Béthencourt also establishes a base on the island of La Gomera, but it will be many years before the island is truly conquered.

The natives of La Gomera, and of Gran Canaria, Tenerife, and La Palma, will resist the Castilian invaders for almost a century.

Ferdinand, the younger son of king John I of Castile and Eleanor of Aragon, had declined the Castilian crown upon the death, on December 25, 1406, of his elder brother, king Henry III of Castile.

Instead, Ferdinand becomes coregent, with Henry's widow Catherine of Lancaster, during the minority of his nephew John II of Castile.

In this capacity he is to distinguish himself by his prudent administration of domestic affairs.

The island of La Gomera had not been taken in battle but had been incorporated into the Peraza-Herrera fiefdom through an agreement between Hernán Peraza the Elder and some of the insular aboriginal groups who had accepted the rule of the Castilian.

Outrages committed by the rulers on the native Gomeros lead to a number of uprisings by the Guanches, the last of which, in 1488, causes the death of the island’s ruler, Hernán Peraza, whose widow, Beatriz de Bobadilla y Ossorio, has to seek the assistance of Pedro de Vera, conqueror of Gran Canaria, in order to snuff out the rebellion.

The subsequent repression causes the death of two hundred rebels and many others are sold into slavery in the Spanish markets.

Christopher Columbus, after stopping over in August in Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, had put in at Gomera for wine and water, intending to stay only four days.

Becoming romantically involved with the widowed Governor of the island, Beatriz de Bobadilla, he stays a month.

When he finally departs from San Sebastián de La Gomera on September 6, for what will turn out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean, she gives him cuttings of sugarcane, which will become the first to reach the New World.

Columbus's fleet, as in the first voyage, stops at the Canary Islands, from which it departs on October 13, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition.