thousand, a level not reached again until the early 1970s. The prosperity peaked soon after Roman law was extended to include Ibiza in 74 AD, Ibosim was renamed Ebusus and the island was downgraded to a mere municipal status. The economy began to suffer when it was unable to compete with the Romans centralized agricultural production in North Africa with its huge economies of scale. The population fell and by the end of the fourth century the island became little more than a minor trading post with all the original Punic trades gradually being erased.

After the fall of the Roman empire and a brief period of first Vandal (warrior tribe from central Europe who brought Christianity to the island) and then Catholic Byzantine rule, the island was conquered by the Moors, as well as much of the Iberian peninsula. Under Islamic rule, Ibiza came in close contact with the city of Dénia (the closest port in the nearby Iberian peninsula, located in the Land of Valencia) as the two areas were administered jointly by the same taifa. The tribes who lived in Ibiza and Denia during the period 1060-1085 were Moorish tribes named Bno-Alaglab & Bano-Mujahed. The Moors put an end to a period of great instability and brought new a specialized technologies to the island, above all irrigation and agricultural systems. For two hundred years, Moorish Ibiza was generally prosperous and stable. There was a brief period when control passed to the Almaortadha dynasty in 1085 who pursued an aggressive foreign policy raiding towns on the mainland thus provoking a massive invasion in 1114 by thousands of Catalan and Pisan troops. Most of the Muslim population were massacred which ended Almortadha control and left the door open for the next Moorish rulers, Almoravids and finally the Almohads.

The island was reclaimed for Christendom by Aragonese King James I of Aragon in 1235 following his conquests of Mallorca and Menorca. The Catalan rule was very positive for Ibiza (now renamed Eivissa) and Formentera. The islands received a progressive charter of freedom which guaranteed freedom of commerce, exemption from military service and an independent judiciary and fee legal service for all citizens. Profits from the sale of salt were to be retained locally which was crucial to the growth of the island's economy. The King also gave the island its own democratic self-government. The main language became Catalan and chapels were built in five different regions created on the island, to help establish Christianity.  The island was hit by the Black Death in 1348 reducing the population to just 500 by the beginning of the fifteenth century and then returned again in 1652 killing 1 in 6 of the 7000 strong population perished. Deemed a contaminated port by salt merchants, a famine followed quickly after. Raids by pirates became more and more frequent in the sixteenth century resulting in stronger fortifications being built along the coast line. 

Following the War of Spanish Succession, the victorious Castilian King Philip V of Spain in 1715 took control of the island, abolished the local government's autonomy, and imposed their language (Castilian Spanish). The Catholic Church was the dominant power in the eighteenth century restructuring society around village churches built across the island. Life remained desperately poor for most as the island became even more of a backwater in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thousands of young men emigrated to Florida, South America and Cuba. The salt pans were sold to a private company in 1871 in an attempt by the Spanish state to raise revenue and the conditions for salt workers worsened as a result. The economy only began to recover at the end of the nineteenth century when regular ferry services were introduced from the mainland and brought the first tourists from northern Europe. The initial bohemian travelers in the early 1930s were joined by artists and writers escaping the spread of Fascism across Europe and representing Ibiza's first hippy settlers.

In one of the darkest periods of Ibizia's history, the island was hit by the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), bitterly divided by Franco-Nationalist and Republican forces. Nationalist forces were expelled and many people were slaughtered on both sides following a Nationalist backlash. The deep wounds of the Civil War split families for well over sixty years.

The transformation from isolated backwater after the Civil War to one of the world's most fashionable tourist destinations was remarkably swift. Within 20 years bohemian travelers had begun to return to the island. During the 1950s both Ibiza Town and Sant Antoni were transforming into resorts with the development of hotels and beaches. By the 1960s, Spain's Franco-directed tourism drive was transforming the whole island and builders and tourism workers from the mainland came in their thousands, growing the population by 43% during the course of the decade. Word spread amongst hippy travelers attracted by the island's beauty, community of artists, Spanish leftists, cheap living and famously tolerant people. The hippies brought character to the island and helped put it on the map as the tolerant, hedonistic island it is known for today.

The arrival of democracy in the late 1970s led to the Statute of Autonomy of the Balearic Islands. Today the island is part of the Balearic Autonomous Community, along with Majorca, Minorca and Formentera.  Ibizan politics was dominated by the conservative party (Partido Popular) who were massively biased towards unbridled tourist development with little regard to the environment. The local people wanted change and voted in the left leaning Pacte Progressista coalition in 1999. Comprehensive new construction laws were brought in putting a stop to several large developments.  Tourism quickly became the dominant industry on the island and it is estimated that over 85% of the working population is now employed indirectly or directly by the sector. Despite issues caused by the seasonal nature of the industry, tourism remained buoyant until 2002 when it saw a 10% drop in arrivals causing serious concern in Ibiza. A number of issues have been addressed in recent years including the style of development and image problems relating to package holiday makers. Despite the concerns, there remains an irrepressible glamour and allure to the island with an increasing number of new boutique rural hotels, and top class restaurants and bars which appeal to the wealthier more discerning visitors - exactly the type of people the tourism department want to attract.