History History

Megalithic remains from the prehistoric era bear witness to the ancient presence of man on Formentera. The discovery of the Ca Na Costa burial site during the 1974 archaeological excavations changed the history of the island, which may well have been inhabited before its larger Balearic neighbors, since no other remains of such antiquity have been found in the Balearic Islands. Ca Na Costa provides evidence of the presence of a stable and organized civilization established on Formentera in the Bronze Age, between 1600 and 1800 BC.

Prehistoric man has thus left traces of his passage on the island, but it is not known exactly when the first man set foot on the paradisiacal shores of Formentera. In the area of Cape Barbaria, 21 prehistoric remains from the same period as those of Ca Na Costa confirm that the human presence on Formentera dates back to at least the first half of the second millennium B.C.
This civilization found refuge in caves, as shown by the remains found in the cova des Riuet, on the heights of La Mola, which were also visited during the 1974 archaeological campaign. The ceramic and organic remains (animal and vegetable) found in the cova of Riuet belong to the pre-Talayotic culture. In particular, they testify to the first agricultural activity attested on the Pityuses Islands.
From 1500 BC, trade with the Mediterranean basin begins in the Balearic Islands. The Greeks, Iberians and Phoenicians stopped in the Balearic Islands to offer their goods. This opening towards the rest of the world of the time will lead to the first constructions on the archipelago.

The Greeks tried to settle on the island, in vain. They still have enough time to name Ibiza and Formentera the "Pityuses Islands" or "Pine Islands".

A century later, the Phoenicians began to colonize Ibiza on a permanent basis. Although they settled on the site of Sa Caleta and in the bay of Ibiza, Formentera was somewhat neglected, since it was unoccupied. Thus, the island was settled only occasionally for several centuries, probably because of the weakness of its natural defenses, which made it an easy target for pirate incursions.

The Carthaginians took control of the Balearic Islands in 645 B.C. Ibiza became an important urban center at the expense of Formentera, which was periodically populated by a few inhabitants from Ibiza. The Carthaginians destroyed the towers, built their own towns and fortifications and above all exploited the archipelago's riches: the salt marshes and the murex (a carnivorous mollusc from which purple was extracted, a much sought-after dye in ancient times). The invaders also took advantage of the remarkable handling of the slingshot by the young Balearic warriors. They enlisted them in their campaigns as mercenaries in the Punic wars which opposed them to Rome from 264 to 146 BC.

It took only a few years for the Romans to understand Carthage's interest in the Balearic Islands. In 123 BC, the consul Caecilius Metellus incorporated the archipelago into the Roman Empire. The remains of the Castellum de Can Blai, near Es Caló, bear witness to the Roman domination at the end of the third century AD and the beginning of the fourth century AD. Excavations carried out between 1979 and 1980 brought to light the remains of a square fortification flanked by five defensive towers. The Romans called the island Fromentaria, which means "the island of wheat". It is very likely that the name "Formentera" originates from this Roman name.

The fall of the Roman Empire, around 400 AD, plunged the Balearic Islands into a period of retreat. Formentera will not have a homogeneous and stable population for a long period.

Formentera and the whole archipelago were devastated by the Vandals, and a paleo-Christian civilization survived as best it could during this period.

After the conquest of the general Belisarius, under the reign of Justinian, emperor of Byzantium, Formentera and the Balearic Islands were incorporated into the Eastern Empire in 553. In the seventh century, the Visigoths drove out the Byzantines, but it was the Moors who quickly became the masters of the area.

Vandals, Byzantines, Barbarians, Normans... Formentera has long been the scene of the various conflicts in the Mediterranean. However, no people really settled there after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Arabs made their first incursions as early as the 7th century, although this was not a real invasion. In spite of some looting, they mainly sought to trade, thus taking advantage of the privileged position of the islands on the great maritime routes. Charlemagne tried to re-establish a lasting Christian domination on Majorca, but his efforts were reduced to nothing in 902, when the Caliph of Cordoba, Issam al-Jawlani, seized the archipelago without effort.

After the death of the Caliph, in 1031, several Moorish suzerains of Spain succeeded each other and maintained tolerant relations with the Christians. If today few vestiges are visible, the cultural, technical - especially in the field of agriculture - and architectural contributions of the Moors are at the origin of a revival of the archipelago.

The islands remained Muslim lands, but for the first time in centuries they became an independent kingdom. The history of Formentera under Moorish rule is very uncertain, as it is not well documented, but it is known that the Moors occupied it in a more or less stable manner, as evidenced by some of the remains left behind.

Driven by a true sense of divine mission and taking advantage of the dissensions between the different Arab suzerains of Spain and the Balearic Islands, James I of Aragon took the pretext of permanent attacks of the Arab pirates against the trade ships to try to drive out the Muslims from the Balearic Islands. In September 1229, he sent a powerful fleet. On September 9, the young king (21 years old) emerged victorious from the main confrontation between the two armies. However, the Moors took refuge in Medina Majorica, the Arab name for Palma. James I had to wait three months. The city finally fell into his hands and this was the beginning of the Kingdom of Majorca, attached to the Crown of Aragon.

After taking back Menorca in 1231, the troops of James I managed to reconquer Ibiza and Formentera without too much difficulty.

Guillem de Montgrí was a nobleman and clergyman who was a member of the Crown of Aragon in the 13th century, during the reign of James I, the Conqueror. In 1234, James I commissioned Guillem de Montgrí, administrator of the Archbishopric of Tarragona (1233-1239), to reconquer the Pityuse Islands occupied by the Moors within a period of less than ten months. To do this, Guillem de Montgrí joined forces with the Infanta Pedro de Portugal (1187-1258) and Count Rosellón Nuño Sánchez and conquered Ibiza and then Formentera, which were then attached to the Crown of Aragon. Thus, the king distributed the lands of the Pityuses according to the number of troops brought by each of the conquerors. Guillem de Montgrí, who had provided half of the troops, inherited half of the lands, while his companions shared the rest equally. Guillem de Montgrí's tomb is now in Girona Cathedral, where he was Grand Sacristan until his death.

At his death, James I bequeathed Majorca to his youngest son, James II, the title of king of the Balearic Islands, while the eldest obtained the kingdom of Aragon. The territories of Formentera were then divided up and distributed to the nobles who had participated in the reconquest of the island. Some time later, Formentera experienced a period of stable settlement, as shown by the Romanesque chapel of Sa Tanca Vella, built in 1336 in the hamlet of Sant Francesc Xavier. In 1258, a community of monks inherited land on the La Mola plateau, where they built a monastery that was inhabited until the 15th century.

The next four centuries were filled with threats and fear: pirate incursions from North Africa were very frequent. They brought death and ruined the islands.

Divided, the islands constitute an independent kingdom for the last time in their history. It remained so until 1343, despite pressure from the Aragonese branch of the family to recover the Balearic Islands. These tensions reached a first peak when Sancho, son of James II and without a male heir, appointed his nephew, the future James III, to succeed him, while Aragon claimed the islands. The conflict is avoided thanks to the support which France brings to James III, but with the advent of Peter IV of Aragon, the conflict rebounds, and the kingdom of Majorca is forsaken by the king of France, plunged in full war of One hundred Years.
In 1343, after having been ensured of the support of the local population by the promise to maintain all its privileges, Peter IV seizes the kingdom of Majorca by crushing the army of James III. The latter became part of the kingdom of Aragon and thus lost its independence. Subjected to new taxes, competing with the promises of the newly discovered New World, the Balearic Islands were no longer the maritime routes that they had been for centuries.

As in the time of the first Arab incursions, piracy once again devastated Formentera and its neighbors Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca. Defenseless and too scattered, the inhabitants of Formentera were forced to take refuge in Ibiza. The black plague that ravaged the population in 1348 probably precipitated its abandonment, the island was deserted.

Bad harvest years, hunger, black plague, pirate raids... The reasons for the depopulation of Formentera are in fact multiple. The island will be deserted until the seventeenth century, although the inhabitants of Ibiza continue to populate it periodically and eradicate the pirates.

This uncertain situation lasted until 1695, when the sustainable repopulation and protection of the new inhabitants of the island was placed under the management of the Ibizan Marc Ferrer. It was at this time that the defensive towers built on the coasts of Formentera were erected. Inaugurated in 1726, the fortified church of Sant Francesc Xavier has a double function, both defensive and religious. In spite of the means used to protect the inhabitants, the Moors continued to raid from the Cape of Barbaria. But thanks to Marc Ferrer and his son Toni Blanc, the island was permanently repopulated by Spanish settlers.

The war of succession of Spain opposed the Habsburgs and the Bourbons from 1701 to 1716. Philippe V was the winner, but the English, although in the camp of the defeated Habsburgs, kept Minorca. The French, under the command of Richelieu, will come to dislodge them in 1756. Finally, at the end of the Seven Years' War, France returned Canada, India and Minorca to the English. Spain only regained the sovereignty of Minorca in 1802 by the Treaty of Amiens.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Napoleonic France began its expansion process and invaded the Iberian Peninsula. In 1813, the inhabitants of Formentera confronted the French who landed on the beach of Migjorn and won the battle.

For the first time, a regular line between the peninsula and the archipelago was put into service. The 19th century was marked by agricultural, industrial and urban development. The inhabitants of Formentera lived mainly from agriculture, fishing and salt extraction. However, the difficult living conditions on an island with arid terrain and sun-damaged land led many inhabitants to leave for a better life.

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. The military present in Mallorca and Ibiza rallied almost immediately to General Franco, only Menorca remained loyal to the Republicans until the Second World War. The island of Formentera was occupied for a time by the Republicans from August 7, 1936, as part of the "landing on Majorca". A Republican concentration camp (Es campament) was built after Franco's victory near the port of La Savina. The island and the whole of Spain were particularly shaken by the confrontations of the civil war, which ended in 1939. Forty years of Franco's dictatorship followed.

After years of semi-autarchy, the Spanish government accelerated the process of opening up and the first tourists arrived. Formentera saw the arrival of foreigners with long hair and clothes decorated with flowers: these were the hippie years. Amazed by the island's way of life, these pioneers were followed by millions of visitors who transformed the island's socio-economic structure.

In the early eighties, the islands experienced a real revolution with the accession to autonomy and the creation of an autonomous government of the Balearic Islands, February 25, 1983. This was followed by the establishment of a parliament and a Balearic government, headed by a president. Each island has its own island council with important responsibilities in island affairs. The autonomy of the Balearic Islands encourages the establishment of two official languages: that of the state, Castilian, and that of the Balearic Islands, Catalan. Since then, Balearic voters have been called to the polls regularly to elect their deputies. The Parliament of the Balearic Islands is composed of 33 deputies from Mallorca, 13 from Menorca, 12 from Ibiza and 1 from Formentera. A government was formed, headed by a president: Gabriel Canella Fons.

Gabriel Cañellas Fons was the first president of the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands until 1995. After multiple re-elections to this position (1987, 1991 and 1995), he was forced to resign. The year 1995 remains a black date in the history of the Balearic Islands, with the discovery of a huge corruption scandal (Calvià and Sòller cases) that brings opprobrium on the entire political class. On July 15, he resigned and was succeeded by Cristòfol Soler.

Gabriel Cañella Fons resigned in the spring, and Cristòfol Sole was elected president. He will resign in 1996, and will be replaced by Jaume Matas i Palau.

European and municipal elections; elections of the new team of the autonomous government of the Balearic Islands with an anti-People's Party coalition of all political parties; new president: Francesc Antich, from the Socialist Party of the Balearic Islands, who came out on top in the elections of the Regional Parliament of the Balearic Islands.

Jaume Matas i Palau won the parliamentary elections and regained the presidency of the Balearic Islands government.

In the parliamentary elections, the People's Party (PP) remained by far the largest party in terms of votes with 46 per cent, but lost its absolute majority. The socialist Francesc Antich i Oliver won the presidency by forming an alliance with the regionalist parties and formed a centre-left government.

Like the rest of Spain, the Balearic Islands are affected by the financial crisis and the collapse of the construction sector.

The "Palma Arena" scandal forces Francesc Antich i Oliver to separate from Unió Mallorquina, whose leaders are involved in this corruption case, to govern alone without a majority.

The right wing returned to power in the June 18 elections, with an overwhelming majority. José Ramón Bauzà Díaz (PP) is the new president of the Balearic Islands government and has to face the problem of unemployment. The same year, Iñaki Urdangarin - son-in-law of the King of Spain - was investigated in the Babel case, derived from the Palma Arena case. He was indicted in 2012 for misappropriation of public funds.

At the same time, the crisis is intensifying throughout Spain and particularly in the Balearic Islands, where the unemployment rate reaches 28.5% in spring 2013. The arrival of summer marks a short period of respite, and unemployment drops to 22.5% thanks to seasonal jobs. Unfortunately, this is a far cry from the figures of the early 2000s, when the Balearic Islands had full employment during the tourist season. In the autumn, a deep social unrest was added to the problem of the crisis: the reform of the education system, implemented by the government of José Ramón Bauzá, threatened the use of Catalan in the Balearic schools in favor of English.

The unemployment rate rose to 26.7% in the first quarter. In September, the Supreme Court of the Balearic Islands annulled the reform of the education system as invalid because the University of the Balearic Islands, the competent body, had not been consulted in the decision. As a result, the Minister of Education Juana Maria Camps was removed from office and replaced by the government spokeswoman, Nuria Riera. These events led to numerous anti-Bauzá demonstrations demanding his resignation.

In the elections, power changed hands again to the socialists. Francina Armengol became the new president of the government.

The Balearic government is introducing a tourist tax on accommodation in order to finance the development of tourist infrastructure and preserve the natural spaces of the archipelago. Tourism, a real economic engine, has experienced an unprecedented boom since the beginning of the new millennium, representing more than 45% of the GDP of the Balearic Islands and up to 90% in the Pityuses. But at the same time, inequalities remain, with almost 20% of the Balearic population still living below the poverty line. The place occupied by tourism in the local economy also leads to a strong dependence on seasonal activity. Although mass tourism fills the coffers of the state and boosts the national economy, it would be wrong to underestimate its serious consequences for the environment and quality of life.

The Island Council of Formentera launches the "Save Posidonia Project".

A family from Luxembourg buys the island of S'Espalmador for 18 million euros.

Pedro Sánchez, a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), became president of the Spanish government. He succeeds Mariano Rajoy, who resigned following the adoption of a motion of censure.

The Balearic government passes a law setting the_CO2 emission target at zero by 2050.

The Covid19 pandemic does not spare the Balearic Islands, causing, as a side effect, the sudden drop in tourism in the islands in the summer of 2020. If the pill is not easy to swallow for anyone, it creates a powerful shock wave in Formentera, which derives almost 90% of its GDP from tourism.

After more than a year of health restrictions, the island is feeling better. The closure of nightlife and clubs in Ibiza is pushing visitors to practice a more nature and gastronomy oriented tourism, which benefits Formentera. So much so that in 2021 the island's establishments will make even more revenue than in 2019.