Editing Guanches (section)

=== Castilian conquest ===
{{Main|Conquest of the Canary Islands|Kingdom of the Canary Islands}}
[[File:AlonsoFernandezdeLugo2.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Alonso Fernández de Lugo]] presenting the captured Guanche kings of Tenerife to [[Ferdinand and Isabella]]]]
The Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands began in 1402, with the expedition of [[Jean de Béthencourt]] and [[Gadifer de la Salle]] to the island of Lanzarote. Gadifer invaded Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

The other five islands fought back. El Hierro and the ''[[Bimbache]]'' population were the next to fall, then La Gomera, Gran Canaria, La Palma and in 1496, Tenerife.

In the [[First Battle of Acentejo]] (31 May 1494), called ''La Matanza'' (the slaughter), Guanche ambushed the Castilians in a valley and killed many. Only one in five of the Castilians survived, including the leader, [[Alonso Fernandez de Lugo]].

Lugo later returned to the island with the alliance of the kings of the southern part of the island. He defeated the Guanches in the [[Battle of Aguere]]. The northern Menceyatos or provinces fell after the [[Second Battle of Acentejo]] with the defeat of the successor of [[Bencomo]], Bentor, Mencey of Taoro—what is now the Orotava Valley—in 1496.

Various scholars have used the term "genocide" to describe the conquest of the Canary Islands.<ref name="Adhikari"/><ref name="Conversi">{{cite journal |last1=Conversi |first1=Daniele |author1-link=Daniele Conversi |title=Cultural Homogenization, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide |journal=International Studies |date=2010 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.139 |isbn=978-0-19-084662-6 |url=https://oxfordre.com/internationalstudies/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-139 |access-date=13 February 2023}}</ref><ref name="Blench">{{cite journal |last1=Blench |first1=Roger |author1-link=Roger Blench |title=The peopling of the Canaries by the Berbers: new data and new hypotheses |journal=[[Études et Documents Berbères]] |date=2021 |volume=45-46 |pages=149–173}}</ref> [[Mohamed Adhikari]] argues that the Canary Islands were the scene of "Europe's first overseas settler colonial genocide," and that the mass killing and enslavement of natives, along with forced deportation, sexual violence and confiscation of land and children constituted an attempt to "destroy in whole" the Guanche people.<ref name="Adhikari"/> The tactics used in the Canary Islands in the 15th century served as a model for the Iberian colonisation of the Americas.<ref name="Adhikari"/><ref name="Conversi" />