The Guanche were the historic Indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 kilometres (60 mi) west of the North African coast. They spoke the Guanche language. Believed to have been related to Berber languages of North Africa, it became extinct in the 17th century after the islands were colonized.

The conquest of the Canary Islands by the Crown of Castile took place between 1402 and 1496 and described as the first instance of European settler colonialism in Africa. It can be divided into two periods: the Conquista señorial, carried out by Castilian nobility in exchange for a covenant of allegiance to the crown, and the Conquista realenga, carried out by the Spanish crown itself, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs.