The cruel adventures of Pedro de Vera through Tirajana

A criminal with a street in the south of Gran Canaria who dedicated himself to enslaving tirajaneros? Where is the official chronicler of San Bartolomé de Tirajana? Pedro de Vera has a street in the south of the island where he was defeated; but in the end the story is told by those who win. This has to do with part of Pedro de Vera's cruel adventures through Tirajana. Pedro de Vera was in the south of the island accompanied by Gomera people who sold themselves to the Castilian troops. Although in the south of the island he made his way, the truth is that he did his own thing first. The Spanish armies receive a new defeat in Tirajana. In that fight, the exploits of the Canarian Bentaguaya, a guayre from Telde, stand out, who pretends to become a Christian and acts as a spy and then attacks.

The Canarians resisted on the Camino de la Plata and in the Barranco del Negro, that is, in the Caldera de Tirajana. From that scenario remains the Barranco de los Huesos, "an impressive complex of granaries and habitation caves excavated in the vertical walls of the nascent slope of the aforementioned mountain," remembers archaeologist Julio Cuenca. But the south of the island was missing. The famous chronicler of the XNUMXth century, Alonso de Palencia, adds an important and honorable detail to the history of the Canarian aborigines: that Tirajana was with Tirma the two sacred refuges of the aborigines, where they had built temples for their rites, ceremonies and sacrifices. . In the decisive stage of the conquest of the Island of Gran Canaria by the Castilians, Tirajana will play an important role throughout the war operations, according to the prestigious historian, Antonio Rumeu de Armas.

In August 1479, an important military expedition, led by Bishop Juan de Frías and sea captain Pedro Hernández Cabrón, suffered a serious disaster in the surroundings of La Caldera, due to the brave and indomitable Tirajaneros aborigines. The Castilians experienced heavy losses in dead and wounded; at the same time that the difficult retreat faced tragic circumstances. The battle took place on August 24, the feast of Saint Bartholomew, whose protection the defeated soldiers invoked. This is the reason for the cult and devotion to the apostle and the co-patronage over the Villa. Two years later, in the autumn of 1481, the captain-governor, Pedro de Vera, emboldened by the first military successes, organized a second operation of punishment and dispossession against the Tirajana Valley. But, with the same indomitable tenacity, the natives attacked him from the vanguard, rear and flanks, forcing him to retreat, but not without leaving the scene strewn with corpses.