THE DOGS OF CONQUERORS AND COLONIST OF THE CANARY ISLANDS
The new owners, that become it by means of the force and the injustice, bring new ideas, a model of society different from the ones of the natives. Many are farmers, craftsmen others, tradesman, masons, etc. These men bring with themselves their work equipment, animals of all the domestic species in Spain, and some of the African continent. horses, mules, asses, cows, goats, ewes, pigs, dromedary, birds of corral, doves, partridges, rabbits, and dogs..., dogs of different breeds for different tasks: mastiff, presas, podencos (hounds), perdigueros (partridges dogs), herding dogs, pachones (hound), dogos, water dogs, bloodhounds, etc.
The conqueror always, in all the times, has taken to the places that has conquered his language, his folklore, his animals, his fruit trees, his seeds, that will make their subsistence possible. This in the Canary Islands was not in any way different.
Two French knights, Gadifer de La Salle and Jean de Bethencourt in 1402 departed from the Rochela in their boat with 280 men to the Canary Islands in order to conquer them. After serious misfortunes and constant mutiny on the part of their men, they were forced to enter in three Spanish ports, in where, seems, 117 men are replaced by others in their majority Spaniards, and in the month of July they arrive at Lanzarote, in where, with flatteries and deceits, they manage to dominate the island. Soon, with the same procedures and some skirmishes they conquest also Fuerteventura and shortly after El Hierro. And then arrived new adventurers with the sword and the cross and dominated the remaining islands one after another.
Little we know how they were the dogs that brought to the Canary Islands the conquerors and colonist; despite we will try to track them.
Once begun the conquest of the Canary Islands, Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de La Salle were without recourses to continue and decided that Bethencourt with a group of men moved to Spain with the purpose of bringing as soon as possible “some reinforcements of people and food (Le Canarien)”, and thus was done. Once in Seville, Jean de Bethencourt asked for hearing to the king, at that time Enrique III, he informed him about the conquest that they had initiated, “and he did him tribute of all the Canary Islands" (Le Canarien), "and obtained from him great gifts and great tax exemptions (Le Canarien)”. This way the Canary Islands become jurisdictional part of the kingdom of Castile, and both personages settled down a bond of reciprocal obligations and rights.
As of that moment the king of Castile takes control of the reins of the conquering company of the Canary Islands. And by Real schedele of 25 of December 1403 Jean de Bethencourt could extract of the kingdoms of Castile certain amount of iron, fifty cahíces (ancient weight measure) of wheat, five hundred pieces of arms, and equal number of men, with some horses and other animals.
And other animals, that is, of the kingdoms of Castile. And what other animals would be these ones? Is not specified, but we can imagine it. In addition to horses, cows, pigs, hens, dogs... This animal always has been used by the conqueror in all time and places, if he has been able to make use of them.
Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de La Salle were with their men in foreign lands, conquering, and had to watch very well by their lives and properties if they don’t want to lose them, and the dog was the best aid, the one that see and hear at night, the one that does not fear to the arms, the one that not betray, the one that don’t speak, the one that warn and only attacks if is necessary.
The men of Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de La Salle moved from Lanzarote to Fuerteventura. In other occasions they have already run this island, and they wanted to conquer it as soon as possible. In this occasion “they come out at night, each one with the arc in hand, to make an ambush near the place in which the canaries had rested the previous night. Then D'Andrac set out for them the following day in the morning, accompanied by the companions of the house of my Sir and the island of Lanzarote. And they had dogs with them, because were entertained throughout the island (Le Canarien, version B, page 117)”.
Previously at no moment speak of dogs in Fuerteventura, nor in Lanzarote. This occurred after the arrival of Bethencourt to Lanzarote once returned from Spain (7 of October of 1404), that mean the month of November of the same year. Soon there is another reference on dogs in Fuerteventura. “There are more than four thousand camels and great number of wild asses. The year 1591 they made a hunting by the much damage that they did in the earth, with many lebrels (harriers), and much people with horses, and the people was convoked, and they killed more than thousand and five hundred asses that were delicacy of crows and guirres (rapacious) that are abundant in these island” (Friar Juan de Abreu Galindo, History of the de la Conquest of the seven Islands of Gran Canaria, page 40).
With much people with horses, that mean that in 1591 already there were many horses in that island, clear that not in vain 187 years have passed since they brought them to the island (at least the first ones, we suppose that soon would take more) from Spain Jean de Bethencourt; and many lebrels (harriers). He don’t say dogs of presa (griping dogs) nor herding dogs, both breeds somewhat heavy to persecute the wild asses; the lebrel - I want to suppose that in this case are podencos, although do not exclude the possibility that they were galgos (hounds)- is quick animal and of more endurance.
However, were lebrels the dogs that the men of Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de La Salle took when they walked by the coast of Fuerteventura? I am inclined to think that no. What kind of dogs were those ones? Dogs for guard and defence of the people and properties. If they used them as dogs of attack against the natural ones of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura in the skirmishes, that is not know, although I think that no, otherwise would be find in some writing of the time. Then those dogs were presas or herding dogs, or both at the same time.
In the Agreements of the Town hall of Tenerife, in the Agreements of the Town hall of Betancuria (Fuerteventura), and in Decrees of Tenerife we read, “Perros de Presa (griping dogs), Perros de Ganado (herding or live stock guarding dogs), partridges dogs, hunting dogs, and dogs of the large ones”.
