Canary Islands
Original title: Canárias
Brief entry on the neighbouring Canary Islands, noting disputed accounts of their discovery, the tradition that their Béthencourt king sold them to Prince Henry in exchange for lands in Madeira, and the contacts between the two archipelagos.
Opinions vary on the discovery of the Canary Islands archipelago. Some authors state that these islands were discovered three times, the last at the end of the 14th century or the beginning of the 15th. Father António Cordeiro says in the ‘Island History’ (Historia Insulana) that they were discovered ‘for the third time in the year 1417 by their Betencor kings; and the island of Madeira having been discovered and settled in 1420, and great fame of it spreading at once, this finally moved the aforesaid second king of the Canaries to sell the four over which he reigned to our Lusitanian and Most Serene Henry the Navigator..., and indeed he sold them to him for certain estates which the Infante gave him on the said island of Madeira, to which (and near which) the said king of the Canaries moved, now at last without a kingdom, and on Madeira he remained, and the descendants of the Betencores endure there even today...’.
There is already an extensive literature on the discovery of this archipelago, its early colonisation, the rights the Portuguese claimed to its possession and the disputes that arose on that account between Portugal and Castile.
Despite the difficulties of communication, relations between the neighbouring archipelagos of the Canaries and Madeira were relatively frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 02Place
Places mentioned · 04- Canary Islands · Subject
Spain. Subject of the entry, the neighbouring archipelago.
The Canary Islands are the archipelago neighbouring Madeira, with disputed accounts of their discovery. Tradition holds that their Béthencourt king sold them to Prince Henry in exchange for lands in Madeira. The Elucidário notes many contacts between the two archipelagos, including scientific visits, the Orfeão Madeirense's tour in May 1922 and the massacre of forty Jesuits in their waters.
- Castile
Spain. Disputed the Canaries with Portugal.
Castela (Castile) disputed the Canaries with Portugal, and Belchior de Teive was made adelantado of a province there. A Madeiran nobleman satirised by Silveira in the Cancioneiro de Resende was staying there.
- Portugal
Claimed possession of the Canaries.
Portugal, the mother country of Madeira. The Elucidário notes that artillery detachments were sent from the mainland to garrison Madeira before 1877, that Madeira was linked to Portugal by telegraph cable in 1874, and that woad and gifts of honey were formerly sent there from the island. Mainland oranges and olives are compared favourably with those of Madeira and Porto Santo.
People
People mentioned · 02- António Cordeiro1641–1722
Author of the Historia Insulana, quoted here on the discovery of the Canaries and their sale to Prince Henry.
- Henry the Navigator1394–1460
Portuguese prince who, according to Cordeiro, bought four Canary Islands in exchange for estates in Madeira.