Category Archives: Documentos públicos

The Essentials (XII): The Gomerans sold by Pedro de Vera and Doña Beatriz de Bobadilla

2018-07-131 commentDocumentos públicos, Esenciales, EstudiosBeatriz de Bobadilla, Dominik Wölfel, Esclavitud, La Gomera, Pedro de Vera, Slavery

Indigenes of La Gomera, depicted by Leonardo Torriani in 1590 (source: Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra, catalogue number Ms. 314, fol. 81r.).

To fully clarify the content of these 120 documents has been an immense job. And since an illustrious Canaryman has described me as a typical German, with a file, I must confess frankly that I own an immense one, […]^[1]This translation by PROYECTO TARHA.

Dominik Josef Wölfel (The Gomerans sold by Pedro de Vera and Doña Beatriz de Bobadilla, p. 23)

Present year 2018 began with very good news for Canarian historiography: the acquisition by El Museo Canario of the personal file of Professor Dominik Josef Wölfel (Vienna, 1888-1963), kept at the Institutum Canarium in Vienna. Making the most, in addition, of the recent publication of our last two posts on the Gomeran rebellion of 1488, now we issue another of our recommended essentials, which we owe to the prestigious author of the Monumenta Linguae Canariae.

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The Ganigo of Guadajume (2/3): reprisal

2018-06-08Arqueología histórica, Documentos públicos, HistoriasBeatriz de Bobadilla, Francisco de Maldonado, Guadajume, Hautacuperche, Hupalupa, La Gomera, Miguel López de la Serna, Pedro de Vera

A map of San Sebastián de La Gomera town at the end of 16th century, by engineer Leonardo Torriani (source: Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra, catalogue number Ms. 314, fol.83v.).

[…] old Chupulapu[…] told them crying, and repentant, I shall die soon so there you stay, who will pay well Lord Peraza’s death, woe to your children, and families, woe to you miserable ones, and soon after he died;^[1]This translation by PROYECTO TARHA.

Tomás Marín de Cubas (Historia de las siete islas de Canaria –1694–, Book II, Chapter XII)

The dramatized end of Pablo Hupalapu, or Chupulapu, in the story shared by both Abreu Galindo and Marín de Cubas, preludes the atrocious reprisal that Gomeran people would suffer at the end of 1488 or the beginning of 1489 after the death of Fernán Peraza the Younger at the hands of his own vassals.

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The Ganigo of Guadajume (1/3): A colactation pact on La Gomera?

2018-02-121 commentCultura indígena, Documentos públicos, Estudios, EtnografíaBeatriz de Bobadilla, Conquista señorial de Canarias, Fernán Peraza, Guadajume, Hautacuperche, Hupalupa, Iballa, La Gomera, Lords' Conquest of the Canaries

Idealized statue of Pedro Hautacuperche located at Valle Gran Rey, La Gomera, by sculptor Luis Arencibia. He is holding in his right hand the Ganigo of Guadajume, already broken, and in his left hand the weapon with which he killed Fernán Peraza the Younger, giving rise to the uprising of La Gomera in 1488 (source: Erik Baas / Wikimedia Commons).

To the Gomeran people, brave and beautiful, with love and respect.

November 1488. A man dressed as a woman falls murdered in the vicinity of a cave. Soon after, on the wings of an ancestral whistling language, the echo of the deep ravines on La Gomera carried a war cry: “Now the Ganigo of Guadajume is broken”.

The victim was Fernán Peraza the Younger, the Castilian Lord of the Island and Doña Inés Peraza’s favorite son, who a few months before had constituted in the second of her male offspring the entail of the Seigneury of the Isles of Canaria, which had been de facto extinct for more than ten years before. The executioner, Pedro Hautacuperche, a pastor who shepherded his flock on Plan de Asisel, in front of the imposing massive Agando Rock.

Tradition among Gomeran natives states that theirs was the only one of the Canary Islands that was never conquered by Europeans. But the truth is that the death of the Castilian Lord was met by one of the most cruel retaliations carried out on the Archipelago ever.

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The Pact of Calatayud (2/3)

2017-07-24Documentos públicos, EstudiosAntonio Rumeu de Armas, Fernando Guanarteme, Pact of Calatayud, Pacto de Calatayud

The monument dedicated to Don Fernando Guanarteme at Calatayud (source: Escultura Urbana en Aragón – Armando González Gil).

Professor Wölfel did not imagine that in 1959, almost three decades after publishing his transcription of the Letter of Calatayud in Anthropos journal, a bitter and almost surreal debate of political and intellectual nature was about to begin on account of his discovery.

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The Essentials (XI): The Guanarteme Report

2017-07-021 commentDocumentos públicos, EsencialesAjódar, Conquest of Gran Canaria, Conquest of Tenerife, Conquista de Gran Canaria, Conquista de Tenerife, Fernando Guanarteme, Guayarmina, Margarita Fernández Guanarteme

Idealized statue of Tenesor Semidán or Don Fernando Guanarteme by sculptor Juan Borges Linares, located at Gáldar, Gran Canaria (source: PROYECTO TARHA)

[…] He told them things of Castile and the Court and the great power of their Highnesses and that he did not recognize his lordship as worthy, nor those on this Island because that of their Highnesses was true […]^[1]Witness Alonso Hernández de Arévalo’s answer to the ninth question of the interrogation.

As we indicated in one of our Essentials, only three merit reports related to the conquest of the Canary Islands are preserved. This time we deal with the second of these important public documents: Don Fernando Guanarteme’s merit report, also known as the Guanarteme Report. (more…)

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The Pact of Calatayud (1/3)

2017-06-054 commentsCrónicas, Documentos públicosDay of the Canaries, Día de Canarias, Fernando Guanarteme, Pact of Calatayud, Pacto de Calatayud, Wölfel

Façade of the church of San Pedro de los Francos, seat of the Aragonese courts in Calatayud. Probably, the Catholic Monarchs received in this temple the delegation of Grandcanarian indigenes that rendered them obedience in May of 1481 (source: Diego Delso – Wikimedia Commons).

The proximity of May 30th, official date of the so-called Day of the Canaries, awakens among lovers of the ancient history of the Archipelago the memory of a controversial event wrapped in the unknowns of the scarcity of documentary records: we speak of what has been known either as the Letter, Peace or Pact of Calatayud.

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The Essentials (X): The Accounts on the Conquest of Gran Canaria

2017-04-05Cultura colonial, Cultura indígena, Documentos públicos, Esenciales, EtnografíaConquest of Gran Canaria, Conquista de Gran Canaria, Pact of Calatayud, Pacto de Calatayud, Queen of Canaria, Reina de Canaria, Torre de Agaete, Tower of Agaete

In 1966, as a result of an investigation encouraged by Professor Antonio Rumeu de Armas, then doctoral student Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada published in Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos the transcription of some surprising documents that shed new light on the royal conquest of the Canary Islands which at the same time raised new questions. This valuable information appeared in three expense accounts, a kind of document whose arid and routine nature does not invite to presage any interesting data. Nothing further from reality.

The first account, dated between 1481 and 1482, right in the middle of the conquest of Gran Canaria, was signed by Pedro de Arévalo, supplier of the conquering army. The second relation of expenses was signed by Juan de Frías, Governor of the Palace of Córdoba –not to be confused with his namesake Bishop of Rubicón–. Finally, the third account showed the rubric of Antonio de Arévalo, son of the former, designated payer of the Castilian hosts that participated in the War of Canaria after its ending.

Puerto de Las Nieves (Agaete, Gran Canaria) in 2015. In the distance, Mount Amagro, a sacred place to the ancient Canarians. On the right, Roque de Las Nieves. The Tower of Agaete was built at the foot of this geological landmark between July and September of 1481 (source: PROYECTO TARHA).

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Tarha: new database on the Ancient History of the Canary Islands

2017-03-26Arqueología histórica, Crónicas, Cultura colonial, Cultura indígena, Documentos públicos, Esenciales, Estudios, Etnografía, Historias, Patrimonio colonial, Patrimonio indígenaBase de datos, Bibliografía, Bibliography, Biografía, Biography, Chronology, Cronología, Database, Ethnography, Etnografía

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QOX4balxGE&feature=youtu.be[/embed]

On the verge of celebrating PROYECTO TARHA‘s first anniversary, we could not but celebrate publishing the first prototype of which we announced as one of …

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The Essentials (VII): The Cabitos' Inquiry

2016-10-09Documentos públicos, EsencialesCabitos' Inquiry, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Pesquisa de Cabitos, Seigneury of the Isles of Canaria, Señorío de las islas de Canaria, Sevilla

A view of Teguise town (Lanzarote) in 2016 from Mount Guanapay. Named Gran Aldea (Great Village) by Europeans in the fifteenth century, it was the capital of the Seigneury of the Isles of Canaria and the scene of residents insurrection against Inés Peraza and Diego de Herrera’s rule that gave rise to Cabitos’ Inquiry (source: PROYECTO TARHA)..

[…] and we as people few and poor, miserable, ignorant, living on this island, poor having nothing to provide us or feed us but the skies and goat herds, and we have no other property or income to live on. For, Lord, if we pick bread one year, two years we do not pick it, and so we are living on this land, in our misery and poverty, and they take the above said tax from us […]. And about that all, the above said Lords Diego de Herrera and Doña Inés, his wife, are not contented […] every day they do us more harm, taking us out of our homes, making us abandon our wives and children, taking us by force against our wills to other islands of infidels where many of us died and still die and make us keep towers and fortresses […] not wanting neither to give nor to pay us any wage […] and we dare neither to tell them nor to repeat to the above said Lords nothing of such grievances they do to us because of the great fear of them we have until make it known to Your Highness, to whom we plead with loud voices, as very miserable and aggrieved people, that Your Highness remedy us with justice, for, Lord, we are isolated on the islands, on the said island of Lanzarote, which is far apart from the kingdoms of Spain, westwards in the sea. ^[1]Aznar Vallejo (1990, pp. 173-174) –adapted from old Castilian by PROYECTO TARHA–.

Promoters of this plead never imagined that their requests would give rise to the most important public file kept on the conquest of the Canaries.

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The Seven Partidas

2016-07-21Cultura colonial, Documentos públicosAlfonso X de Castilla, Colonial filter, Derecho medieval, Filtro colonial, Medieval laws, Seven Partidas, Siete Partidas

King Alfonso X of Castile depicted in a miniature included in the Cantigas de Santa María (source: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes).

Barely having any relationship with the history of the Canary Islands, we could say today we are sneaking an intruder into this project. Not without a good reason, of course.

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