HISTORY OF INSTINCIÓN
The name Instinción is believed to be of Latin origin, dating from the time of Augustus, in Romanized Hispania. However, is has also been argued that Instinción was the name of a Muslim Princess from the Nasrid family. The town was a Muslim farmhouse during the Middle Ages, sitting in a privileged enclave next to fertile and strategic land on the Alpujarra road. During this period, the town was known as Estançihum, and between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was registered as one of the ten constituent areas of the Taha de Marchena.
Marchena was the main fortress where the Governor resided; normally it was the Nasrid fief of the Al-Nayar or Infantes de Almería family. With the end of the re-conquest at the end of the fifteenth century, the Taha de Marchena was granted to Don Gutierre de Cárdenas y Chacón by the Catholic Monarchs in 1504, as a reward for the help given during the occupational conflict of the Kingdom of Granada.
The sixteenth century was characterized by intense political, social and religious changes, as well as the Moorish Rebellion, which ended with the violent outbreak of 1568 and the subsequent expulsion of the Moors in 1570, leaving Instinción unpopulated and the fields abandoned, until its eventual repopulation in 1574.
The seventeenth century was a transition period leading from this economic and demographic crisis to stability in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the profile of the town was characterised by the liberal abolition of the Señorío de Maqueda y Arcos in 1835 and the enrichment generated by the cultivation of the Ohanes grape.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, social tensions erupted locally, fuelled by unemployment, a severe drought and the aftermath of the Civil War. After Franco’s death, the democratic period began, establishing Instinción as an enterprising and hard-working community which strove to alleviate the common problems of the area, such as drought and depopulation.
