The Entry of Maldonado. Battle at Ofra?

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Historic sites · Year: 1492

The Salmantine Francisco de Maldonado arrived in Gran Canaria at the end of 1491 as the successor in office to the governor and conqueror of this island, Pedro de Vera.

One of the main sources of income for governors and conquerors at that time in an archipelago poor in goods and lacking precious metals, were the fat profits caused by the sale of slaves and livestock captured in the indiscriminate raids or pillaging expeditions occasionally carried out in the territory of the islands that were still to be conquered or on the nearby African coasts. 

Governor Maldonado, as soon as he took office, promoted these pillaging operations both on the island of La Palma and in the war faction territories of Tenerife. 

Thus, in the spring of 1492, two years before the definitive conquest of Tenerife began, Maldonado himself took command of an expedition of almost 150 men who, embarked on two ships, set sail from the port of Las Isletas bound for the coasts of Añazo, which they reached in broad daylight. 

The Guanches, forewarned, waited for those who came for them to enter the territory. Maldonado, recklessly, advanced with his group into unfamiliar terrain. Immediately, all the violence of the Guanches who were lying in wait fell upon him and his men. The Europeans lost more than forty men almost immediately, and if it had not been for the timely arrival of the trailing invading troops, the disaster would have been greater.

The retreat of Maldonado and his men from the place of the skirmish, which some authors place in Ofra and others in the vicinity of La Cuesta, was chaotic, hastily re-embarking again towards Gran Canaria.

This was not the first serious confrontation between Europeans and Guanches; but it was the prelude to what was to happen two years later, when the troops of Fernández de Lugo, after a first failed attempt, arrived at the coasts of Añazo never to leave them again.

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