It is essentially a game created by merging an ancient Middle Eastern strategy game with a European chessboard
Before there were squares, there were lines. The grandfather of Checkers is an ancient game called Alquerque (originally El-Quirkat in Arabic).
It was played in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia on a grid of lines and intersecting points.
Just like in modern Checkers, players had 12 pieces each, moved them across the board, and captured enemy pieces by jumping over them into an empty space.
Around the 12th century, somewhere in southern France or Spain, an unknown inventor had a brilliant idea: why not play Alquerque using the pieces and grid of a standard chessboard (Chess)?
- The pieces were placed only on the dark squares of the 8x8 grid.
- The game was originally called Fierges or Ferses (the medieval name for the chess Queen).
- Because the game was highly popular as a social pastime among noblewomen, it eventually became known across Europe as Le Jeu de Dames (The Game of Ladies)—which is why it is called Damas in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian today.
Spain played a massive role in cementing the game’s legacy.
In 1547, in Valencia, a Spaniard named Antonio de Torquemada published the very first book in the world about Damas.
Historians note that the rise of the game’s popularity closely matched the rise of the ultra-powerful Queen (Dama) in Spanish chess under Queen Isabella of Castile. It is during this era that the concept of a promoted piece becoming a powerful “Flying King” (or Dama) became a core mechanic in the Spanish variant.
Originally, capturing an opponent’s piece was optional—you could choose a normal move instead. Around 1535, French players introduced a rule that completely changed the tactical depth: capturing became mandatory.
If you failed to see a jump or refused to take it, your opponent could penalize you by “huffing” (blowing on your piece and removing it from the board). This forced-capture rule turned Damas into a deep mathematical game of sacrifices and traps.
As the game spread, different countries formalized their own localized rule sets:
British Draughts / American Checkers: Brought to North America by European settlers. It kept the traditional 8x8 board but made the Kings “slow” (they can only move one square backward or forward).
International Draughts were emerged in Paris around 1720. The board was expanded to a larger 10x10 grid with 20 pieces per side, introducing long-range “flying kings” and backward capturing for regular pieces. This remains the dominant competitive version in Europe and Africa today.