José de Viera y Clavijo (28 December 1731 – 21 February 1813), was a Spanish ecclesiastic,

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, botanist,

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

, and professor, best known for his exhaustive ''History of the Canary Islands'' (''Historia de Canarias''). Born in Realejo Alto, on the island of

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

, he was the son of the town's mayor, Gabriel Viera del Álama. His mother was Antonia María Clavijo. In his ''Noticias'', he examined the question of

Saint Brendan's Island Saint Brendan's Island, also known as Saint Brendan's Isle, is a phantom island or mythical island, supposedly situated in the North Atlantic somewhere west of Northern Africa. It is named after Saint Brendan of Clonfert. He and his followers a ...

. He died in

Las Palmas Las Palmas (, ; ), officially Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is a Spanish city and capital of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital (jointly with Santa Cruz de Tenerife), the most populous city in the auto ...

, on the island of

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that ...

References

* 1731 births 1813 deaths People from Tenerife 18th-century Spanish historians 18th-century Spanish botanists Spanish ethnographers {{Spain-botanist-stub

See also

References