Conquest of the island of Tenerife

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The conquest of the island of Tenerife by Castilian troops led by Alonso Fernández de Lugo began with the landing of at least 150 cavalry and 1,500 infantry near the present city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife on May 3, 1494 and ended with the surrender of the Menceyes of North-west side of the island near today's city of Los Realejos in May 1496.

First missionary contacts

In the middle of the 15th century, the Franciscans made the first permanent contacts with the island of Tenerife and began evangelizing the Guanches . The main problem with peaceful proselytizing was the constant attacks by slave traders on the indigenous people. These attacks resulted in hostile behavior by the infidels towards all Europeans. Pope Eugene IV had already condemned the acts of violence by Christian pirates against the natives in the Bull Regimini gregis of September 29, 1434. Eugene IV declared the freedom of the indigenous people within the areas where evangelism took place and threatened the penalty of excommunication for non-compliance with this rule . The main area of ​​the mission on Tenerife in the middle of the 15th century was the southeast side of the island facing the island of Gran Canaria. The first missionaries were known to live with the Guanches and preach in their language .

Previous attempts to subjugate the island

On June 21, 1464, Diego García de Herrera took possession of the island of Tenerife in a ceremony. The event has been handed down in all its details in the documents of the scribe Hernando de Párraga. The scene of the production on June 21, 1464 was the Barranco El Bufadero a little north of today's downtown Santa Cruz de Tenerife . All nine menceyes of the island, named in the charter as kings, were present. It is reported that each of these nine kings paid tribute to Diego de Herrera and kissed his hands as his master. The ritual exclamations by Juan Negrín the Herald : “Thenerife! Thenerife! Thenerife! For King Henry of Castile and León! ”Served to seal this solemn act. The certificate was signed by the interpreters, the herald, present citizens of the island of Lanzarote , but also by citizens of Seville who had attended the ceremony. In order to give the document more meaning, it was certified by the Bishop of Rubicón Diego López de Illescas and sent to the court of Castile. This symbolic act known as “Acta del Bufadero” had no practical impact on the relationship between Guanches and Castilians.

A short time after the Acta del Bufadero, Diego García de Herrera signed a treaty with the Mencey of Anaga that allowed the Castilians to build a tower or a fortified structure. It seems that the "Torre de Anaga" also called "Torre de Añaza" was built around the years 1465–1466 on one of the edges of the Barrancos de Santos within today's city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife . In the following years there were friendly relations between the Castilians and the Guanches. The Torre de Anaga was the center of a trade that developed very slowly. A number of soldiers were stationed here as a symbol of theoretical rule over the island. The behavior of these soldiers towards the indigenous population was one of the reasons why relations between the Castilians and the Guanches deteriorated in 1471. The Torre de Anaga was finally besieged by the Guanches and only part of the crew managed to escape to Lanzarote. After this period until 1477 the hostilities brought about the break between the Castilians and the Guanches, with the exception of the semi-Christianized Menceyato Güímar .

Assumption of the rights to the conquest by the Crown of Castile

From 1468 to 1477, as vassals of the Crown of Castile , the members of the Herrera - Peraza family enjoyed the full right of conquest and rule over the entire archipelago without restrictions or reservations of any kind. In 1477, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Castile agreed with Diego García de Herrera and Inés Peraza made a payment of five million maravedíes as compensation for their renunciation of the conquest and political rule over the islands of Gran Canaria , La Palma and Tenerife .

Agreements between the Crown of Castile and Alonso Fernández de Lugo

In the 15th century, almost all overseas conquests of the Crown of Castile were governed by Capitulaciones . The future conquerors usually did not have the necessary means to finance a conquering undertaking that took a long period of time to carry out. They therefore formed a society with various partners, dealers, middlemen, lenders and troop leaders. After Alonso Fernández de Lugo had subjugated the population of the island of La Palma in 1492 and 1493, he agreed with the Crown of Castile on the terms of the conquest of the island of Tenerife. The details were set out in the Capitulaciones de Zaragoza , which Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand issued in December 1493. Alonso Fernández de Lugo founded, as with the conquest of the island of La Palma, a company with a number of donors from Seville and military personnel who were to be compensated by the expected profit from the action.

First attack on Tenerife by Alonso Fernández de Lugo

Peaceful Menceyatos (green) Martial Menceyatos (red)

In May 1494, 1,500 infantrymen and 150 horsemen landed under the command of Alonso Fernández de Lugos on the beach of Añaza just south of what is now downtown Santa Cruz de Tenerife . Peace treaties were signed with the Menceyes of Anaga, Güímar , Abona and Adeje . A conversation between the Mencey of Taoro Bencomo and Alonso Fernández de Lugo did not lead to an agreement. The Menceyes of Tegueste , Tacoronte , Taoro, Icod and Daute were not ready to submit to the Castilian kings. The Castilian troops then marched towards the area of ​​Taoro ( Orotava Valley ).

1st Battle of Acentejo

In the Barranco de Acentejo, a narrow gorge, the Castilian troops were attacked by the Guanche fighters. Due to the narrowness of the Barranco, the Castilians were not able to adopt a battle order and thus use their superior weapon technology. The First Battle of Acentejo ended in a "slaughter" ( Spanish: Matanza ) in which only 300 foot soldiers and 60 horsemen survived of the attackers. At the beginning of June 1494 they left the island of Tenerife for Gran Canaria.

Second attack on Tenerife by Alonso Fernández de Lugo

After Alonso Fernández de Lugo had found another financial backer, he equipped a new army of conquest and landed again in Añaza at the beginning of November 1495 with 1500 men and 100 horses. The troops consisted almost exclusively of professional, experienced soldiers who had fought in the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada . 38 horsemen and 722 foot soldiers were equipped and paid for by the Duke of Medina Sidonia . Another group were Castilian soldiers who had settled on this island after the conquest of Gran Canaria . 40 natives of the island of Gran Canaria fought for the crown of Castile with their former prince Fernando Guanarteme at the head.

In the period between the 1st Battle of Acentejo in 1494 and the new invasion in 1495, the population of the island had fallen sharply due to epidemics of previously unknown diseases. The Guanches had no defenses against these introduced diseases. When he heard of the re-landing of the troops from Castile, Bencomo, the Mencey of Taoro, mobilized all capable men of his domain and demanded the presence of the Menceyes of Tegueste, Tacoronte, Icod and Daute with their people. Because of the previous epidemics, the number of fighting guanches in the northern Menceyatos seems to have hardly been exceeded.

After the landing, Alonso Fernández de Lugo renewed the contracts with the Menceyes on the south-east side of the island. He had the still existing fortification of Añaza reinforced with stone walls and a new one built near Gracia (today between La Laguna and Santa Cruz) in the area of ​​the enemy Menceyatos Tegueste. This facility represented an outpost for future military operations against the Menceyatos of the northern part of the island. A second camp was set up at the fortifications of Gracia.

Battle of Aguere

On November 14, 1495, the indigenous people and the invaders faced each other on the plain of Aguere, today's La Laguna , on an open area. This line-up enabled the Castilians to use their superior war technique, firearms, crossbows and cavalry. The Guanches had only wooden spears and stones and five times the number of fighters to oppose them. They had to retreat defeated after a fight that lasted several hours. 45 of Lugo's men and 1,700 Guanches were killed in the Battle of Aguere.

After the Battle of Aguere, Alonso Fernández de Lugo and his officers decided to advance further west into the Taoro domain. The advance was secured by the cavalry, especially when crossing the Barrancos. On the western edge of the Orotava valley an army camp ( Spanish real ) was built, from which the place Los Realejos developed.

2. Battle of Acentejo

From the army camp some advances were made by the light cavalry to observe the size of the remaining enemy troops and possible movements. During December 24, 1495, the scouts discovered that the Mencyes of Taoro, Tacoronte, Tegueste, Icod and Daute were preparing for an attack with most of their troops. On Christmas Day 1495, the Castilian troops marched north from their camp. They met the Guanches near the site of the first battle of Acentejo and a battle ensued. There are hardly any credible reports on the course of the battle. After fighting for most of the day, it was found that the Guanches had been defeated. A large part of the Guanches fled to the inaccessible mountain regions. Some also managed to take some of their goats away. Others tried to integrate into the southern dominions.

On February 15, 1496, the troops commanded by Alonso Fernández de Lugo were dismissed from service. The war veterans of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia reached Andalusia in the first days of March. Only the soldiers remained on the island who wanted to settle here and were waiting for their land assignments.

Since the Guanches in the higher part of the island could not defend themselves permanently against the raids of the Castilians, the remaining Meceyes of the dominions on the north side of the island decided to formally submit to the Crown of Castile. The solemn ceremony in the army camp of Los Realejos probably took place in May 1496. The official date is July 25th, the holiday of the Spanish national saint Santiago . Then Alonso Fernandez de Lugo went to Almazán at the age of seven, according to other sources with nine , to introduce them to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. They were probably also baptized in the process.

Consequences of the conquest

Total number of Canary Islands indigenous people sold in Valencia's slave markets

In the Capitulaciones de Zaragoza of 1493, Alonso Fernández de Lugo was granted the right to take the guanches of the five enemy guanche tribes and their property as booty. The northern part of the island has not been a mission area so far. Therefore, the enslavement of the defeated Guanches did not violate the papal regulations of the Bull Regimini gregis. Since the Guanches had made it clear through their resistance that they were not ready to be baptized, they were not protected from slavery by the royal declaration of September 20, 1477, even as unbelievers who were about to be converted. With the income from the sale of the slaves and the cattle, part of the creditors Alonso Fernándo de Lugos was compensated. Later, the redistribution of the land provided another way to reward the conquistadores and funders for their service in the conquest.

A hunt for the Guanches began, many of whom were hiding in the mountains. Some fled to the south of the island to live with the tribes who appeared protected by their treaties with the Castilians. The exact number of enslaved Guanches is not known. The well-documented figures on the sale of Canarian slaves in Valencia allow conclusions to be drawn about the total number of indigenous people enslaved. Usually, the natives of the Canary Islands were first offered to "wholesalers" in the slave markets of Palos or other Andalusian port cities ( Sanlúcar de Barrameda , Puerto de Santa María , Cádiz , Seville ), who then organized the resale in Castile or in ports of the Mediterranean. From the number of almost 500 people offered in the “retail trade” in Valencia in the years 1493 to 1496, one can conclude that during this time several thousand indigenous people in Europe were sold as slaves from the islands of La Palma and Tenerife. It is known from reports to the royal courts that the number of prisoners from the territories of the Menceyes, which are contractually linked to Castile and therefore actually protected, exceeded a thousand. Around three hundred of them were still living in Tenerife in 1498. Another significant group of actually free Guanches brought Juan Alfonso de Guzmán, the Duke of Medina Sidonia into his possessions in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. You were the prize for working together in conquering the island.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 , p. 36 ff . (Spanish, [1] [accessed December 25, 2017]).
  2. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 , p. 116 f . (Spanish, [2] [accessed December 25, 2017]).
  3. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 90 ff . (Spanish, ulpgc.es [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  4. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 , p. 162 (Spanish, [3] [accessed December 25, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 179 (Spanish, ulpgc.es [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  6. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Inular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 198 (Spanish, ulpgc.es [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  7. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Inular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 239 (Spanish, ulpgc.es [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  8. ^ Alfredo Mederos Martín: Un enfrentamiento desigual - Baja demografía y difícil resistencia en la conquista de las Islas Canarias . In: Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos . No. 65 , 2018, ISSN  0570-4065 , p. 1 (Spanish, [4] [accessed February 21, 2019]).
  9. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Inular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 245 (Spanish, ulpgc.es [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  10. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Inular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 246 (Spanish, ulpgc.es [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  11. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Inular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 228 ff . (Spanish, ulpgc.es [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  12. ^ John Mercer: The Canary Islanders - their prehistory conquest and survival . Rex Collings, London 1980, ISBN 0-86036-126-8 , pp. 205 (English).
  13. ↑ real. In: Diccionario de la lengua española. Real Academia Española, accessed April 15, 2018 (Spanish).
  14. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 , p. 318 (Spanish, [5] [accessed December 25, 2017]).
  15. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 , p. 401 (Spanish, [6] [accessed December 25, 2017]).
  16. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La política indigenista de Isabel La Catolica . Instituto Isabel la Católica de Historia Eclesiástica, Valladolid 1969, p. 37 (Spanish, [7] [accessed March 28, 2016]).
  17. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 , p. 325 f . (Spanish, [8] [accessed December 25, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Vicenta Cortés Alonso: La conquista de las Islas Canarias a través de las ventas de esclavos en Valencia . In: Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos . No. 1 , 1955, ISSN  0570-4065 , p. 492 ff . (Spanish, [9] [accessed April 22, 2018]).
  19. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La política indigenista de Isabel La Catolica . Instituto Isabel la Católica de Historia Eclesiástica, Valladolid 1969, p. 88 (Spanish, [10] [accessed March 28, 2016]).
  20. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 , p. 464 (Spanish, [11] [accessed December 25, 2017]).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Information about when an event took place used to be occasionally adapted to needs for symbols. The founding of the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria took place on San Juan, the name day of the three leaders of the company that conquered Gran Canaria. Alonso Fernandez de Lugo landed in Tenerife and erects a cross on the beach on May 3rd, the holiday of the cross. The date for the surrender of the Menceyes is often given as July 25, the holiday of St. James.

literature

Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La Conquista de Tenerife . Ed .: Instituto de Estudios Canarios. 2nd Edition. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-57-4 (Spanish, [12] [accessed December 25, 2017]).