Guanches Conquest

1. Guanches

The very first inhabitants of the canarian islands have been named Guanchas. They lived a modest live and only left vestiges in form of peroglyphes. Unfortunately the spanish distroyed most of this culture.
The guanches where politically very good organized. As described in the chapter "conquest" this helped not against the deceit of the spanish invasion.

Most important place for the Guanches have been the holy stoner Idafe, which finally gave my homepage its name.

2.Spanish invasion

At the end of the 15th century, Alonso Fenandez de Lugo visited the island. His goal was to conquest it. At this time, the island was splitted into 12 cantons. Every single canton was lead by gobernor so called "Mencey". In only 7 months he was able to get control over it and Fernandez de Lugo was leading 11 out of the 12 cantons. He was always closing contracts and only a few times used arms. One single canton was left. It was the 12th and now national reserve Acero in Spanish "tierra fuerte" which is meaning hard ground. In fact, this 12th canton was what we know today as Caldera. The leader of the Caldera was the Mencey Tanausu, he lead a little group of guanches also called "Benahoaritas". Fernandes de Lugo was been several times involved in battles with the Benahoaritas and he loosed. But one time, Fernandes de Lugo was able to lure him into a trap. Tanansau was then arrested. Historical documents telling the Mencey was brought to a ship to sail to Spain. But he refuesed to eat and died.

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