The conquest of the Canaries was started in 1402 by French-
Norman explorer Jean de Béthencourt. He had set sail from France one year earlier with a small army. He started the conquest in a rather friendly way by taking over the island of Lanzarote with the help of the locals. They would soon also take
Fuerteventura and
El Hierro. Their present king
Guadarfia was the grandson of Zonzamas, who was king when Lancelotto Malocello had visited the island earlier. When Béthencourt left the island for reinforcements from Castile, unrest broke out because of fighting between Norman officer
Gadifer de la Salle and Berthin de Berneval, in which the natives had been involved. However, Béthencourt managed to calm the situation when he returned, and the Guanche leader was baptized on February 27, 1404, thus surrendering to the Europeans. Subsequently, Jean de
Béthencourt was proclaimed king of the Canaries by
Pope Innocent VII, even though he recognized the Castilians as overlords. The remaining islands,
La Gomera,
Gran Canaria,
Tenerife and
La Palma, were gradually conquered over the course of a century or so. Jean de Béthencourt was, after his death, succeeded by his nephew
Maciot de Béthencourt, who turned out to be a tyrant. He established
Teguise as the new capital. The
Portuguese had been competing with the Castilians for the islands. The Castilians suspected that Maciot would sell the islands to them, which he did in 1448. Neither the natives nor the Castilians approved, and this led to a revolt which lasted until 1459 when the Portuguese were forced to leave. Portugal formally recognised Castile as the ruler of the Canary Islands in 1479 as part of the
Treaty of Alcáçovas. The military governor
Alonso Fernández de Lugo finally conquered the islands of La Palma (in 1492–1493) and Tenerife (in 1494–1496) for the
Crown of Castile, thus completing the conquest of the island group. ==References==