Everything about Jean De B Thencourt totally explained
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. 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.
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, and
Colombian-
French activist/politician
Ingrid Betancourt.
Further Information
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