History of Pulianas
The origins of Pulianas date back to the Roman period. Archaeological remains indicate it was established as one of numerous agricultural villages near Granada. Historians believe the municipality’s name may have two origins: Arabic and Roman. According to Seco de Lucena (19th century Spanish writer, journalist, lawyer and politician), in Muslim times, it was named Bulyana. This title was found in the Ihäta fi ajbär Garnäta by Ibn Al-Jatib (14th century influential cultural figure, historian and politician), which cites it as qaryät bulyäna. The opinion that the name is of Roman origin comes from the fact there is no direct Arabic meaning for the word Bulyana. This led to the conclusion, as with many others in the toponymy of Al- Andalus, that the name has an external, possibly Roman, origin.
The Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and their long domination of the southern part led to strong Islamisation (converting to Islam and adopting the Muslim culture) of ancient Baetica (one of three Roman provinces in the Iberian Peninsula). However, Baetica maintained traces of its former inhabitants, the Mozarabs (Spanish Christians living under Muslim rule who, while unconverted to Islam, adopted Arabic language and culture), throughout those nearly eight centuries, as evidenced by the remains and funerary inscriptions found in La Vega, in addition to the testimony of Hispano-Arab writers.
The persecutions of the Almoravids and the battles in support of the Christian armies, including that of Alfonso I (King of Aragon and Navarre 1104-1134) known as “El Batallador” (Battler or Warrior), and later the Granada Civil War (military campaigns 1482 to 1492) and the Reconquista, meant that it almost always had few inhabitants with high mortality rates. Even so, it was one of the towns that supplied food to the capital of the Kingdom, thus achieving a certain importance and economic growth under the Nasrid dynasty from the mid-fifteenth century.
The 1586 church census lists Pulianas Grande as having 245 inhabitants and Pulianas Chica as having 128. A period of repopulation followed with Christians, mainly from Jaén, Castile, and Extremadura. Around 100 people arrived in Pulianas and around 90 in Pulianillas, who then began a difficult period of recovery and adaptation.
After the victory of the Catholic Monarchs, the town was subject to the Corregimiento of Granada (jurisdictional territory), and prospered until the eighteenth century, when successive epidemics of plague and cholera, and in the nineteenth century, the arrival of the French, reduced its population and development.
In 1834, Pulianas became a municipality with the provincial reform of Spain initiated by Javier de Burgos (1778-1848, Spanish jurist, politician, journalist, and translator). The Industrial Revolution, which fostered the development of the sugar industry in the province, provided strong support for beet cultivation in the area.
The main, and most notable, event in its historical process was the merger agreement between Pulianas and Pulianillas. It was signed on 6th February 1945, in compliance with the decree of 9th November 1944, merging the municipalities of Pulianas and Pulianillas, by which Pulianillas became dependent on Pulianas.