Tag Archives: Conquista señorial de Canarias

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

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 Essentials (V): History of the Seven Ysles of Canaria

Microfilm image of the title page of the oldest surviving copy –18th century– of Historia de las Siete Yslas de Canaria (1694) by Tomás Marín de Cubas (source: Biblioteca Municipal Central de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Ancient Collection, catalogue number Ms. 192)

UPDATED POST (2021/08/13)

[…] History by Marín de Cubas, when critically read, therefore constitutes a solid foundation for the knowledge of the prehispanic past of the Canary Islands.

Preface by Professor Juan Régulo Pérez for the 1986 edition of Historia de las siete islas de Canaria[1]ARIAS (1986), p. 28.. This translation by PROYECTO TARHA.

Despite its limited spreading, we are facing what is probably the most important surviving work on the world of the ancient Canarians, right after the work by Brother Juan de Abreu Galindo, even surpassing the latter regarding some key aspects.

Written by Dr. Tomás Marín de Cubas –or Marín y Cubas– (Telde, Gran Canaria, 1643 – Real de Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, 1704), who also holds the merit of being the collator of the oldest known copies of the accounts by Antonio Sedeño and Gómez Escudero, History of the Seven Ysles of Canaria is a work that never ceases to amaze researchers approaching to its pages for this opus provides us with interesting, previously unpublished data on the indigenes and some vivid accounts of known episodes of the Conquest showing that its author had access to information aside that in the other surviving writings dealing with the topic.

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The Essentials (II): Le Canarien - French Chronicles on the Conquest of the Canaries

Front cover of the first volume of Le Canarien 1959 edition by Professors Elías Serra Ràfols and Alejandro Cioranescu (source: Biblioteca Virtual Viera y Clavijo).

Le Canarien (The Canarian) is the oldest of the known Canarian chronicles. Originally written over six-hundred years ago, it is the first specific account almost entirely devoted to the European conquest of the Archipelago. Its initial authors, two French priests: Jehan Le Verrier and Pierre Boutier, chaplains to the conquest expedition assembled in 1402 by Norman Baron Jehan IV de Béthencourt and his partner, Pictavin Knight Gadifer de La Salle, as both of them admit:

[…] Gadifer de La Sale and Jehan de Béthencourt, knights born in the Kingdom of France, have undertaken this voyage to honor God and for maintenance and increasement of our holy faith, to parts of the South, to certain islands that are on the side thereof, which they call islands of Canaria inhabited by infidels people with different laws and different languages, […] with the intention of turning them and attract them to our faith; That is why this book is called the Canarian. And we, Brother Pierre Boutier, monk of Saint-Juoin-des-Marnes and Mr. Jehan Le Verrier, priests and chaplains and servants of the knights named above, have begun to write down all the things that happened to them from the beginning and the whole form of their government, of which we could have had true knowledge, since they left the Kingdom of France until […] Béthencourt arrived here at the islands; and thereafter came the writing in other hands, that will resume it with all the truth until the end of their conquest.

Le Canarien (text G) –SERRA (1964), pp. 14-16– (this translation by PROYECTO TARHA).

Truth is that those other hands were not as accurate as the original authors expected. In fact, having either the original or originals dissappeared, the two oldest known copies of this account are perfect examples of hagiographic manipulation.

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San Marcial del Rubicón: A dramatic rehearsal

Barranquillo y sendero que conduce hasta el yacimiento de San Marcial del Rubicón (Lanzarote).

The ravine and path leading to the archaeological site of San Marcial del Rubicón, Lanzarote (source: PROYECTO TARHA).

Et demourerent euls et ceuls de l’isle Lancelot en bon accord. Apres commencerent un chastel qui s’apelle Rubicom, et laisserent la une partie de leurs gens;

And were well agreed them and those of the island of Lanzarote. Then they began a castle named Rubicon, and left there part of their people;

Le Canarien (text G) –SERRA (1964), pp. 24-25– (this translation by PROYECTO TARHA).

Its characters never knew. Probably most of the hundreds of tourists who weekly lie in the sun just a few steps away will not either. But over six hundred years ago, on the sandy mouth of this humble ravine, an experiment of great historical significance was carried out.

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