History of Canena
The origin of the municipality can be traced back to prehistory, attested to by polished stone axes found locally. But it was during the Roman era that the first stable populations in the Balneario (Spa) area appeared, as evidenced by mosaics and the existence of a hydraulic work from the same period. The current enclave originates from the Arab era . According to Narciso Peinado, Aguirre Sadaba and others, it was the Syrian, Banu Kinana, who settled in this territory around the year 750.
Between 1220-1227, Canena was conquered by Fernando III el Santo, possibly as an advance guard towards La Loma y Las Villas of the Jaén countryside, who later donated it to the Military Orders of Santiago and Calatrava, which is why it was named “Las Canenas”, with the town thus distributed between these two Military Orders. The part belonging to the Order of Santiago was integrated into the Order of Bedmar, and the part belonging to that of Calatrava integrated into the Order of Torres and Canena, until 1539, when Emperor Carlos V alienated them and formed a single Council. Carlos V sold the entire town to Francisco de los Cobos, who, from Valladolid in 1544, granted the municipal ordinances that would govern the entire operation of the town and that had been presented by its Council. Shortly after, he began the process of transforming the old Castillo de Canena into a palace whose direction of works is attributed to Andrés de Vandelvira. Canena was thenceforth linked to the Marquesado de Camarasa until well into the twentieth century.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the population increased, until the figure had doubled by the beginning of the 1900s. However, from 1950, the population data begins to show a slight demographic decline due to emigration. The image of the town in the mid-nineteenth century was marked by the imprint of a fertile and highly productive land, with the Military Orders exploiting the lands in the form of colonato, a method that was maintained from the sixteenth century. The main crops were cereals and olive groves, although there were also vineyards and orchards.
In 1919, as a result of the revolutionary strike wave of the so-called Trienio Bolchevique in the lands of Jaén, Canena formed part of the foundation of three political and trade union organizations: a group with UGT affiliation, the local group of the PSOE and the creation of another group, in this case with CNT affiliation. Electoral victories in the 1930s in the framework of the Second Republic did nothing but consolidate the left-wing political options in the locality. In 1937, in the context marked by the oncoming Spanish Civil War, a local group of the PCE was founded in Canena. You can see a political landscape marked by the preponderance of left-wing options and associative diversity that, as can be assumed, abruptly broke down in 1939 with the end of the civil conflict and the triumph of the Francoist army.