Norman nobleman who initiated the conquest of the Canary Islands in 1402. He conquered Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and El Hierro, establishing the foundations of the Canarian lordship.
Jean de Béthencourt was a Norman nobleman in the service of the Castilian crown when, in 1402, he set sail from La Rochelle with an expedition of some 280 men to conquer the Canary Islands. He was accompanied by his partner Gadifer de la Salle, with whom he would maintain tense relations throughout the enterprise. Béthencourt was the financier and political leader of the expedition; La Salle, the military commander and explorer.
After establishing a base in Lanzarote — whose population was reduced to serfdom — the expedition successively conquered Fuerteventura, El Hierro and La Gomera. Success was possible thanks to the numerical weakness of the local populations and the technological superiority of European iron weapons over the Guanche stone and bone tools. In 1404, Béthencourt founded Betancuria in Fuerteventura, the islands' first capital. He travelled to Castile to receive from King Henry III of Castile the title of King of the Canaries as a vassal of the crown.
In 1406 he returned to Normandy, leaving his nephew Maciot de Béthencourt in charge of the lordship. He never returned to the islands. His legacy was ambiguous: as a coloniser he established the administrative and religious framework that would structure the islands for decades, but his treatment of the aboriginal population was marked by enslavement and exploitation. He died in 1425 at his Norman fief of Grainville-la-Teinturière.