Knightly Tales of the Canaries

By 1896, no real Guanches still existed. Gone were the purity and sweet gentleness of those giants of old. The Guanches had been “brave, a lie was an unheard-of crime, and the treachery and fraud of the Spaniards a revelation to them.” For these ancient people of the Canary Islands, “[l]ife in every form was as precious as it is to a Brahmin, and they looked with horror on those whose vocation it was to destroy it.” Even a butcher was considered by the Guanches to be an outcast. (“The Guanches: The Ancient Inhabitants of Canary”, by Capt. J.W. Gambier, R.N. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Ca. 1896)

“The consequence of this extended humanity was that the very birds of the air in these [Canary] islands were tame, and the astonished Spaniards saw, not unmixed with awe and superstition, nature’s most timid creatures playing amongst the feet of the children.” (Gambier, op. cit.)

“Situated at the farthest western extremity of the known world, the ancients regarded the Canary Islands as the limits of the earth, and from their natural and abundant beauty they obtained the name of Elysian Fields. Ezekiel mentions the fact that the Tyrians [Phoenicians] traded with the Isles of Elishah (Elysian Fields), and the Carthaginians went thither for the purple of the murex and the red dye of the cochineal.” Juba, King of Mauritania, sent a fleet to the Canary Islands, and wrote a history of the voyage which he sent to the Roman Emperor Augustus. (“A Forgotten Race”, Cornhill Magazine. See blog entry of September 29, 2012 for citation details.)

It had been a Paradise of the Guanches. But then the “Dark Ages” intervened and knowledge of the Canary Islands seemed to vanish.

Jean de Béthencourt (image top), a Norman knight, was filled with enthusiasm and longed for the chance to do good deeds. He and Gadier de la Sala sold their lands to fund an expedition in search of the Fortunate Islands. They set sail on May 1, 1400 and soon enough reached one of the Canaries, which they named Lancerote. At first the natives fled to the mountains to hide from Bethencourt and his men. But the gentle ways of the Norman knight slowly encouraged the natives not to be afraid. Bethencourt reigned over Lancerote for three years before he returned to Spain. “The story of Bethencourt and his fatherly rule over the Canary Islands reads like a tale of the ‘good old times,’ the golden age of kindly deeds, noble thought, and kingly bearing.” (Cornhill Magazine, op. cit.)

Wikipedia differs from the Cornhill Magazine in saying that Béthencourt set sail from La Rochelle on May 1, 1402. During a lull in his reign, Béthencourt left for the ancient Phoenician port of Cádiz, to acquire reinforcements. At this time a power struggle broke out on the islands between Gadier de la Salle and Berthin, another officer. Local leaders were drawn into the conflict and scores of Spaniards and islanders died in what was to become a bloodbath of the first months of Béthencourt’s absence.

Like England under the despotic rule of Prince John while King Richard was away in the Holy Land, in the absence of Jean de Béthencourt a relative, William de Béthencourt, undid all the good which had been done. William “behaved with such licentiousness and cruelty to the natives that they rose up and killed him, and imprisoned the rest of the Normans…” (Cornhill Magazine, op. cit.)

When Jean de Béthencourt returned with fresh men and supplies, he listened to the complaints of the Guanches and decided his own Norman countrymen had been in the wrong. The Guanches were pardoned and peace was restored.

Jean de Béthencourt dealt out justice with an even hand. The Guanches had been incensed by the licentiousness of William de Béthencourt. These gentle giants had a profound reverence for women. Under the “Prince John” tyranny of William and other leaders, there had been “unblushing immorality.” Reacting to this, the returned Jean de Béthencourt caused even his own officers and soldiers to be beheaded and hanged for their crimes.

In 1406, according to Cornhill Magazine, Jean de Béthencourt “made all arrangements for a prolonged absence from his beloved little kingdom.” He assembled the native chiefs and the European governors and begged them to live in peace. Jean de Béthencourt promised to go to the Pope and seek a bishop for the islands. In his absence, he appointed his nephew, Mason de Béthencourt, as governor-general.

“Great was the grief of the islanders at parting with their father-king, and when his ship sailed away, it was followed for miles by the faithful Guanches, who swam after it to give Béthencourt last words of affectionate parting.” (Cornhill Magazine, op. cit.)

Jean de Béthencourt fulfilled his promise and went to Avignon where he met with Pope Benedict XIII. The Pope appointed a bishop to the Canary Islands.

The Wikipedia entry has Jean de Béthencourt dying in 1425 (“Jean de Béthencourt”, Wikipedia, September 30, 2012), but Cornhill Magazine says it was shortly after he met with the Pope, while visiting relatives in Normandy, that Jean de Béthencourt died, in 1408, at the age of seventy years.