One of my first exposures to the broader history of the Basque Country and the unique role Basques played in the history of the Americas was through National Geographic magazine. Before that, what little I knew was through osmosis from dancing and festivals. I didn’t really know much about Basques beyond having Basque parents. That […]
To me, one of the fascinating aspects of Basque history relates to witches. The Basque witch trials are infamous for how indiscriminate they were but also because they reveal how mob mentality can easily turn neighbors into enemies and outcasts into villains. Witches in the Basque Country represent this interesting transition between the autochthonous religion […]
We don’t know much about the early history of the Basques. While discoveries such as the Hand of Irulegi reveal more than ever, there is still a lot that is shadowed in the mists of time. The Basques have never recorded their own history – what we know is typically from the pens of neighbors […]
The Basque Country has a long association with bears. Indeed, research by people like Roslyn Frank indicates that the Basques may have worshipped bears at one time and that Basques believed that humans were descended from bears. The importance of bears to Basque culture is reflected in their role in carnivals in various towns. However, […]
It is seemingly part of human nature that we most vehemently attack that which is somehow a part of us. Pierre de Lancre was no different. One of the most infamous persecutors of Basque witches, he himself had Basque ancestry, an ancestry that his family seemed to deny. De Lancre felt that all aspects of […]
Basques have long been associated with whaling. Records as far back as 670 highlight the importance that whale hunting was to the Basque economy and their way of life. However, the people that inhabited the region we now know as the Basque Country used resources from whales even earlier, many millennia earlier. New research has […]
When I wrote about the various cities of Durango a while back, that opened a thread of the Basque history of Mexico and the southwest United States that is ripe for further exploration. That history is reflected in so many place names of the region. Not only are cities like Durango named after their Basque […]
One of the less appreciated aspects of Basque history is their strong democratic tradition. So central has democracy been to the Basque Country that John Adams was impressed, noting how the Basque Country was “a republic; and one of the privileges they have most insisted on, is not to have a king.” Central to the […]
“During the darkest day of the Franco era when we were denied our language, our culture and our identity, we were consoled by the knowledge that an American university in Nevada had lit one small candle in the night.” – Basque President Jose Antonio Ardanza This is how important the William A. Douglass Center for […]
Would you like your Basque club or town to be the “home” of the National (U.S.) Basque WWII Veterans Memorial? The North American Basque Organizations’ (N.A.B.O.) Basques in World War II Special Committee has opened a call for proposals among its member clubs to host the future memorial intended to permanently remember and honor our Basque WWII veterans. […]
