San Sebastian de La Gomera:
The municipal distric of San Sebastián de La Gomera corresponds to the aboriginal canton of Hipalán, together with the Santiago ravine. Hernán Peraza the elder took possession of the place which would be designated the capital, at the mouth of the ravine of La Villa in about 1440. He named the new town San Sebastián, probably because of the particular devotion the Spaniards had for this Saint. The first buildings to be erected, even before the islands was totally conquered, were tha house of the Peraza family, located in the present terrain of El Pozo de la Aguada, the Church of the Asunción (Assumption), which at the time was only a small hermitage, and the Torre del conde (The Tower of the Count), situates in the centre of the bay. This latter construction is the only one of the three that still retains its original aspect. Also related to these beginnings is the hermitage of San Sebastián, erected on the order of the lord of the island because of his devotion to the Saint, although it has undergone certain changes over time and is located outside the original city centre.
The island capital is developed around two points, one around the house of the Peraza family and the other around the Church of the Assumption, places that determined the future Calle Real (Royal Street), itself the beginning of the Camino Real, tha main avenue of the island. The church borders the Plaza Mayor, a spacious, restful place around which public buildings were erected. The Hermitage of San Sebastián was slow to be integrated in the city given its initial distance from the centre of town. The first map of San Sebastián dates from a century and a half after its foundation, and the same document presents an aspect of the city quite similar to the one it would maintain for the next three hundred years. In this rapid development the activity of the port and the businesses that grew up around it - taverns, inns, workshops - played an important role.
Columbus' stop on La Gomera was welcomed by the lords of the island, who gave him all the help he needed and allowed the provisioning of his ships with food, water and wood. From here Columbus left on his adventure of the unknown on the 6th of September, 1492. After his first voyage, he stopped again on the island on the 5th of October 1493, and finally on the 30th of May, 1498, since on his final voyage he did not anchor in the bay of San Sebastián. The town population in 1558-1590 was of 625 inhabitants and some 125 houses. The urban centre was formed by four blocks, apart from a few buildings and a group of houses lined up next to the mountain. This disposition scarcely changed until the beginning of last century. The 17th century was critical for this little capital from both the economic and demographic points of view because of the invasions. The 18th century began with a slow but steady recuperation, so that by the beginning of the following century the census of 1802 counted about 1,800 inhabitants in the town. Throughout the 19th century the growth of the city surpasses the "boundary" of the Hermitage of San Sebastián, reaching up to the plains el El Tanquito.
