Read the film · Part 2 · 10:00

Gran Canaria: The War Comes Home

Five years of resistance on Gran Canaria, followed by Luisa de Betancor’s family fight in the courts.

The story, scene by scene.

The onscreen text is reproduced below. Select a timestamp to open that scene in the film.

Gran Canaria · 1478–1483

Five years to take one island

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

GC-History: Campaign duration and incorporation

0:18 ↗

Gran Canaria · Modern geographical locator

Keep these places in view

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

Maps: Named locations; no political boundary claim

0:48 ↗

Agáldar · Before 1483

People already lived here

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

Galdar: Settlement description

1:06 ↗

Tenesoya Vidina · Luisa de Betancor

Luisa’s story starts before the campaign

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

AHPLP: PDF9 archival historical description

1:28 ↗

Aymediacoan · Luisa · Autindana

A family across two worlds

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

AHPLP: PDF16 questions2–4; PDF17 Rodríguez testimony

1:46 ↗

1478 · Conquista realenga

The Crown takes charge

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

Education: PDF12, royal conquest; PDF7 distinctions

2:06 ↗

Guiniguada · Real de Las Palmas

24 June 1478

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

LasPalmas: City history, foundation paragraph

2:36 ↗

Las Palmas · The northeastern shore

A camp becomes a city

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

LPAVisit: Real de las Tres Palmas and founding district

2:54 ↗

Arucas · During the conquest

Resistance had names

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

Doramas: Official Cabildo park leaflet, history caption

3:12 ↗

1478–1483 · Continued resistance

Five years is the point

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

GC-History: Five-year campaign due to island resistance

3:36 ↗

1478–1480 · A divided command

The invaders fought each other, too

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

Gambin: Search-index excerpt, printed216/PDF8; no exact execution date used

3:54 ↗

1480 onward · A renewed campaign

Pedro de Vera takes over

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

Education: PDF12 Gran Canaria section

4:12 ↗

Late campaign · Tenesor Semidán

Gáldar’s ruler

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

Education: PDF12, guanarteme and capture

4:32 ↗

1481 · The northwestern coast

A second front at Agaete

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

Agaete: Municipal Casa Fuerte history;1481 secondfront, fort, command

5:02 ↗

Late campaign · Fernando Guanarteme

The captured ruler becomes an ally

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

Education: PDF12, capture,baptism,alliance

5:20 ↗

Gran Canaria · The conventional endpoint

29 April 1483

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

Aguimes: PDF3, lines81–82; political incorporation corroborated by GC-History · GC-History: Incorporation in1483

5:50 ↗

Gran Canaria · After 1483

The people did not disappear

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

AHPLP: PDF16 living-party language and PDF17 testimony

6:08 ↗

Gáldar · Testimony in 1528

Aymediacoan, remembered decades later

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

AHPLP: PDF17 Adán de Azedo answer toquestion4

6:30 ↗

Earlier Gran Canaria · Recalled in 1528

What that account actually says

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

AHPLP: PDF17, Adán de Azedo answer

6:52 ↗

1528 · Evidence in a status dispute

A memory with a purpose

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

AHPLP: PDF16 question4, PDF17 answer; interpretation explicitly editorial

7:10 ↗

Gáldar · 1528

Autindana has a witness

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

AHPLP: PDF17, Cristóbal Rodríguez response to question2

7:32 ↗

Rodríguez’s recollection of Luisa

More than forty years

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

AHPLP: PDF17, Cristóbal Rodríguez answer

7:54 ↗

Catalina de Guzmán · Another witness

Before and after

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

AHPLP: PDF17, Catalina de Guzmán response

8:14 ↗

31 August 1528 · Gáldar

Now the past is evidence

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

AHPLP: PDF9 description;PDF16 opening and statusquestions

8:36 ↗

1528 · Pledges taken for the tax

The stakes were household goods

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

AHPLP: PDF17 question9

8:56 ↗

1529 · The archive’s reported outcome

A favorable order

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

AHPLP: PDF9 reportedjudgment andPDF16–17 statuscase

9:18 ↗

Tenerife · 1494–1496

Next: another island, another war

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

MHA: Previously inspected museum conquest chronology1494–1496 · Ara: PDF19 / printed20,1540lease

9:42 ↗

The Canary Islands: Conquest and Survival · Part Two