Early life Guayarmina was born on the island of
Gran Canaria in the late 1460s or early 1470s. A member of the royal family of the , she was one of the daughters of the guanarteme
Tenesor Semidán and his wife
Abenchara. There is no further information on her early years.
Her life during the Castilian conquest After the capture of Tenesor Semidán by
Alonso Fernández de Lugo and
Hernán Peraza in 1482, the Guanches moved Guayarmina and her cousin Masequera, daughter of the former king Egonaiga el Bueno and the true holder of power on the island, to the natural fortresses in the interior of the island. After several clashes in the fortresses of
Bentayga, Ajódar and others, the Castilian conquerors under the command of
Pedro de Vera, accompanied by Tenesor Semidan - now called Fernando Guanarteme - besieged the natives at Ansite. Following mediation by Guanarteme, the Guanches surrendered on 29 April 1483, handing over the princesses and concluding the conquest of the island.
After the conquest After the definitive incorporation of the island into the
Crown of Castile, Guayarmina was
Christianised and
baptised as Margarita Fernández Guanarteme, and settled in the town of
Gáldar. Around 1497, she became the heir to the estate of her father, who had died in
Tenerife. Among these assets was the property of the valley of Guayedra, which Fernando Guanarteme had received during the
repartimiento of the island in 1485. After the island was conquered, Margarita was married to the Extremaduran nobleman Miguel de Trejo y Carvajal, a native of Granadilla and son of Alonso González Carvajal and his wife Elvira Fernández. From this marriage, they had four children: María de Carvajal, Alonso González Carvajal, Hernán de Trejo and Bernardino de Carvajal. In 1526, Margarita requested information to prove that she was the daughter of
Tenesor Semidán. This documentation, known as the
información guanartémica, is one of the most important documents on the conquest. Tradition has it that Margarita died sometime in the 1540s in the city of
Las Palmas. ==References==