Conquest of La Palma

In 1447 Guillen Peraza of La Gomera set out with three ships and 500 men to conquer the island. After landing in the canton of Tihuya, where Echedey was the reigning prince, there was a terrible battle in which the Indians defeated the Castilians in spite of their primitive weapons, which were spears of wood and stone.  Guillen Peraza died during the fighting after being hit by a stone.
On September 29, 1492 in Tazacorte about 900 men commanded by Alonso Fernandez de Lugo landed at the mouth of La Caldera.   Through covenants, they slowly conquered nine of the twelve cantons. Then the great battle of Timibucar had to be fought to overcome resistance from the allied cantons of Tigalate and Tedote, beating Bentacayse, the head of Tedote, and Jariguo and Garehagua, brothers who shared power in Tigalate.

Finally, Alonso Fernandez de Lugo only had to defeat the Guangzhou Steel to dominate the island, but they were rejected time and again by Tanausu and his men.  After failed attempts by the Spaniards to go into La Caldera, Fernandez de Lugo sent Juan de Palma, a relative of Tanausu already Christianized, to convince him to go out past Adamacansis to make a gentleman’s agreement.

Tanausu, at the insistence of opponents and to avoid further suffering of his people, agreed to negotiate and make peace, and therefore went to meet with Don Alonso.  One of his supporters warned that it could be an ambush, but Tanausu went ahead because he could not conceive that Fernandez de Lugo would mislead him. The Castilians attacked his entourage at the place known today as El Riachuelo, near La Cumbrecita.

His entourage was left to die on the boat, and Tanausu was captured and subsequently refused to eat in protest of the betrayal. The hunger strike led to his death while, according to legend, he constantly uttered the word vacaguare, which means, “I want to die.”

Iglesia de Santo Domingo, founded in Santa Cruz de La Palma by Fernandez de Lugo, was built on the foundation of the hermitage of San Miguel.

After the conquest, with the incorporation of the island of La Palma to the crown of Castile, people from many nations began coming to the island.  Portuguese, Spanish and to a lesser extent Mallorcan, Catalan, Italian, and Flemish, were attracted by the wealth of this land and the policies designed to encourage settlement (including tax incentives).

All these people, apart from the indigenous population, form the trunk of La Palma population today.  In recent decades, following the boom in tourism, a German population has also been established on the island.