Jean de Béthencourt

Jean de Béthencourt (c. 1360 - 1425), was a French explorer who, in 1402, led an expedition to the Canary Islands, landing first on the north side of Lanzarote. From there, he conquered for Castile the islands of Fuerteventura and Hierro, ousting their local guanche chieftains. Béthencourt received the title King of the Canary Islands but he recognized King Henry III of Castile, who had provided aid during the conquest, as his overlord.

To finance his expedition, in December 1401 Jean de Béthencourt had sold his house in Paris, valued at 200 gold francs, and some other small pieces of property. [http://web.meganet.net/bettenco/bett0007.htm Descendants of Jean de Bethencourt ] ] His uncle, Robert de Braquemont, loaned him 5,000 pounds (to which he later added another 2,000).

Béthencourt set sail from La Rochelle on May 1, 1402, with 280 men, mostly Gascon and Norman adventurers, including two Franciscan priests (Pierre Bontier and Jean le Verrier, who narrated the expedition in "Le Canarien") and two Guanches who had been captured in an earlier Castilian expedition and were already baptised.

In 1402 Jean de Béthencourt he conquered Lanzarote, the northernmost inhabited island. While Gadifer de la Salle explored the archipelago, Béthencourt left for Cádiz, where he acquired reinforcements at the Castilian court. At this time a power struggle had broken out on the island between Gadifer 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. During this crisis, Gadifer managed to conquer Fuerteventura, and to explore other islands. It was only with the return of Béthencourt in 1404 that peace was restored to the troubled island. De la Salle and Béthencourt founded the city of Betancuria in 1404. Jean de Béthencourt converted to Islam while away from France, and married a West African women whom he took to France upon his return. [French Armies of the Hundred Years War, By David Nicolle, Angus McBride, pg. 40]

Béthencourt surname

To this day, Betancourt and other forms of his surname are quite frequent among Canary Islanders and people of Canary Islander descent, in spite of his death without issue, thanks to the practice of baptising the natives with his surname and to the offspring of his nephew Maciot de Béthencourt who succeeded him as lord of the islands.Examples include former Colombian president Belisario Betancur, former Venezuelan president Rómulo Betancourt, and Hermano Pedro de San José de Betancurt, a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Other modern notables in recent news are Venezuelan baseball player Rafael Betancourt, Portuguese-born American musician Nuno Bettencourt, Colombian-French activist/politician Ingrid Betancourt, heir of the L'Oréal company Liliane Bettencourt and her father André Bettencourt, famous nazi-collaborator during the war.

References

External links

* [http://www.lanzarote-guide.com/gui-eng/history.htm History of the Canaries ]
*es icon [http://elguanche.net/Ficheros/efemeridescanarias4.htm EFEMÉRIDES DE LA NACIÓN CANARIA: UNA HISTORIA RESUMIDA DE CANARIAS]