Origins

While their origins stretch back to prehistoric times, the oldest confirmation of the existence of the Basques as a distinct group is a Latin text from the first century B.C.E. This text notes the presence in the Pyrenees of a tribe called “Vascon”; the root of this name is also the root of the modern term “Basque.”

The Basques have maintained their traditional culture and language despite frequent contact with invaders and recent political divisions. Their language is completely unrelated to any other in the Indo-European family. Language is the defining characteristic of the Basques who describe their homeland as Euskal Herria (country of the Basque language) or Euskadi (country of the Basques).

The Basque homeland straddles the border between France and Spain and consists of seven provinces. France annexed two of these provinces, Soule and Labourd, in the fifteenth century and absorbed Basse-Navarre in the seventeenth century. All three are now comprised in the department of Pyrenées-Atlantiques. The other four Basque provinces – Navarro, Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa, and Alava – became attached to Castile in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and are now part of Spain. In France, the administrative borders of Euskarie (the French form for Euskadi) correspond more or less with the territory where Basque is spoken. In Spain, however, several vigorous Basque enclaves, such as Bilbao and Pamplona, are outside the official Basque provinces.

The Basques converted to Christianity starting in the tenth century, and most still practise Roman Catholicism. Population growth is testimony to the people’s vitality. In the 1950s the number of inhabitants of the Basque country was estimated at 750,000–900,000 in Spain and 150,000 in France. Today the total population of the Basque country is almost three million. The last available census figures from 1980–81 show that the vast majority of Basques, 2.6 million, live in Spain, and only 236,000 in France.

The entire Basque-inhabited territory in both Spain and France is barely 21,000 square kilometres and is mostly made up of the Pyrenees mountain chain. The mountains extend right to the Atlantic Ocean, leaving little room for settlement on the seacoast. Nevertheless, in modern times the population is larger on the coast than inland. The interior has always been devoted to livestock raising and mixed farming, while the coast has concentrated on industry, trade, and fishing.

In traditional Basque society, the family plays a fundamental role and constitutes the basic social unit. It takes the form of a “house” that shelters an extended family and bears a name with which all family members identify from generation to generation. Collective land ownership means that the inheritance remains undivided; however, this characteristic of the Basque legal system makes it difficult for children who come after the eldest son to earn a living.

Until the Middle Ages the Basques were primarily a pastoral people largely segregated from contact with the outside world. Their mountainous terrain helped them to resist various invaders of the Iberian Peninsula – Romans, Goths, Franks, Moors – all of whom formally controlled parts of the Basque country but never subjected it. Even during the growth of the centralized monarchy in Spain, the Basques retained a degree of autonomy as each new king agreed to respect Basque laws. By the fifteenth century, the Basque coastal economy was characterized by a flourishing shipbuilding industry and overseas trade that brought Basque sailors and whalers to various parts of the globe.

Basque fortunes changed during the nineteenth century. Local autonomy in the Basque lands of France was abolished during the French Revolutionary era and its aftermath. In Spain, the Basques fought on the losing side during the Carlist wars and as a result lost much of their autonomy. The Basque language was relegated primarily to a spoken medium as civic affairs and education were conducted in either Castilian Spanish or French. Finally, the Basques were by the late nineteenth century becoming a minority in their homeland south of the Pyrenees as the growth of industry attracted an increasing number of workers from other parts of Spain.

In the face of such threats to the Basque identity and language, a Basque national movement emerged in Spain. The drive to regain political power by victory in local elections culminated in 1936 with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Two Basque provinces elected their own autonomous government, which with its own army fought on the side of the Spanish Republic. Following the collapse of the republic and the victory of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Basques were defeated, thousands exiled, and Basque culture and language suppressed for several decades.

Discontent with Franco’s authoritative rule led to the creation during the late 1950s of an underground terrorist movement ETA (the Basque acronym for “Basque Country and Freedom”) dedicated to complete independence from Spain. Although still in existence, ETA’s confrontational approach has been eclipsed by a Basque cultural and political revival that has become possible and even encouraged in Spain since the death of Franco in 1975. Recent years have witnessed a rapid increase in Basque language education for adults and children, a rise in publication activity, and the attainment of Basque regional autonomy in the new decentralized Spain.