History of Canary Islanders in Louisiana explored in author visit
Author Stephen V. Estopinal demonstrates methods of warfare from the Louisiana Spanish Colonial era of the 1770s during a visit to the Ascension Parish Library's Donaldsonville branch Thursday evening —PHOTO BY MICHAEL TORTORICH MICHAEL TORTORICH Author Stephen V. Estopinal arrived to his speaking engagement dressed the part. Donning a sergeant's uniform from the 1770s and holding a musket, he regaled attendees with the history of the Canary Islanders in Louisiana. Held at the Ascension Parish Library's Donaldsonville branch Thursday night, the author visit coincided with National Hispanic Heritage Month. Canary Islanders, known as Isleños for the Spanish word for islanders, settled in communities around modern southeastern Louisiana in the 1770s and 1780s. Their descendants are a living representation JANUARY - MARCH 2020
of the former Spanish Colonial era, which was prior to Louisiana becoming a state on April 30, 1812. Estopinal himself is a descendant of the Canary Islander settlers. His family originally hails from St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, but he now lives in the Gonzales area of Ascension Parish, after becoming displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Notably, the City of Gonzales is named after a descendant of Canary Islanders. Joseph "Tee Joe" Gonzales served as the first mayor of modern Gonzales, which was a village during his tenure from 1922 to 1936. An LSU graduate, Army veteran, land surveyor and civil engineer, Estopinal
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began writing in 1986. His engineering textbook is required reading for a course at LSU. He has penned several historically-based fiction novels, set in Louisiana during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Estopinal said the first question he typically hears is: "Where are the the Canary Islands?" The islands don't exactly jump out at anyone gazing at a world map. The Canary Islands are an archipelago and the southernmost community of Spain located in the Atlantic Ocean, about 60 miles west of Morocco. Why did the Isleños immigrate to colonial Spanish Louisiana? Spain needed recruits for the army. Struggling through
