Wednesday, 11 January 2017 10:26

How The Spanish Conquistador Was Born In Gran Canaria in 1478

The Spanish Conquistador was born in the shade of Las Palmas' palm trees The Spanish Conquistador was born in the shade of Las Palmas' palm trees photosgrancanaria.com

Before Columbus 'discovered' America and decades before Hernán Cortez and Francisco Pizarro were even born, the Spanish Conquistador emerged from the blood and dust of the 1478 Battle For Las Palmas. 

In 1478 the Spanish arrived in Gran Canaria and founded a settlement called the Real de Las Palmas. The name came from the three tall palm trees within the original wooden walls of what is now old town Vegueta.

The Spanish barely had time to throw up a wooden stockade and a few buildings before they had to fight to keep their foothold on the island.

Hundreds of aboriginal Canarii warriors gathered around the makeshift Spanish fort. They hadn’t come to talk.

Earlier encounters and treachery had taught the Canarii that they had to push these strange invaders back into the sea before they got established.

Steel against stone

The final battle for Las Palmas lasted a whole day. Spanish soldiers, armed with steel, lead and war horses fought man-to-man against the skilled Canarii warriors with their stone and wood weapons.

While history makes clear that the outcome of the battle was inevitable, it didn’t seem so on the day. The Canarii pegged the Spanish back and stood a good chance of breaking their defences.

It took a personal cavalry charge by the garrison leader and eventual conqueror of Gran Canaria, a man called Juan Rejon, to break the Canarii’s resolve.

The Conquistador is born

The Canarii melted back into Gran Canaria’s easily defensible highlands and never fought the invaders on even ground again.

The Battle for Las Palmas taught the Spanish a lesson that they never forgot; that steel, guns and horses could defeat any enemy in the New World.

The Conquistador was born on the flat plain just outside Old Town Vegueta in 1478.

Defiance, defeat and disease

The Canarii fought on for five years and inflicted heavy casualties on the Spanish with ambushes and clever attacks before the last warriors, weakened by constant fighting and imported diseases, surrendered or killed themselves.

Their language, culture and religion was soon obliterated by the fervour of missionaries, plantation owners and slave traders.

By the time Columbus arrived in Las Palmas, the Canarii way of life was just a memory. The survivors were assimilated and their genes live on in the modern Canarian population. You see them every time you see a Canarian with red or blonde hair or pale eyes. 

The Spanish, armed with the lessons learned at Las Palmas and carrying the same viruses that finished off the Canarii, were already looking across the water for new territory.

In 1492, just nine years after the Spanish defeated the Canarii, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

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How the Spanish Conquistador was born in 1478 in Gran Canaria Gran Canaria Info
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Tip of the day

  • The Parafarmacia In Gran Canaria Is Not A Chemist!
    The Parafarmacia In Gran Canaria Is Not A Chemist!

    If there is one thing we hate it is visitors being tricked in Gran Canaria. In the past we've warned about overcharging at Gran Canaria chemists, and rip off electronics shops in resorts. 

    In this Tip Of The Day we return to the island's chemists or rather, to the island's fake chemists.

    A chemist in Gran Canaria is called a Farmacia and always has a green cross sign. Farmacias are the only place tobuy medicine in Spain, even basics like paracetamol.

    However, there is another kind of shop in Gran Canaria that looks and sounds like a chemist but doesn't sell medicine. This is the Parafarmacia and it also uses a green cross sign.

    A parafarmacia is a herbal medicine shop that is not allowed to sell any normal medicine such as paracetamol, ibuprofen or antibiotics. 

    Instead, parafarmacias sell herbal alternatives to medicine but don't have to prove that they work and they can charge whatever they want.

    We recently heard from a visitor to Gran Canaria who went into a parafarmacia and was charged 40 euros for a herbal alternative to Ibuprofen. It was only when they read the label that they realised what had happened. 

    To locate a genuine farmacia, see this website and search within your municipio (Puerto Rico is in Mogán, Playa del Inglés is in San Bartolomé de Tirajana). At weekends and on fiesta days many farmacias close but there is always one open, known as the farmacia de guardia, in each municipio.

    Search for the nearest one to you with this tool

    Lex Says: To keep costs down, see this article for the way to ask for generic medicine rather than expensive branded alternatives. 

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