Basques

The Basques, an indigenous people, are a small minority who inhabit parts of both Spain and France.

The Basque people are found predominantly in four provincs in Spain and three in France. This area is to be found around the western edge of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay.

Tha Basque's speak their own language, Euskara, which is not only distinct from French and Spanish, but utterly different from every other langauge in Europe and the world. Most of Europe speak and Indo-European tongue, with some Finno-Ugric and Turkish (also known as Atltaic) speakers in the east. The Basque language, however, belongs its own entire category and is utterly distinct from every other language in the world.

The Basques are not only unique in Europe for their language. Investigations of Basque blood types has found that there are far more Basques with type O blood than in the general European population. Basques also have a comparitively lower chance of being either type A or type AB. Modern genetic techniques are also being applied to the Basques and it has been found that there is a great deal of difference between the Bsques and their Spanish neighbhours. There is less difference, however, with the population of Aquitania in France, perhaps a sign perhaps of past interbreeding. Even more intrigingly it could also be a sign that the ancient Aquitanian people and their now extinct language may have been closely related to the Basques.

There are also interesting social differences between the Basques and their neighbours. The Basque people have an unusually close attachment with their homes. A person’s home is their family in Basqueland. Even if one does not still live there and have not for generations a Basque family is still known by the house in which it once lived. Common Basque names could translate as "top of the hill", or "east of the river" all relating to the location of their ancestral home. This is interesting evidence for considering the Basques to be the only people in Europe not descended from nomadic horsemen, and thus the only people who have always had a fixed and stable abode. Another interesting fact is that Basque society has traditionally been very matriarchal, with lines of succession being from mother to daughter. This is another interesting contrast to every other European society, which were uniformly parochial.

This unique and isolated people has attracted the intrest of a great many linguists and historians trying to discover how and when it came to be where it is. The other non Indo-European languages in Europe, Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, and Turkish were all brought in by invaders from Asia during recorded history, the Indo-European languages were introduced in the same way to Europe a few millenia earlier. When could the Basques have arrived? This important question of when the Basques were settled in their current location is still not known but it has been narrowed down. The first time we find Basque in writing is the late middle ages, not a help for the Basques were already very well established by this point. Less direct evidence must thus be considered. The most important source are the classical writers, especially Strabo, who confirms that at about the birth of Christ the western part of the Pyrennes were inhabited by a people known as the Vasconnes. This is quite identifiable as one of a number of variations on the word Basque. Further evidence for these people being Euskara speaking Basques is provided when lists of names and place names are encountered.

One theory of the origins for the Basques has them arriving along with the Indo-Europeans four thousand years ago. There have been antecedents to such an event. During the Germanic invasions that swept Europe after the fall of Rome, for instance almost all the tribes were Indo-Europeans, except for the Alans (also known as the Sarmatians) who it now seems were probably Turkish speakers. Furthermore it is now believed the Indo-Europeans began thier invasion of Europe from a position just north of the Caspian. South of this region are the Caucausses a small and mountainous region home to some thirty seperate languages, from two seperate language groups of which there are no other relatives. Similarities between Basque and the Caucausian language groups have been advocated on a number of occasions. Could a group of Caucasians joined the invasion of Europe by the Indo-Europeans that was departing just north of them? It is not impossible but there is little to no evidence for this and much against it.

The relationship between Basque and the Caucasian languages is voiceferously denied by authors such as R.L. Trask who see no evidence of a connection, and most modern scholars agree with this view. A second argument against the idea of the Basques arrving sometime around the arrival of the Indo-Europeans is archeological. There is no evidence of a new group of people arrving in Basqueland at this time. While the traditions changed, for instance the building of Dolmens slowly faded out, these changes seem far more like a single evolving society than a replacement by new groups of people.

In fact the only evidence for an invasion of Basqueland dates from thousands upon thousnads of years ago when Cro-Magnon first arrived in Europe and superseeded the Neanderthals. Could this have been when the Basques first arrrived in Europe? The archeological evidence is shaky and it is difficult to assume there was never an invasion just because evidence for one has not yet been found. But so far the evidence is fairly clear, and even if the arrival of the Basques is postponed it is now quite certain that they arrived before the Indo-Europeans and thus that they are the oldest surviving people in Europe.

It now believed by most scholars that the Basques have been in the same location for thousands of years unmoved by any of the calamities of war, plague, or famine that destroyed all the other ancient civilizations of Europe. How could one small group of people survive when so many others were overwhlemed by the waves of invaders that have swept Europe? These questions can be dangerous and lead to speculation about racial superiority, a trap that a number of Basque writers have fallen into. In reality, however the reason the Basques have survived is mostly luck, they happened to be at the right place in the right time over and over again.

The Basques either chose their easily defended home in the Pyrennes, or what is more likely were forced into it at some time in the past. It is quite common for mountainous regions to remain as bastions of an all but vanished group of people. When the Celts of Europe were overwhelemed by the Germanic hordes form Asia and the Roman empire from the south the only areas left speakeing Celtic were the isolated isle of Ireland and a number of mountain bastions, most of which still retain Celtic speakers to the present day, These regions include Brittany in the northwesst of France as well as Scotland and Wales in the British Isles. In these regions the Celtic language survived fifteen hundred years of isolation. The Basque homeland is quite well suited to survival. Its low mountains are combined with dense forests and heavy vegetation to make the region almost impassable to outsiders, but still temperate enough to support a large argicultural base. Despite this growth the soil is much lower quality than the surrounding plains in Spain and France leaving the area as much less tempting target for invaders. For invaders bent on plunder the Basque areas have few reserves of precious metals, especially in comparrison to the gold reserves to the west in Spain or to the wealth in Gascony just to the north of Basqueland. The Basques seem to have ended up the best locale for uninterrupted survival on the continent.

The first two known invasions the Basques survived were those of the Indo-Europeans and then the Celts. These two invasions occured in prehistory and the secret of the Basque survival is only hinted at by limited archeological evidence. For the next invasion of the region, however, there is much written evidence. The Romans entered the Iberian penisula after their defeat of Carthage in the Punic wars. Roman rule quickly spread from the Cartheginian and settlements along the Mediterreanean coast through the rest of the peninsula. The north west, including the Basque regions were conquered by Pompey, after whom the large Basqueland city of Pamplona is named, in the last century BC. The looseness of the Roman federation well suited the Basques who retained their traditional laws and leadership within the Roman empire. The poor region was little developed by the Romans and there is not much evidence of Romanization, this certainly contributed to the survival of the seperate Basque language. The lack of a large Roman presence was encouraged by the passivity of the Basques. Roman miltiary records show that there was never need to fight insurections in the Basque country. Basque land never needed Roman garrissons to control the populace, unlike the surrounding Celtic areas.

On the contrary Basques were used by the Romans to guard their empire. There is a great deal of evidence for a Vasconne cohort. This cohort spent many years guarding Hadrians Wall in the north of Britain. Also at some time in its history it earned the title fida or faithful for some now forgotten service to the emperor. There is some evidence for other Basque units serving in the empire as well. Even today the Basques look back on the Roman Empire as an ideal time when, even though there was no Basque independence, the Basques were still able to have almost total internal control. As well as thier lack of exposure to Roman garrisons the Basque survival was also aided by the fact that Basqueland was a poor region. It had no unused cropland that could be used to settle Roman colonists and it had few commodities that would interest the Romans. Only a small number of Roman traders would have come to Basqueland. This isolation is what allowed the Basque language to survive and not be overwhlemed by Latin as occured in so many other regions of the Empire. If the Roman empire had continued, however, there is a good chance Basque would have vanished. During the Roman period the territory where Basque was spoken slowly declined and by the end of the period it seems Basque had become limited to rural regions, while the major cities such as Pamplona and Bilbao were Romanized.

The history of Basqueland darkens, however, with the arrrival of the Germanic peoples and the collapse of the Roman empire. Rather than being an isolated area in the centre of a large empire the Basques were placed at the border between the warring Visigothic and Frankish kingdoms. Basqueland became a very strategically important piece of territory desired by both sides. At the same time the Basques lost their lifestyle, which was dependent on trade with the Roman empire. These two changes transformed the Basques from being one of the most docile people in Europe into a group of dedicated warriors bent on survival. There are scattered reports from this period of Basque brigands in Aquitania and Spain stealing those things which they used to be able to trade for. Most of the confrontations with the Basques were, however, instigated by the outsiders. Both the Franks and Visigoths sent armies through Basqueland repeatedly during their long runnings war. While there are few records armies of the day rarely treated the inhabitants of the lands they were passing through well. The Basqueland was probably repeatedly plundered for foodstuffs and fodder to maintain the armies. The rugged Basque territory is ideal for banditry and it is not surprsing that despite the oppresion by their nieghbhours the Basques could still survive. Just as in every time of persecution in their history the Basques simply moved to the hills and held out there for many years.

The Basques also proved during this period that depite a lack of central authority they could protect their homeland when the need arises. After Charlemagne’s Franks invaded northern Spain they returned home and en route pillaged the Basqueland stripping it of any wealth they could find. The Basques came toghether, however, and intercepted the Frakish army while it made it way through a mountain pass. Depite poor weaponry and fewer fighters the Basques destroyed much of the Frankish force. The Battle of the Roncesvalles Pass was the only major deafeat Charlemagne suffered in his long carreer. These events were imoratlized in the Chanson de Roland, an important piece of medieval verse. Similar mobilizations by the Basques occured just a few years later against the Islamic invaders who had seized all of Spain. The newly Christianized Basques put up stiff resistence and prevented Islamic penetration of their region for the entire period of the Caliphate.

The Basquelands were eventually divided between France and Spain during the Middle Ages, with most of the Basque population ending up in Spain. A situation which persists to this day. Until modern times the Basques lived peacefully in the seperate nation states becoming renowned mariners. Basque sialors were some of the first to reach North America, and many early settlers in Canada and the United States were of Basque origin.

In 1939 the seizure of power by General Franco in Spain began one of the hardest periods of Basque history. The Basques fought solidly behind the monarchist/commnunist forces in the Spanish Civil War. One of the gretest atrocities of this war was the bombing of Guernica, the traditional Basque capital, by German planes. Much of the city was destroyed and a great deal of Basque history was erased. Once Franco won the war he began an dedicated effort to turn Spain into a uniform nation state. Franco introduced severe laws against all Spanish minorites in an effort to supress thier culture and language.

The backlash to these actions created a violent Basque separatist movement that has resulted in the deaths of about 800 people over the past 30 years. The separatist group responsible for most of the violence is known as Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA. The end of the Franco regime saw an end to the surpression and a creation of an autonomous Basque region in Spain. ETA continued its actions, however, fighting for full independence.

The current autonomous Basque area, known as Euskara by its inhabitants, is composed of three provinces or territories: Araba-Alava, Bizkaia-Vizcaya and Gipuzkoa-Guipuzcoa. There are 2,123,000 people living in the Basque Country: Araba - 279,000 inh., Bizkaia - 1,160,000 inh. and Gipuzkoa - 684,000 inh. The most important cities are: Bilbo-Bilbao (Bizkaia), Donostia-San Sebastian (Gipuzkoa) and Gasteiz-Vitoria (Araba). They are two official languages: Basque and Spanish. 27 per cent of the people speak the Basque Language, but this number is increasingfor the first time in many years.

Despite ETA the Basques have been doing remarkably well in recent years, emerging from prosecution during the Franco regime with a strong and vibrant language and culture. For the first time in centuries the Basque language is expanding geographically lead by large increases in the major urban centres of Pamplona, Bilbao, and Basconne where only a few decades ago the Basque language had all but dissapeared. The opening of the new Gugenheim Museum in Bilbao is seen as central to this revival.