One biographer has written that his personality was a “terrible mixture of cruelty and ambition or greed, on one part, and on the other a great capacity and sense for imposing order and government on conquered lands,” a trait found in the conquistadors of the New World.

[1] However, the menceys, or Guanche kings, of La Palma surrendered in April 1493, except for Tanausu, who ruled the area known as Acero (Caldera de Taburiente).

At the First Battle of Acentejo, Fernández de Lugo, though wounded, had been able to escape with his life only by exchanging the red cape of an Adelantado for that of a common soldier.

Humiliated and cautious after the First Battle of Acentejo, which had been disastrous for the Spaniards, Fernández de Lugo had advanced gradually across the island, building and rebuilding forts.

The expedition, which Lugo had funded with the sale of all of his properties, had landed at Añazo, where he built two towers on the spot where he had constructed his first fort before his prior defeat.

[3]) Fernández de Lugo had more experienced troops under his command - these included 1,000 foot soldiers, veterans of the conquest of Granada, lent to him by the Duke of Medina Sidonia.

[1] The current Rightful Successor of the title "Adelantado of the Canary Islands Tenerife and La Palma, Captain General of the coast of Africa" is Felix Alberto Lugo III.

Though he preferred to live on Tenerife, Fernández de Lugo reserved the rich area of Los Sauces on La Palma, north of the island's capital, for himself.

His treatment of his defeated subjects was so harsh that Ferdinand and Isabella intervened, requesting that the governor of Gran Canaria, Sánchez de Valenzuela, free some of the Guanches who had been enslaved by his counterpart in Tenerife.

[1] On 21 July 1509 he had transferred his titles and rights of the African coast, acquired in 1499, to his son, Pedro Fernández de Lugo, who later participated in expeditions to the New World.