GRAN CANARIA: THE WAR COMES HOME The Canary Islands: Conquest and Survival · Part Two · 10 minutes On-screen text transcript · No spoken narration 00:00 — Five years to take one island Gran Canaria · 1478–1483 The Castilian conquest of Gran Canaria lasted five years. Resistance prolonged the campaign. For the people who lived here, its ending would change who held power over their homes, land and families. Picture: Roque Nublo · Gran Canaria · modern view, 2012 00:18 — Keep these places in view Gran Canaria · Modern geographical locator Gáldar lies in the northwest. Las Palmas is on the northeast coast. Telde is farther south on the eastern side. Keep those places separate: the campaign did not happen at a single point. Picture: Historical explanation on modern relief · 2026 00:48 — People already lived here Agáldar · Before 1483 Under modern Gáldar, excavation has uncovered more than fifty houses and artificial caves belonging to ancient Agáldar. The invaders were entering a populated landscape with homes and a history of its own. Picture: Agáldar settlement · Cueva Pintada excavations, 2024 01:06 — Luisa’s story starts before the campaign Tenesoya Vidina · Luisa de Betancor The archive identifies Luisa with the Indigenous name Tenesoya Vidina. Its account describes her capture by Diego de Herrera’s men, removal to Lanzarote and baptism as Luisa. Conquest reached her life before 1478. Picture: AHPLP · archival description of Luisa’s capture 01:28 — A family across two worlds Aymediacoan · Luisa · Autindana Luisa’s later legal case remembers her father, Aymediacoan, and her brother, Autindana. These people enter our story through named testimony and family memory preserved in the archive. Picture: Family relationships · AHPLP testimony 01:46 — The Crown takes charge 1478 · Conquista realenga Realenga means conquest under royal authority. The monarchs and private investors backed these campaigns. Gran Canaria would come under the Crown of Castile. Picture: Modern locator · Gran Canaria and the archipelago 02:06 — 24 June 1478 Guiniguada · Real de Las Palmas Juan Rejón established a military settlement beside the Guiniguada. The date became the founding date of Las Palmas. The city’s beginning was also a foothold for conquering the island around it. Picture: Historical explanation on modern relief · 2026 02:36 — A camp becomes a city Las Palmas · The northeastern shore The military settlement became the seed of today’s city. Vegueta, its historic district, grew around that beginning. A place visitors now walk through started as a base for a war. Picture: Vegueta, Las Palmas · Bengt Nyman · modern view, 2017 02:54 — Resistance had names Arucas · During the conquest Doramas resisted the invaders and was killed by Pedro de Vera in the hills of Arucas. The rural park that bears his name today commemorates that resistance. Picture: Arucas · modern townscape, not a surviving battlefield view 03:12 — Five years is the point 1478–1483 · Continued resistance The campaign did not end with the first landing or the first victory. Indigenous resistance kept the conquest going for years. A date on a map can make a long struggle look far too easy. Picture: Riscos de Tirajana · modern Gran Canaria landscape 03:36 — The invaders fought each other, too 1478–1480 · A divided command Rejón clashed with Governor Pedro del Algaba. Algaba sent him to Castile; Rejón returned and had Algaba executed. The conquest had acquired a management problem. A lethal one. Picture: Command chronology · Government of the Canary Islands 03:54 — Pedro de Vera takes over 1480 onward · A renewed campaign Pedro de Vera renewed the campaign toward Gáldar, supported by Alonso Fernández de Lugo and Hernán Peraza. Remember Lugo: Tenerife is ahead. Picture: Agaete valley · Marianne Perdomo Machín · modern view, 2007 04:12 — Gáldar’s ruler Late campaign · Tenesor Semidán Tenesor Semidán ruled Gáldar as its guanarteme. The campaign against this northwestern center would soon turn on the capture of the ruler himself. Picture: Agáldar · detail of excavated dwellings, 2024 04:32 — A second front at Agaete 1481 · The northwestern coast Pedro de Vera opened a second front at Agaete. A new fort, Casa Fuerte, was built around August–September 1481. Alonso Fernández de Lugo took command. The Castilians now had another base in the north. Picture: Historical explanation on modern relief · 2026 05:02 — The captured ruler becomes an ally Late campaign · Fernando Guanarteme Tenesor was captured, taken to Castile and baptized Fernando Guanarteme. He became a valuable Castilian ally. Indigenous resistance and Indigenous cooperation both shaped the island’s conquest. Picture: Gáldar · photograph, c.1890–1895 · later town context 05:20 — 29 April 1483 Gran Canaria · The conventional endpoint The conquest’s conventional end date is 29 April 1483. The island came under Castilian rule. Ending the campaign settled the question of political control; it did not finish the lives of the people who survived. Picture: Historical explanation on modern relief · 2026 05:50 — The people did not disappear Gran Canaria · After 1483 Luisa would still be alive and defending her standing in 1528. The record itself carries people across the conquest’s dividing line. A conquered population was not simply erased from the island’s next chapter. Picture: Agaete · later sugar-mill and aqueduct remains, photographed 2026 06:08 — Aymediacoan, remembered decades later Gáldar · Testimony in 1528 Adán de Azedo repeated a story he had heard from elders and conquerors: Aymediacoan had protected Christian captives. Decades later, that memory was still being told in defense of his daughter. Picture: AHPLP · published transcription of the later-copy record · Adán de Azedo 06:30 — What that account actually says Earlier Gran Canaria · Recalled in 1528 According to the testimony, Castilian Christians captured at Agüimes faced being burned alive. Aymediacoan defended them and brought them to his own land so they would not be harmed. Picture: Historical explanation on modern relief · 2026 06:52 — A memory with a purpose 1528 · Evidence in a status dispute The story presented Aymediacoan as a protector of Christians. That mattered in a Christian court assessing his daughter’s position. We are hearing both a remembered act and the family’s argument about why it counted. Picture: AHPLP · published transcription of the later-copy record · question about Aymediacoan 07:10 — Autindana has a witness Gáldar · 1528 Cristóbal Rodríguez said he had known Luisa’s brother Autindana. He recalled the island’s elders describing him as one of its foremost Indigenous nobles. Here is a named person remembering another named person. Picture: AHPLP · published transcription of the later-copy record · Cristóbal Rodríguez 07:32 — More than forty years Rodríguez’s recollection of Luisa Rodríguez also said he had known Luisa for more than forty years. He had consistently seen her treated as a woman of leading lineage—and still regarded her that way in 1528. Picture: AHPLP · published transcription of the later-copy record · more than forty years 07:54 — Before and after Catalina de Guzmán · Another witness Catalina de Guzmán described Luisa’s recognized standing before the island was conquered and afterward. Her testimony connects two political worlds through one woman’s remembered place in society. Picture: AHPLP · published transcription of the later-copy record · Catalina de Guzmán 08:14 — Now the past is evidence 31 August 1528 · Gáldar Luisa and her sons challenged moneda forera, a royal tax. Their defense invoked ancestry and established hidalgo standing: privileged noble status in law. Family memory now had a practical job to do. Picture: Legal explanation · AHPLP proceedings 08:36 — The stakes were household goods 1528 · Pledges taken for the tax A mantle. A firearm. A worked hand towel. Officials had seized these belongings from Luisa and her sons. Their argument about the past was also a demand to get their property back. Picture: AHPLP · published transcription of the later-copy record · the seized goods 08:56 — A favorable order 1529 · The archive’s reported outcome Judgment maintained the family’s existing hidalgo status and ordered the goods restored. Luisa’s recognized place before the conquest had helped support her family’s defense afterward. The war’s consequences had outlived the fighting. Picture: AHPLP · archival summary of the 1529 order 09:18 — Next: another island, another war Tenerife · 1494–1496 Gran Canaria’s conquest was over. Tenerife’s was still to come. In the next part, we follow that campaign—and the later record of Juan Dara, a Gran Canarian eventually described as a conquistador. Picture: Conquest chronology · modern explanatory map 09:42 — Gran Canaria: The War Comes Home The Canary Islands: Conquest and Survival · Part Two A film by E = MC³. Music: Nunca · Marcheur · Moon Farewell. The story continues in Part Three: Tenerife Fights Back. Picture: View from Riscos de Tirajana · modern landscape