Columbus’s Unrealistic Voyage to the East Indies, 1473-1493

The Yale world map of “Henricus Martellus Germanus” (Heinrich Hammer) probably from Florence 1490-1492. It is the most detailed “Dragon Tail” map by Martellus. It is the only map with a coordinate grid. It was found in 1960 in bad condition and has not yet been restored. It is now in the Beinecke Library of Yale University. There seems to be no better image available. Heinrich Hammer, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martellus-Yale.jpg

 Author’s notes

All quotes from Columbus’s daily log for his first voyage to the New World are attributed to Robert H. Fuson, trans., The Log of Christopher Columbus, International Marine Publishing Co., a division of Highmark Publishing Ltd. (1987). A date cited here is the date of the log entry rather than the page of the translation. Columbus was referring to the Julian calendar, the calendar used by Western Europe at that time. The Gregorian calendar came into effect in the Catholic world in October 1582. The Gregorian calendar went into effect in the Protestant world, including the countries in the British Empire and its American colonies, in 1752, and in Sweden in 1753.

Columbus begins his post for the day at sundown the night before. Therefore, a post for February 4th begins at sundown on February 3rd and continues until sundown on February 4th. Also, Columbus’s reference to miles is a reference to nautical miles. A nautical mile is 1.105 a statute (land) mile.

Extensive passages are included because they provide insight into Columbus’s personality and his objectives as well as a travelog for what his crewmembers were experiencing sailing in uncharted waters a long, long way from home. Some sources describe Columbus as an excellent navigator but an inept administrator. But was he more than that?

With a little imagination, these extensive passages transport us back over five hundred years. If you were a Lucayan in the Bahamas or a Taíno in the Caribbean, imagine seeing three wooden sailing ships invading the tranquility of your life.

Columbus’s voyage to the New World was more than sailing, meeting people he had never seen before, enjoying the scenery, reporting back to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, and hearing the church bells ring throughout the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.

Envision the year 1492. The Kingdom of Portugal was making progress toward finding a sea route around the southern tip of Africa. When successful, Portugal would tap the riches of the Far East without having to deal with the trans-Saharan traders. Six years prior to 1492, Henry Tudor of Wales had ended the War of the Roses by vanquishing King Richard III on the battlefield to become Henry VII, the first Tudor king of England and Lord of Ireland. England would not have a standing navy until late in his son, Henry VIII’s, reign. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand had just completed the Reconquista ending Moorish rule on the Iberian Peninsula and they had issued The Alhambra Decree driving the remaining Jews out of the lands held by the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. Pope Alexander VI would soon officially bestow upon them the title the Catholic Monarchs. Meanwhile, King Ferdinand was busy marrying-off his children to other royal houses in Europe. Charles VIII of France had married Anne of Brittany although she was married by proxy to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and now Charles was preparing to invade the Kingdom of Naples in Italy. Further east, most of the Low Countries were still under the rule of the House of Burgundy and were not yet a part of the Spanish Habsburg Empire. Finally a young Martin Luther of Eisleben, Germany, had recently celebrated his eighth birthday and John Calvin was yet to be born.

One final word before turning to Columbus’s great adventure. He was one of the greatest dead reckoning navigators of his day. Dead reckoning required a sense of speed, distance and time. One of his primary tools, as referenced in his log, was a 32-point compass. The following is a quick review.

●     The four cardinal directions are each separated by 90 degrees and are named in clockwise order, beginning with north:

north, south, east and west. N, S, E, W.

●     The four intercardinal directions are located halfway between two cardinal directions: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

NE, SE, SW, NW.

The four cardinal directions and the four intercardinal directions form the 8-wind compass rose.

●     The 8 half-wind direction points are located by bisecting the angles between the 8 wind directions:

north-northeast, east-northeast, east-southeast, south-southeast, south-southwest, west-southwest, west-northwest, and north-northwest.

NNE, ENE, ESE, SSE, SSW, WSW, WNW, NNW.

Adding 8 half-wind directions to the 8-wind directions produces a 16-wind compass rose.

●     The 16 quarter-wind direction points are located by bisecting the angles between the 16-wind directions:

First quadrant: north by east, northeast by north, northeast by east, and east by north. NbE, NEbN, NEbE, EbN.

Second quadrant: east by south, southeast by east, southeast by south, and south by east. EbS, SEbE, SEbS, SbE.

Third quadrant: south by west, southwest by south, southwest by west, and west by south. SbW, SWbS, SWbW, WbS.

Fourth quadrant: west by north, northwest by west, northwest by north, and north by west. WbN, NWbW, NWbN, NbW.

Adding the16 quarter-wind directions to the 16-wind directions produces a 32-wind compass rose.

Each compass point is a 11¼ degree angle from the next.

Wikipedia, Points of the compass, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Points_of_the_compass Last visited 6/28/2024.

Christopher Columbus’s Unrealistic Voyage to the East Indies

Our story begins when Western Europe passed from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration (Age of Discovery) in the fifteenth century. Under the leadership of Prince Henry the navigator, the Kingdom of Portugal, a seafaring nation located on the southwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, was able to establish the first school of navigation and that school produced the explorers who would use the recent developments in navigation, cartography and maritime technology including the caravel, a vessel with a lateen sail that could sail into the wind, to explore west into the Atlantic Ocean and south down the coast of West Africa.

In 1415, Portugal conquered the city of Ceuta on the North African side of the Strait of Gibraltar. No longer could the Marinid sultanate of Morocco use Ceuta to control access between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Portugal was now able to claim the Madeira Islands west of Morocco in 1419 and the Azores west of Portugal in about 1427.

In 1451, Christopher Columbus, who became known as Cristoffa Corombo (Genoese), Cristoforo Colombo (Italian), Cristofor Colom (Catalan), Cristóbal Colón (Spanish) and Cristóvão Colombo (Portuguese), was born in the Republic of Genoa. Two years after his birth, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire and the Silk Road was closed to Western Europe. The kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula now had to rely on the monopoly of the trans-Saharan gold and slave traders or to search for alternative routes to satisfy their appetite for spices, silk, precious metals, and all the other riches of the Far East.

At twenty-two, Columbus began his apprenticeship as a business agent for the wealthy Spinola, Centurione and DiNegro families of Genoa. His business travels led him to the Genoese trading community in Portugal.

On a visit to the Madeira Islands to buy sugar for the Centurione family, Columbus met and married Felipa Moniz Perestrelo, the daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrelo, a Portuguese knight of Santiago. Perestrelo was an administrator of the nearby island of Porto Santo. This marriage gave Columbus access to Portuguese nobility.

As a business agent, Columbus sailed extensively. His voyages included sailing down the coast of West Africa, a coastline being explored by Portuguese navigators.

Meanwhile, Columbus's younger brother, Bartholomew, had moved to Portugal and had become a mapmaker. Lisbon was the principal European center of cartography.

Seeking Sponsorship for a Voyage West to the Far East

Columbus and his brother continued to refine Columbus’s proposal that the Far East could be reached by sailing west. Finally, Columbus presented his proposal to King John II of Portugal. The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his advisors but they concluded that Columbus had substantially miscalculated the circumference of the earth and therefore the voyage was impossible. Adding to this was the fact that the proposal to sail west was overshadowed by the Portuguese successes in sailing south. King John rejected Columbus's proposal.

By 1486, Columbus, now a widower with a young son, Diego, realized that any further effort to convince King John and his advisors would be in vain. Rather than be deterred, Columbus and Diego left Portugal for the Kingdom of Castile to seek patronage from Queen Isabella of Castile and her husband, King Ferdinand of Aragon. They ruled their respective kingdoms jointly.

In 1487, Columbus traveled to Córdoba in Andalusia, in the southernmost Castilian region in the Iberian Peninsula. Andalusia’s southern coast borders on both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Córdoba was an occasional venue for Queen Isabella’s court. While in Córdoba, Columbus took a mistress, Beatriz Enríqiez de Arama, a twenty-two year old orphan who was living with her uncle, Rodrigo Enríqiez de Arama. Beatriaz had previously lived with her grandmother who had the foresight to provide her with a good education so she could read and write.

In August 1488, Beatriz had a son, Ferdinand, by Columbus. Columbus, who was preoccupied with his plan to sail west to the Far East, spent little time, if any, with Beatriz and Ferdinand.

Later that year, Columbus sent his older son, Diego, to live with Beatriz and her family in Córdoba.

In 1489, Columbus sought support for his proposal at the Royal Court of Castile in Valladolid, located roughly in the center of the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula. Pedro Gonzáles, cardinal de Mendoza, became interested in promoting Columbus's plan. Mendozas had supported Isabella’s right to succeed her half-brother, Henry IV, as the monarch of Castile. Mendoza became the cardinal-archbishop of Toledo and as such the primate of Spain. He presided over Isabella’s Royal Council and he used his influence to advocate on behalf of Columbus to the queen.

Columbus made contact with Hernando de Talavera, Queen Isabella’s confessor and a member of her Royal Council. Talavera facilitated introducing Columbus to the queen and that resulted in Isabella instructing Talavera to establish a commission to investigate the feasibility of Columbus's proposal.

Although Isabella and Ferdinand were interested, they were fighting the Moors in Granada to complete the Reconquista and were financially stretched thin. They understood that the Portuguese were seeking a sea route to India by sailing south down the west coast of Africa. Bartolomeu Dias had just sailed to the Cape of Good Hope, almost at the south tip of Africa. Had he continued to sail another seventy-eight nautical miles (ninety statute miles) to the ESE, he would have arrived at Cape Agulhas, the dividing point between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. It would not be long before the Portuguese would sail around Africa and that would open its sea route to the riches of India and East Indies.

To entice Columbus to stay in Castile, Isabella gave him an allowance of 14,000 maravedis for the year. In 2024, a maravedis would be worth about fifteen to twenty cents.

A little later, she sent Columbus another 10,000 maravedis and still later that year she and Ferdinand gave Columbus a letter ordering all cities and towns within her kingdom to provide Columbus with food and lodging at no cost.

By this time, Columbus had taken up residence at La Rádibda Friary, a Franciscan friary near the southern Castilian town of Palos in the province of Huelva in Andalusia.

While at the friary, Columbus shared his proposal for sailing west to the Far East with the friars. Two showed an interest: Fray Juan Pérez and Fray Antonio de Marchena.

In late 1491, Fray Pérez persuaded Columbus not to leave Castile without consulting Queen Isabella again. Pérez, in fact, traveled to Santa Fe for a personal interview with Isabella on Columbus's behalf. Santa Fe was Isabella and Ferdinand’s military encampment that they built to support their siege of Granada, also in Andalusia.

With the Reconquista drawing to a close, Isabella and Ferdinand sent Columbus 20,000 maravedis to buy new clothes and ordered him to return to her court.

Columbus, still determined to seek sponsorship, set off to present his request to King Charles VIII of France. Columbus had barely left the friary for France when Queen Isabella sent her guards to find him and to order him to wait at the Santa Fe encampment.

Within two weeks after receiving the keys to the fallen Kingdom of Granada, Isabella and Ferdinand met with Columbus but he still could not convince her to sponsor his expedition. As Columbus was leaving the meeting, he confided in Luis de Santángel, a third-generation converso. A converso was a Jew who had been forced to convert to Catholicism. Santángel worked as escribano de ración to Ferdinand and Isabella which left him in charge of the royal finances. Santángel’s family was one of the richest in Ferdinand’s kingdom. Columbus told Santángel that his brother was on his way to England to petition King Henry VII. Santángel knew that Columbus had sought financing from Portugal. Santángel convinced Isabella that if Columbus would succeed in finding a new sea-route to the Far East, her Kingdom of Castile would be well rewarded and it would be on its way to being an European power. Furthermore, Santángel told Isabella that he would arrange for the majority of the Crown’s funding to be paid by himself and a group of his friends.

Finally, in April, several months after Isabella and Ferdinand completed the Reconquista and after they had issued the Alhambra Decree driving the remaining Jews out of their kingdoms, Juan Cabrero, the High Chamberlain and counselor to his longtime friend, King Ferdinand, made a final plea that led to the queen’s reconsideration. Queen Isabella relented and agreed to sponsor Columbus's voyage. By this time, Luis de Santángel had arranged the funding so that her kingdom’s treasury would not be adversely affected.

On April 17th, a document entitled The Capitulations of Santa Fe was signed in Santa Fe, Granada, in which Isabella and Ferdinand promised Columbus the title of admiral of the Ocean Sea, the appointment as viceroy and governor of the newly claimed and colonized land, and, if he was successful, ten-percent of all revenues from the new lands in perpetuity.

On May 12th, Columbus left Granada for Palos, later renamed Palos de la Frontera, a tiny fishing and seafaring town on the Rio Tinto in the southwestern province of Huelva in Andalusia.

Although Queen Isabella sponsored Columbus's voyage, Castile did not provide all of the financing. It provided 1,000,000 maravedis and Columbus provided another 167,542.

This did not cover the ships. On May 23rd, Isabella and Ferdinand ordered the town of Palos to deliver two caravels to Columbus and to provide him with the crew to travel with him on his voyage. The town was also required to pay all the costs for equipping these vessels and to pay four-months wages to all who sailed with Columbus.

Sailing the Uncharted Atlantic Ocean

The town of Palos ignored the Crown’s order but Fray Antonio de Marchena from La Rádibda Friary encouraged the Pinzón family, one of the leading families in Palos, to support Columbus's expedition. The brothers, Martin Alonso, Francisco Martin and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, were shipbuilders, navigators and explorers.

French legend claimed that Martin Alonso Pinzón and the Frenchman, Jean Cousin, had sailed to the New World four years before Columbus. They sailed from Dieppe in Normandy, France, with Pinzón as captain and Cousin as navigator. The story goes that they were heading down the coast of West Africa when they were blown off course and landed in Brazil near the mouth of the Amazon River. After returning to Dieppe, Pinzón had a dispute with Cousin and Pinzón returned to Castile. Although the voyage was subsequently asserted in French courts, their voyage was not supported by written documentation.

Martin Alonso Pinzón took on the task of finding two caravels and crew. He discharged the two ships Columbus had commissioned along with the crew that Columbus had assembled. He then convinced Cristóbal Quintero of Palos, the owner of the Pinta (the Painted One, the Look, the Spotted One), to use his caravel. Martin Alonso Pinzón would be its captain: Cristóbal Quintero would sail as crew. Martin Alonso then arranged for a crew to sail the Pinta.

The Pinta was an 80-ton, three-masted, square-rigged caravel. It carried a crew of about 26, with a length of 70 feet, a beam of 22 feet, and a draft of just over 7 feet. The crew included:

Martin Alonso Pinzón from Palos, the captain,

Francisco Martin Pinzón, the captain’s cousin, the master, Cristóbal Garcia Sarmiento, a pilot, and

Cristóbal Quintero from Palos, the owner.

Most of the remainder of the crew were experienced seamen from the Palos area.

The Crown of Castile had ordered the neighboring seafaring town of Moguer to provide three ships. Martin Alonso Pinzón encouraged the Niño brothers of Moguer to participate in the expedition. The Niño brothers, Pedro Alonso, Francisco and Juan, and Pedro’s son, Bartolomé, were a family of Afro-Spanish shipbuilders, shipowners, and seamen. The family were moriscos, Muslims who had been forced to convert to Catholicism.

Juan Niño provided the second ship, the Santa Clara, which Columbus renamed the Niña (the Girl). The Niña was a 40-ton, four-masted, lateen-rigged caravel. It carried a crew of about 24, with a length of 67 feet, a beam of 21 feet, and a draft of just under 7 feet. Its crew included:

Vincente Yáñez Pinzón from Palos, the captain, Juan Niño from Moguer, the owner and the master, Pedro Alonso Niño from Moguer, a pilot,

Bartolomé Roldán from Palos, an apprentice pilot, and Bartolomé Garcia from Palos, the boatswain.

The remainder of the crew were experienced seamen from the Moguer-Palos-Huelve area.

  Although Columbus had planned the voyage, the crews of the Pinta and the Niña were loyal to Martin Alonso Pinzón and his brother, Vincante.

Columbus chartered the third ship, the Gallega, from Juan de la Cosa of Santoña, a town on the northern coast of Castile. Columbus renamed the ship the Santa María. Most of de la Cosa’s crew members stayed with de la Cosa and his ship for this voyage. Columbus chose the Santa María as his flagship. It was a three-masted medium-sized, square-rigged Carrack, a run-of-the-mill cargo vessel. It was slow, clumsy and according to Columbus, not very well suited for this voyage. It carried a crew of about 40, with a length of 77.4 feet, a beam of 26 feet, and a draft of 6.9 feet.

The Crown had sent several officials to accompany Columbus:

Pedro Gutiérrez, representative of the king’s household,

Rodrigo de Escobedo, the secretary of the fleet, and

Rodrigo Sánchez of Segovia, the comptroller of the fleet.

 Most of the seamen of the Santa María were not from Palos, Moguer or Huelva.

The crews of the Pinta and the Niña considered the crew of the Santa María “northerners” and certainly outsiders. The crew of the Santa María included:

Columbus, from Genoa and the captain-general,

Juan de la Cosa from Santoña, the master and the owner of the vessel, Pedro Alonso Niño from Moguer, a pilot,

Diego de Arana from Córdoba, master-art-arms of the fleet, Diego de Salcedo, Columbus's servant,

Luis de Torres, an interpreter,

Bernardino de Taia from Ledesma, a lawyer, Master Alonso from Moguer, a physician, and Juan Sánchez from Córdoba, another physician.

Onboard the Santa María were also a carpenter, a cooper, a goldsmith, a joiner, a painter, a silversmith and a tailor.

In addition, the Crown promised to grant amnesty to any criminal who volunteered for the voyage. Four volunteered and they sailed on the Santa María.

Each ship carried a batel, a small boat with a lateen sail.

The Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María were built for coastal sailing and commerce and not for long ocean voyages. No one knew how they would hold up during a long ocean voyage with no access to a port for safety or repair. In addition, food and fresh water could only last for three weeks, the pounding of the waves could be unforgiving, and the winds would be unpredictable.

     To make matters worse, Columbus was leaving in the middle of the hurricane season, June 1st through November 30th. Hurricanes form over the ocean off the West African coast and move westward propelled by the easterly winds.

Columbus had planned to sail the Canary Current System 600 nautical miles south to the Canary Islands and then the easterlies west across the Atlantic to Japan (Cipangu). He estimated they would sail 2,400 nautical miles (2,800 statute miles) between the Canary Islands and Japan. Had he calculated correctly, they would have sailed 10,600 nautical miles (12,200 statute miles).

Columbus’s fleet actually sailed 3,080 nautical miles to the Bahamas (3,540 statute miles).

  Columbus's voyage seemed folly to the experienced seamen around Palos, Moguer and Huelva. The members of the crew, although volunteers, were still apprehensive and put little faith in their foreign leader.

  Columbus, however, was one of the greatest dead reckoning navigators of his day. Dead reckoning required a sense of speed, distance, direction and time. He could accurately calculate the current position of his moving ship by using a previously determined position and then by incorporating estimates of average speed, distance, direction (heading) and elapsed time. His tools were a wood block and rope to determine speed, a compass to determine heading, and a sand-glass to measure time in half-hour increments. He carried along an astrolabe and a quadrant to determine the ship’s latitude (distance from the equator) but seldom used them because of the roll of his ship.

On August 3, 1492, one hundred and twenty-eight years before a group of disgruntled English Protestants set foot on Plymouth Rock in what is now Massachusetts, Christopher Columbus and his three vessel fleet, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, sailed from Palos (37º13’42”N 6º53’40”W). They sailed south following the current to the Canary Islands where they intended to restock their provision at the Castilian-held island of La Gomera (28º06’54”N 17º13’30”W).

On the third day after leaving Palos, the rudder of the Pinta slipped from its socket. Martin Alonso Pinzón, the Pinta’s captain, made a temporary repair with some ropes and that allowed the fleet to continue to sail. The next day, the ropes broke requiring another temporary repair.

Two days later, the Pinta reached the Castilian-held Grand Canary Island. Columbus ordered Pinzón to remain with the Pinta while its rudder was repaired or replaced. Columbus and the Santa María and the Niña sailed to La Gomera to look for another ship. Unable to find one and after waiting for the Pinta, Columbus and his two ships returned to Grand Canary Island where another rudder was built. Colunbus also had the Niña recaulked since it was leaking badly. He also had its sails reconfigured from lateen to square-rigged to conform to the two other ships. Columbus believed that a square-rigged vessel would sail better on the ocean voyage.

On Friday, August 31st, the three ships sailed for La Gomera where they would be restocked with biscuits, salted fish, fruit, dried meat, honey, molasses, salt, and wine for the long voyage across the Atlantic.

Columbus had calculated the crossing from La Gomera would take about twenty-one days. As a precaution, he stocked his ships for twenty-eight days. The voyage lasted thirty-three days.

     Shortly before noon on September 6th, Columbus and his fleet left the harbor at La Gomera and set sail westerly toward the island of El Hierro (27º45’N 18º00’W), the second smallest island in the Canary archipelago and the island furthest south and west.

The wind was light and that gave Columbus more time to ponder what he had heard earlier that morning from the captain of a caravel. The captain had sailed from Hierro, the last island that Columbus would pass before his long ocean voyage, and as he left Hierro, he had seen a squadron of three Portuguese caravels. The rumor was that they were on orders from King John of Portugal to prevent Columbus from leaving the Canaries. Apparently the king was angry that Columbus had left Portugal to sail for Castile.

he next day, the wind was calm so Columbus made little progress sailing toward Hierro. He could only become more anxious as time passed. About 3 o’clock in the morning on September 8th, the wind began to blow from the NE and Columbus ordered his pilots to set their course due west to Japan. Because he had sailed with the Portuguese down the coast of West Africa, Columbus knew that this course would place his fleet near the center of the prevailing tropical easterly winds (later called the trade winds) that flowed from east to west across the North Atlantic Ocean and which formed a belt from the equator to 30⁰ latitude north.

  On September 9th, Columbus lost sight of Hierro, the last land between the Old World and the Far East. The Portuguese fleet had failed to appear. Columbus now had the open sea before him.

  For five days, Columbus’s fleet sailed day and night averaging over 110 nautical miles a day. Then on the 14th, the crew was surprised to see a tern. They knew that birds never flew more than seventy-five miles from land and the fleet was now over 600 nautical miles from land. Two days later, on the 16th, a yellowish-green weed began to appear in the ocean. The following day, the amount of weed increased, a live crab was found among the weeds and a school of porpoises was sighted.

     On the 18th, Columbus began to record his problems with Martin Alonso Pinzón. Pinzón wanted to dictate the course. Columbus refused and kept steadfast to his westerly course.

  The crew was agitated. They grumbled that they would never return home.

  On September 19th, the anomalies continued. Columbus saw another bird and again noted in his log that birds usually did not fly more than sixty miles from land. These birds sleep at night and go to sea in the morning to search for food.

  He thought they might be close to land so he ordered a sounding. Twenty fathoms of line, a fathom being six feet, failed to locate the ocean floor.

Unbeknownst to Columbus, his fleet had entered the Sargasso Sea, a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents: on the south, the North Atlantic Equatorial Current (Tropical Easterlies or Trade Winds) (0-30ºN) on the west, the Gulf Stream (76ºW), on the north, the North Atlantic Current (Prevailing Westerlies) (30-60ºN) and on the east, the Canary Current (43ºW). These four currents form a clockwise-circulating system known as the North Atlantic Gyre. The exact borders of the Sargasso Sea change constantly due to seasonal patterns of these currents.

  This clockwise-circulating system, 600 nautical miles wide and 1,750 nautical miles long, captures floating sargassum, a type of macroalgae commonly called seaweed. The macroalgae floating in the Sargasso Sea is unique in that it is holopelagic, that is, it not only floats freely around the ocean but it reproduces vegetatively on the ocean surface rather than on the ocean floor. Sargassum has three parts: a holdfast (root like structure), a stipe (a stalk that supports another structure), and a frond (a large, divided dark green or brown leaf). Sargassum stalks intertwine forming floating mats and create their own ecosystem that produces oxygen.

  The sargassum mats provide turtle hatchlings with food and shelter. The sargassum provides a habitat for shrimp, crab, eel and fish such as white marlin, porbeagle shark, and dolphinfish. Humpback whales, tuna, and birds use the sargassum as they migrate annually.

     On September 21st, Columbus noted weeds coming from the west in addition to a tern and a whale. He noted whales always stay near the coast. He did not realize that humpback whales migrate beneath the sargassum mat.

On September 27th, his crew spotted a number of dorados and killed one. Dorados are dolphinfish when in the Atlantic and mahi-mahi when in the Pacific.

     On October 6th, Martin Alonso Pinzón again wanted to change course. Columbus again refused and maintained his westerly course. The next day, Columbus made the following entry in his log concerning a false sighting of land.

 . . . [T]is morning at sunrise . . . the Niña, which is a better sailer, ran ahead and fired a cannon and ran up a flag on her mast to indicate that land had been sighted. Joy turned to dismay as the day progressed, for by evening we had found no land and had to face the reality that it was only an illusion. God did offer us, however, a small token of comfort: many large flocks of birds flew over, coming from the north and flying to the SW. They were more varied in kind than any we had seen before and they were land birds, either going to sleep ashore or fleeing the winter in the lands whence they came. I knew that most of the islands discovered by the Portuguese have been found because of birds. For these reasons I have decided to alter course and turn the prow to the WSW. This I did an hour before sunset, and I shall proceed on this course for two days. I added another 15 miles before darkness, making a total of 84 miles by night and by day.

  On the 22nd, Columbus noted that he was having serious problems with the crew. They were grumbling that they had sailed for so long in uncharted waters that they would never return home. They had been sailing west for a few days shy of seven weeks on what they had been led to believe would be three weeks.

Four days later, Thursday, October 11th, Columbus saw a green reed. That he took was a good sign of land ahead. Then at 2 a.m. on Friday, October 12th, the Pinta fired a cannon, the prearranged signal that land was sighted. Rodrigo de Triana from Lipe was the first to sight land.

Columbus decided to haul in all but the mainsail and lay-to until daylight. He calculated that land was about six nautical miles to the west.

Exploring the New World: the Bahamas, Cuba and Hispaniola

A New and Accurate Chart of the West Indies with the Adjacent Coasts of North and South America, by Emanuel Bowen and Jessica Lee, 1720. Reproduced from an original in the collection of the Geography & Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g4390.ct002233

Columbus reported in his log of Friday, October 12th, that he made shore at an island he named San Salvador (24⁰06’N 74⁰29’W).

At dawn we saw naked people, and I went ashore in the ship’s boat, armed, followed by Martin Alonso Pinzón, captain of the Pinta, and his brother, Vincent Yáñez Pinzón, captain of the Niña. I unfurled the royal banner and the captains brought the flags which displayed a large green cross with the letter F and Y at the left and right side of the cross. Over each letter was the appropriate crown of that Sovereign. These flags were carried as a standard on all of the ships. After a prayer of thanksgiving, I order the captains of the Pinta and the Niña, together with Rodrigo de Escobedo (secretary of the fleet) and Rodrigo Sánchez of Segovia (comptroller of the fleet), to bear faith and witness that I was taking possession of this land for the King and Queen. I made all the necessary declarations and had these testimonies carefully written down by the secretary. In addition to those named above, the entire company of the fleet bore witness to this act. To this island I give the name San Salvador, in honor of our Blessed Lord. 

No sooner had we concluded the formalities of taking possession of the island than people began to come to the beach, all as naked as their mothers bore them, and the women also, although I did not see more than one very young girl. All those that I saw were young people, none of whom was over 30 years old. They are very well-built people, with handsome bodies and very fine faces, though their appearance is marred somewhat by very broad heads and foreheads, more so than I have ever seen in any other race. Their eyes are large and very pretty, and their skin is the color of Canary Islanders or of sunburned peasants, not at all black, as would be expected because we are on an east-west line with Hierro in the Canaries. These are tall people and their legs, with not exceptions, are quite straight, and none of them has a paunch. They are, in fact, well proportioned. Their hair is not kinky, but straight, and coarse like horsehair. They wear it short over the eyebrows, but they have a long hank in the back that they never cut. Many of the natives paint their faces; others paint their whole bodies; some, only the eyes or nose. Some are painted black, some white, some red; others are of different colors.

 The people here called this island Guanahaní in their language, and their speech is very fluent, although I do not understand any of it. They are friendly and well-dispositioned people who bare no arms except for small spears, and they have no iron. I showed one my sword, and through ignorance he grabbed it by the blade and cut himself. Their spears are made of wood, to which they attach a fish tooth at one end, or some other sharp thing.

I want the natives to develop a friendly attitude toward us because I know that they are a people who can be made free and converted to our Holy Faith more by love than by force. I therefore gave red caps to some and glass beads to others. They hung the beads around their necks, along with some other things of slight value that I gave them. And they took great pleasure in this and became so friendly that it was a marvel. They traded and gave everything they had with good will, but it seems to me that they have very little and are poor in everything. I warned my men to take nothing from these people without giving something in exchange. 

This afternoon the people of San Salvador came swimming to our ships and in boats made from one log. They brought us parrots, balls of cotton thread, spears, and many other things, including a kind of dry leaf that they hold in great esteem. To these items we swapped them little glass beads and hawks’ bells.

 Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland came here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases Our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language.

  Columbus’s exact landing place is disputed. In 1986, a National Geographic Society expedition determined that Columbus landed at Samana Cay rather than at the island Columbus named San Salvador Island sixty-five miles away. (Joseph Judge, “Our Search for the True Columbus Landfall,” National Geographic Magazine, vol. 170, no. 5, 566 (1986)).

The day after setting foot on land, Columbus was already seeking gold. His log of Saturday, October 13th reads:

I . . . have tried very hard to find out if there is any gold here. I have seen a few natives who wear a little piece of gold hanging from a hole made in the nose. By signs, if I interpret them correctly, I have learned that by going to the south, or rounding the island to the south, I can find a king who possesses a lot of gold and has great containers of it. I have tried to find some natives who will take me to this great king, but none seems inclined to make the journey.

  Gold! Having seen the natives wearing small pieces of gold, Columbus was now obsessed with finding the source of this gold. Two thoughts filled his daily log: his quest for gold and his determination that the indigenous population be converted to Christianity. References to spices were few and far between.

Columbus and his fleet stayed at the island they called. San Salvador for a few days and then set sail to look for the king who he was told possessed great gold. He saw so many islands and could not decide where to go first. All of the islands Columbus saw were flat and most uninhabited.

Ultimately, he sailed to a few of the larger surrounding islands that he named: Santa María de la Conception (probably Crooked Islands) where the people wore gold bracelets on their arms and legs but where Columbus found no gold and he quickly left, Fernandina (Long Island) where there was no gold, and Isabela (Fortune Island) where a few people had pieced of gold hanging from their noses but he found no extensive gold deposits.

Columbus visited only a fraction of the islands in the Bahamas, an archipelago of nearly 700 coral islands and 2,400 cays (small, low-elevation, sandy islands on the surface of coral reefs) that covered an area of 5,358 square miles. Even today, only about 30 of the islands are inhabited. The people he met were Lucayans, the original settlers of the Bahamas. They were a branch of the Taínos of the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico).

While in the Bahamas, Columbus’s crew discovered that the Lucayans were sleeping in what they called hamacas, a woven mat suspended between two posts, trees, or beams so a person could sleep above the ground. Columbus’s crew brought the concept of a hammock back to their ships so they no longer needed to sleep on the deck itself and the hammock spread throughout the European continent.

By Tuesday, October 23rd, Columbus had decided there was no gold in the Bahamas so he prepared to sail south to what would be Cuba, thinking it was Japan. His departure was delayed by the lack of wind.

At midnight on October 24th, he weighed anchor from the Island of Isabela and sailed all night in the rain. They accomplished very little — no more than six nautical miles for the night.

At three in the afternoon, Thursday, October 25th, they saw about seven or eight islands. They were still in the Bahamas.

Finally, at sunrise on Sunday, October 27th, they hauled up their anchors and departed for Cuba. Before sunset, they approached the coast of Cuba and Columbus named it Juana after Isabella and Ferdinand’s son, Prince Juan.

Cuba (21⁰30’N 80⁰00’W) is located where the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean converge and is the largest of the four islands of the Greater Antilles. The island is 777 miles long and 19 to 119 miles wide. Cuba is surrounded by 4,195 smaller islands, including Isla de la Juventud, the largest, and a great number of cays, usually a sand island located on the surface of a coral reef.

  Columbus waited until the following day, Sunday, October 28th, to approach the coast in his small boat.

 At sunrise I approached the coast and entered a very beautiful river, which was free from dangerous shoals and other obstructions. The water all along this coast is very deep and clear right to the shore. . . .

I have never seen anything so beautiful. The country around the river is full of trees, beautiful and green and different from ours, each with flowers and its own kind of fruit. There are many birds of all sizes that sing very sweetly, and there are many palms different from those in Guinea or Spain.

  On Monday, October 29th, around 6 p.m., he came to a river that he named Río de Mares.

I sent my men in the small boats to a village to talk with the Indians, included in the party one of the Indians from Guanahaní. I did this because the Indians from Guanahaní already understand these other Indians somewhat, and this would show the people that the Indians with me were pleased with us Christians. Even so, all the men, women, and children fled, abandoning their houses and everything they had. I ordered that nothing left behind be touched.

 These houses are more beautiful than any I have seen, and I believe that the nearer I approach the mainland the better they become. They are constructed like pavilions, very large, and look like royal tents in a campsite without streets. One is here and another, there. Inside they are very well swept and clean, and the furnishings are arranged in good order. All are built of very beautiful palm branches.

 We found many statues of women and many head-shaped masks, all very well made. It is not known whether the people have them because of their beauty or whether they worship them. There are barkless dogs and in the houses small, wild birds that have been tamed. There are wonderful collections of nets, fish hooks, and other fishing equipment.

  On Sunday, November 4th, Columbus commented on the crops of the Taínos, the indigenous people who were living around Puerto de Mares. They had migrated from the center of the Amazon basin and were now the most numerous people in the Caribbean.

 These people are very meek and shy: naked, as I have said, without weapons and without government. These lands are very fertile. They are full of niames (common sweet potatoes), which are like carrots and taste like chestnuts. They have beans very different from ours, and a great deal of cotton, which they do not sow and which grow in the mountains in the size of large trees. I believe that they can gather it at any time, for I saw pods already open and others just opening, and flowers all on one tree and a thousand other kinds of fruit which I cannot describe, but which should all be very profitable.

By Monday, November 5th, Columbus’s fleet had been in tropical waters for over three months. It was time to careen his wooden ships. Everything on-board the Niña was transferred to the Pinta or the Santa María. The Niña was moved to shore and when the tide went out, it was rolled on its side, its hull was cleaned of barnacles and other sea life, any rotted planks were replaced and the joints between planks were recaulked to prevent leaking. Although a number of trees had been tapped, they did not produce sufficient resin to properly caulk the ships.Tapping the trees was not in season. When the tide was high, the Niña was refloated, restocked and the process repeated for the Pinta and the Santa María.

Three days later, Thursday, November 8th, Columbus’s fleet was still not ready and the winds were still contrary to the direction that he intended to sail. For the next three days, the ships were ready but “the winds remained contrary.” On Sunday, November 11th, Columbus was determined to sail on the next day.

It appears to me that it would be well to take some of these people dwelling by this river to the Sovereigns, in order that they might learn our language and we might learn what there is in this country. Upon return they may speak the language of the Christians and take our customs and Faith to their people. I see and know that these people have no religion whatsoever, nor are they idolaters, but rather, they are very meek and know no evil. They do not kill or capture others and are without weapons. They are so timid that a hundred of them flee from one of us even if we are merely teasing. They are very trusting; they believe that there is a God in Heaven, and they firmly believe that we come from Heaven. They learn very quickly any prayer we tell them to say, and they make the sign of the cross. Therefore, Your Highnesses must resolve to make them Christians. I believe that if this effort commences, in a short time a multitude of peoples will be converted to our Holy Faith, and Spain will acquire great domains and riches and all of their villages. Beyond doubt there is a very great amount of gold in this country. These Indians I am bringing say, not without cause, that there are places in these islands where they dig gold and wear it around the neck, in the ears, and on the arms and the legs — and these are very heavy bracelets. Also, there are precious stones and pearls, and an infinite quantity of spices.

  At dawn the next day, Monday, November 12th, Columbus set sail leaving the harbor and the Río de Mares. For a number of days, he and his fleet followed the coast ESE. At times, they used their small boats to explore.

  On Wednesday, November 21st, Martin Alonso Pinzón and his ship, the Pinta, broke from the fleet and sailed away without Columbus’s “will or command.” Columbus’s fleet, now down to two ships, continued to sail along the coast.

  On Saturday, November 24th, Columbus returned to the harbor where he had been a week before. The next day, he had a lateen yard and a mizzen mast cut for the Niña. As the crew explored the shore, they saw stones that looked like they contained silver or gold.

  On Monday, November 26th, they weighed anchor and sailed SE along the coast until they came to a cape he named Cabo del Pico.

. . . I reached the cape late because the wind died down. Once I arrived, I saw another cape to the SE by east, approximately 4½ miles distance, from there I saw another cape bearing SE by south, which appeared to be about 15 miles away. I named this one Cabo de Campana and could not reach it before sunset because the wind calmed again altogether. I went during this entire day about 24 miles.

Within that distance I noted and marked nine very remarkable harbors, which all the sailors considered wonderful, and five large rivers, because I sailed close to the coast all the time in order to see everything well. This entire country consists of very high and beautiful mountains that are not dry or rocky but all accessible; there are also the most delightful valleys. The valleys as well as the mountains are covered with tall and verdant trees, so that it is a pleasure to look at them, and it appears that there are many pines.

Also, beyond the said Cabo del Pico on the SE side, there are two small islands, each about six miles around, within them there are three marvelous harbors and two great rivers. On all this coast I saw no town whatsoever from the sea. There might have been some people, for there are signs of them. Whenever I am on land, I find signs of habitation and many fires.

  Later that day, Columbus continued to sail SE along the coast of Cuba. On Tuesday, November 27th, they came to a harbor, anchored their ships, and jumped into their small boats to explore.

As I went along the river it was marvelous to see the forests and greenery, the very clear water, the birds, and the fine situation, and I almost did not want to leave this place. I told the men with me that, in order to make a report to the Sovereigns of the things they saw, a thousand tongues would not be sufficient to tell it, nor my hand to write it, for it looks like an enchanted land. . . .

  Rain kept Columbus in this harbor for the next two days and contrary winds kept him in this harbor for an additional four days. Finally, on Tuesday, December 4th, Columbus and his two ships departed from Puerto Santo, and he continued SE along the coast.

On Wednesday, December 5th, fourteen days after Pinzón and the Pinta had abandoned Columbus’s fleet, Columbus with the Niña and the Santa María sailed from Cuba for Hispaniola. He had spent thirty-six days exploring at least 360 miles of Cuba’s northeast coast. He now set his course SE for Hispaniola.

The day was spent crossing the Windward Passage that separates Cuba from Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Greater Antilles. He named the latter Insula Hispana in Latin and La Isla Española in Spanish. Historically, the whole island was often referred to as Haiti, Hayti, Santo Domingue, or Saint-Domingue. The eastern two-thirds of the island is now the Dominican Republic and the western third is Haiti.

Because of the impending darkness and the unknown Hispaniola coast, Columbus sent the smaller and more nimble Niña ahead to find a harbor. Columbus and the Santa María stayed at sea where they “beat about all night, remaining where I was.”

  On Thursday, December 6th, Columbus approached the channel that separated the island of Tortuga from the northwest coast of Hispaniola.

At dawn I found myself 12 miles from the harbor, which I named Puerto María. I saw a lovely cape to the south by west which I named Cabo de la Estrella and it appears to me that this is the last land of this island to the south, and that it is about 21 miles away.

Another land appears to the east, seemingly an island of no great size, at a distance of about 30 miles. Another very beautiful, well-formed cape, which I named Cabo del Elefante, lay to the east by south, 40½ miles away. Yet another cape lay to the ESE, about 21 miles away, and I named it Cabo de Cinquin. There is a large opening or arm of the sea that appears like a river, 15 miles to the SE, tending slightly to the SE by east. It appears to me that between Cabo del Elefante and Cabo de Cinquin there is a very wide channel; some of the sailors said that it was a division of the island. I named that the Isla de la Tortuga. This big island appeared to be very high, not encircled by mountains but level like beautiful fields. It appears to be all cultivated, or at least a large part of it, and the crops look like wheat in the month of May in the vicinity of Córboda. I saw many fires last night and today there is a lot of smoke, as if coming from watch towers that have been set up to guard against people with whom they might be at war. All the coast of this land extends to the east.

At the hour of vespers (late afternoon) we entered a harbor that I named Puerto de San Nicolás, in honor of St. Nicholas because it was his feast day. As I approached the entrance of this harbor, I marveled at its beauty and excellence. Although I have praised the harbors of Cuba greatly, this one is even superior, and none of them is similar to it. At the mouth and entrance it is 4½ miles wide, and one should sail to the SSE, although on account of the great width the prow can be turned wherever desired. It extends to the SSE 6 miles, and at its entrance toward the south there is something like a promontory. From there it is level as far as the cape, where there is a very beautiful beach and a grove of trees of a thousand kinds, all loaded with fruit. I think these are spices and nutmegs, but since they are not ripe I do not recognize the kind. There is a river in the middle of the beach.

  On Friday, December 7th, at dawn, Columbus and his small fleet sailed from Puerto de San Nicolás. When he reached Puerto de la Concepcíon at one in the afternoon with the wind strong at his stern, he decided to anchor in this harbor because the sky was looking like a hard rain was coming. He took the Niña’s small boat to explore and fish. The next day, it rained very hard so they stayed at the harbor which was sheltered from the winds by the island of Tortuga which fronts this island for about 27 miles. On Sunday, December 9th, the rain continued and Columbus decided to stay anchored in the harbor.

This harbor, Puerto de la Concepción, is 1,000 paces wide at the mouth, which is equal to three-quarters of a mile. In it there are no banks or shoals, but rather, the bottom can barely be found until you go toward the shore. Inside, it is 3,000 paces long, clear of rocks, and with a sandy bottom. Any ship whatsoever can anchor in it without fear and can enter without danger. At the head of the harbor the mouths of two rivers discharge a small quantify of water. Opposite there are some of the most beautiful plains in the world, almost like the lands of Castile, only better. Because of this I have named this island La Isla Española [The Spanish Island].

For the next four days, Monday, December 10th, through Thursday, December 13th, Columbus was unable to sail so his fleet remained anchored at Puerto de la Concepcíon. On that Wednesday, December 12th, they erected a cross at the harbor entrance and then sent three men up the mountain to see the trees and plants. They heard a large crowd of people but after they called out, all the members of the group fled except for a young woman who could not keep up. They brought her back to Columbus and his ship.

So they brought the woman to the ship, a very young and beautiful girl, and she talked with those Indians with me, since they all have the same language. I clothed her and gave her glass beads, hawks’ bells, and brass rings, and sent her back to land, very honorable, the way I always do. I also sent some people from the ship with her, including three of the Indians with me, so that they could talk with those people. The sailors who took her to land said that she did not wish to leave the other Indian woman on the ship, the ones we had taken at Puerto de Mares on the island of Juana [Cuba]. All the Indians who had accompanied this Indian woman originally had come in a canoe, which is their caravel that they negotiate everywhere; when they entered the harbor and saw the ships, they fled from my men, leaving the canoe, and ran back to their village overland. The Indian woman showed us the location of the village. She wore a small piece of gold in her nose, which is an indication that there is gold in this island.

  The next day, Thursday, December 13th, Columbus sent nine well-armed men and an Indian to a nearby village. 

. . . They went to the village, which was a little over 12 miles to the SE, located in a valley and unoccupied. Everyone had fled when they heard we were coming, leaving behind whatever they had. The village consisted of more than 1,000 houses and must have had a population of over 3,000. The Indian and the men ran after the occupants, telling them not to be afraid, that they were not from Caniba [the land where captives are eaten] but rather from Heaven, and that they gave beautiful things to everyone they met. 

The Indians on my ship had told the Indian accompanying the sailors that I wanted a parrot, and he passed the word on to these other Indians. They brought many parrots and required no payment for them. The Indians begged my men not to leave that night and offered them many other things that they had in the mountains. 

When all these people were together, the sailors saw a great multitude of Indians coming with the husband of the woman whom I had honored and returned. They were carrying this woman on their shoulders, coming to thank me for the honor I had done her and the presentes I had given her. 

My men told me that these people were more handsome and of better disposition than any that we had seen up to now, but I do not know how this is possible. As to their appearance, the sailors said that there is no comparison with the ones we had seen before, either men or women. They are whiter than the others – indeed, they saw two young girls as white as any to be seen in Spain. As to the country, the best in Castile in beauty and fertility can not compare to this. This land is as different from that surrounding Córdoba as day is from night. 

All the land around the village is cultivated, and a river flows through the middle of the valley. It is very large and wide and could irrigate all the lands around. All the trees are green and full of fruit, and the plants are in flower and very tall. The words are wide and good, and the breezes are like those in Castile in the month of April. The nightingales and other small birds sing as they do in Spain in the same month, and it is the greatest pleasure in the world. Small birds sing sweetly during the night, and one can hear many crickets and frogs. The fish are the same as in Spain. There are many mastic trees and aloes and cotton trees. No gold has been found, but this is not surprising since we have been here such a short time. 

On Friday, December 14th, Columbus and his small fleet sailed from Puerto de la Concepcíon across the channel to Tortuga. He had hoped to sail on to an island he called “Babeque,” an island he was told was rich in gold, but because the winds were contrary, he returned to Puerto de la Concepción. Barbeque is the present day Great Inagua. 

The next day, Saturday, December 15th, Columbus and his small fleet again set sail for Babeque. 

I again departed from Puerto de la Concepción. As we left the harbor, the wind blew strongly from the east, which was contrary to my course, and I turned and went back to the Isla de la Tortuga. From there I went to see the river that I had not been able to reach yesterday. Once again I was not able to fetch it, but I did anchor a mere three-quarters of a mile to the leeward at a beach with a good, clear harbor.

I went with the boats to see the river, but first entered a bay that was not the mouth, but three-quarters of a mile nearer. I came back and found the mouth, which was not even a fathom deep and which had a very strong current. I entered with the boats in order to reach the villages my people had seen the day before yesterday. The current was so strong that I had to throw a line on land and have some of the sailors pull the boat against the current, and by this means I was able to go upstream a distance of two lombard shots, but no further.

I saw some houses and the large valley where the villages are; never have I seen a more beautiful sight. That river flowed right through the middle of the valley. I also saw people at the entrance to the river, but they all fled. These people must be hunted, for they live in constant fear. Whenever we arrive, at any spot, they build signal fires from towers that they have erected throughout the land, and at this warning all the people flee inland. They do this much more on this Isla Española and on Tortuga, which is also a large island, than in any of the other places I have left behind. . . .

On Sunday, December 16th, Columbus set sail at midnight to avoid the winds that blew out of the east by 9 a.m. As they were in the middle of the bay, they came upon a single Indian in a canoe. They took him aboard and sailed to a coastal village about twelve miles away. After he left Columbus’s ship, the king of the village appeared on the beach. 

. . . I sent him a gift, which he received with much ceremony. He is a young man, about 21 years of age. He had an old governor or advisor and other counselors who advised him and spoke for him. He himself said very few words. One of the Indians with me spoke with the King and told him how we had come from Heaven, and that we were searching for gold and wished to see the island of Babeque. He replied that was good, and that there was a great deal of gold on that island. He showed my master-at-arms who had delivered my gift, the course that must be followed to reach Babeque and said that it could be reached in two days’ time from where we were anchored. He also said that if we needed anything in his country, he would give it to us willingly.

On Monday, December 17th, Columbus stayed anchored and sent some of his men to fish with nets. The next day, his ships remained at anchor because there was no wind. At dawn, he ordered his ships decorated with arms and banners for the feast of Santa María de la O or the commemoration of the Annunciation. 

On Wednesday, December 19th, Columbus set sail during the night in an attempt to get out of what he called “the gulf which Isla Españiola and Tortuga define.” When day arrived, the wind shifted again to the east and became contrary to the direction that Columbus planned to sail.

Columbus found himself “unable to clear this gulf between the two islands, nor could I reach a harbor I saw before sunset.”

 . . . I saw four points of land near here and a large bay and river, and from this place I also saw a very large cape and a village. Behind the village there is a valley between very high mountains, covered with trees that seem to be pines.   All around this island there are capes and marvelous harbors, according to what I can judge from the sea. . . . 

The next day, Thursday, December 20th, Columbus wrote about the beauty of the harbor in which he was anchored. 

Today at sunset I anchored in a harbor that lies between Santo Tomás and the Cabo de Caribata. This harbor is very beautiful, and all the ships in Christendom could be contained herein. . . . 

From this harbor a very large valley could be seen, all cultivated. It descends to the harbor from the SE and is surrounded by high mountains that seem to reach Heaven. . . . 

Then on Friday, December 21st, he went with his small boats to explore the harbor.

Today I went with the ships’ boats to see this harbor, which surpasses any other harbor I have seen before. I have praised the others so much that I do not know how to rate this one highly enough. I fear that I will be accused of stretching the truth to an excessive degree when I say that this is the finest harbor I have encountered in these islands. . . .

  On Saturday, December 22nd, Columbus set sail at dawn intending to search for the island that many said had a great quantity of gold. The weather, however, proved unfavorable and he had to anchor again. He then sent the boat to fish with nets. 

The Chief of this country (the great Cacique, Guacanagari), who lives near here, sent a large canoe full of people, among whom was one of his principal advisors. He begged me to go with the ships to his country and said that he would give me anything he had. . . .

These people are so generous; they give whatever is asked of them, willingly, and it seems that you are doing them a favor to request something from them. 

. . . Finally, through the use of signs, I understood the invitation they were extending, and I determined to start for the Chief’s village tomorrow, although I am not in the habit of leaving port on Sunday. This is solely on account of devotion and has nothing to do with any superstition whatever. Furthermore, I am striving to please these people and be agreeable to them because the good will they display makes me hope that they will be converted to Christianity. . . .

  The next day, the wind did not cooperate.

Because there was no wind, I did not depart today for the country of the Chief who had sent me an invitation, instead, I sent my secretary and five men to a very large village 9 miles to the east. 

At the same time, I sent two of the Indians with me to the villages near the place where we are anchored. Later they returned to the ships with a Chief, and with the news that in this Isla Española there is a great quantity of gold and that people from other places come here to buy it. They said that there is as much gold as we desire....... In the three days that I have been in this harbor I have received good pieces of gold, and I cannot believe that it is brought from another country.

. . . .

I think that more than 1,000 persons came to the ship, all bringing something from what they possessed............... I think that another 500 swam to the ships because they did not have canoes, and we were anchored 3 miles from land! . . .

My secretary and the boats arrived during the night, saying that they had travelled a great distance, and that at the mountain of Caribatan they had found many canoes with a great many people who were coming from the place to which we were headed. I consider it certain that, if I can be in that harbor for Christmas, everyone on this island will come there to see us, and I estimate that this island is larger than England. My men tell me that this village is larger and with better arranged streets than any other we have passed and discovered up to now. . . .

. . . .

When my secretary and his men were in the Cacique’s village, he finally came to them, and all the people of the village, more than 2,000 of them, came together in the plaza, which was very clean. . . .

  On Monday, December 24th, Columbus sailed from La Mar de Santo Tomás to Punta Santa and at 11 o’clock that night he laid down because he had not slept for two days and a night. The next day he reported:

. . . Since it was calm, the sailor who was steering the ship [Santa María] also decided to catch a few winks and left the steering to a young ship’s boy, a thing which I have always expressly prohibited throughout the voyage. . . . 

. . . The currents carried the ship upon one of these banks. Although it was night, the sea breaking on them made so much noise that they could be heard and seen at a 3-mile distance. The ship went upon the bank so quietly that it was hardly noticeable. When the boy felt the rudder aground and heard the noise of the sea, he cried out. I jumped up instantly; no one else had yet felt that we were aground. . . .

Columbus's flagship, Santa María, ran aground at a small bay he named San Nicolas. Today, the site is Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, on the northern coast. With the help of the villagers, including the king’s family, Columbus's ship was unloaded and stripped of its timber. 

Columbus was now down to one ship, the Niña, and sixty-four men plus the three from the Crown. The Niña normally sailed with twenty-four. Columbus made the decision to leave thirty-nine crewmen and three officers, Diego de Arana, master-at-arms of the fleet, Pedro Gutiérrez, the representative of the royal household, and Rodrigo de Escobedo, secretary of the fleet, to build a tower and fortress from the Santa María’s timbers and he named the settlement, La Navidad.

Columbus designated Diego de Arana to be the captain at La Navidad, Pedro Gutiérrez, to be his lieutenant, and Rodrigo de Escobedo, to be the third in command. Among the crew were a carpenter, a caulker, a “good” gunner, a cask maker, a physician, and a tailor. All were capable seamen. Most of those left behind had been crewmembers of the Santa María and were not from the Palos-Moguer-Huelve region. Columbus left them with the Santa María’s small boat and supplies for a year. 

Columbus gave strict orders as to what they could and could not do. He told them that he expected them to barter for gold and to find the gold mine. Columbus imagined that he would find “a lot of gold waiting when he returned.”

Columbus intended to sail on Wednesday, January 2nd, but the wind would not allow him to do so. For the next several days, he would set sail before or at sunrise but by 9 a.m. the wind was now a coastal east wind that impeded sailing east along the coast.

On Sunday, January 6th, Columbus had set sail after sunrise and then saw the Pinta approaching from the east.

. . . After midday the wind blew strongly from the east, and I ordered a sailor to climb to the top of the mast to look out for shoals. He saw the Pinta approaching from the east, and she came up to me. Because the water was so shallow, I was afraid to anchor, so I retraced my course 30 miles to Monte Cristi, and the Pinta went with me. 

Martín Alonso Pinzón came aboard the Niña to apologize, saying that he had become separated against his will. He gave many reasons for his departure, but they are all false. Pinzón acted with greed and arrogance that night when he sailed off and left me, and I do not know why he has been so disloyal and untrustworthy toward me on this voyage. Even so, I am going to ignore these actions in order to prevent Satan from hindering this voyage, as he has done up until now. 

On Monday, January 7th, the Niña needed to be pumped out and recaulked. The next day, the wind kept Columbus from sailing. The following day, the Niña and the Pinta continued to sail eastward along the coast.

The Frightening Voyage Home

Although Columbus had planned to sail east along the coast, he decided it would be wise to return to Castile because after what he had already gone through with Martin Alonso Pinzón, he could not trust the Pinzón brothers. So on Wednesday, January 16th, three hours before dawn, Columbus set sail for Castile. 

Three hours before dawn I departed the gulf, which I have named the Golfo de las Flechas, first with a land breeze and then with a west wind. I turned the prow to the east by north, in order to go to the Isla de Caribe, where the people are whom the inhabitants of all these islands and countries fear so greatly. This is because the Caribes cross all these seas in their countless canoes and eat the men they are able to capture. One of the four Indians I took yesterday in the Puerto de las Flechas has shown me the course. After we had gone about 48 miles, the Indians indicated to me that the island lay to the SE. I wanted to follow that course and ordered the sails trimmed, but after we had gone 6 miles the wind again blew very favorably for going to Spain. I noted that the crew were becoming dismayed because we had departed from a direct course for home; and as both ships were taking in a great deal of water, they had no help save that of God. I was compelled to abandon the course that I believe was taking me to the island; I returned to the direct course for Spain, NE by east, and held it until sunset, 36 miles. The Indians told me that on this course I would find the island of Matinino, which is inhabited only by women. I would like to carry five or six of them to the Sovereigns, but I doubt if the Indians know the course well, and I am not able to delay because of the danger with the leaking caravels. I am certain that there is such an island, and that at a certain time of year men come to these women from the Isla de Caribe, which is 30 or 36 miles from us; if the women give birth to a boy they send him to the island of the men, and if a girl they keep her with them. These two islands could not have been more than 45 or 60 miles from where we started, and I believe they are to the southeast and the Indians do not know how to point out the course. After I lost sight of Cabo de San Théramo on the Isla Española, 48 miles to the west. I went 36 miles to the east by north. The weather is very good.

  By setting a course NEbE (northeast by east), Columbus would be sailing straight to Castile. His journey from Hispaniola began at around 19⁰N and his destination, Palos, Castile, was 37⁰N. By sailing NEbE, Columbus was sailing against the prevailing winds and current. They were between 0⁰N (the equator) and 30⁰N. Unlike when he was leaving the Canary Islands and could set his course due west around 20⁰N, he needed to sail a zigzag course.

On Tuesday, January 22nd, Columbus commented: 

Yesterday after sunset I sailed to the NNE with the wind east and veering to the SE. I made 6 knots before five half-hour glasses and for three before the watch began. Thus made 24 miles. Then I went NbE for six glasses, which would be another 18 miles. I then went for four glasses of the second watch to the NE for 4½ knots, which is 9 miles to the NE. From then until sunrise I went to the ENE during 11 glasses at 4½ knots, or 24¾ miles. I then went ENE until 11 o’clock in the morning, 24 miles. The wind became dead calm and I went no further today. The Indians went swimming, and we saw ringtails and a great deal of seaweed.

On the eighth day, Wednesday, January 23rd, Columbus commented on the ominous sky. 

Last night there were many changes in the wind, and having been on the alert for everything and having taken the precautions good sailors are accustomed to take and must take, I went last night to the NE by north about 63 miles. I waited many times for the Pinta, which had a lot of difficulty sailing close to the wind because the mast was not sound and the mizzen helped her very little. If her captain, Martin Alonso Pinzón, had taken as much trouble to provide himself with a good mast in the Indies, where there are so many good ones, as he did to separate himself from me with the intention of filling his ship with gold, he would have been better off. Many ringtails appeared and much seaweed. The sky is very disturbed these days, but it has not rained and the sea is very calm all the time, as in a river, many thanks be given to God. After sunrise I made about 22½ miles for part of the day straight to the NE. The remainder of the day I went to the ENE another 22½ miles. 

By Friday, January 25th, the food was running short. 

I sailed last night to the ENE for 13 half-hour glasses, 28½ miles; then I went to the NNE another 4½ miles. After the sun came up and the wind died down, I went to the ENE about 21 miles. The sailors killed a porpoise and a very large shark. These were very necessary because we had nothing to eat except bread, wine, and ajes [a word Columbus used for all the Taíno roots and tubers] from the Indies.

  On Wednesday, February 6th, they sailed east for 107¼ miles during the night and another 115½ miles during the day for around 222 miles, the most they had sailed in a single day for the entire voyage. They were approaching the Azore Islands (38⁰N), a Portuguese archipelago of nine volcanic islands about 870 miles west of Lisbon and 930 miles northwest of Morocco. They had sailed well north of the easterly winds and currents. They had been sailing for three weeks and a day after leaving Hispaniola. 

After sunrise on Tuesday, February 12th, the Niña and the Pinta began to experience heavy seas and stormy weather. 

I sailed to the east at 4½ knots during the night, and by sunrise had made a distance of 54¾ miles. At this time I began to experience heavy seas and stormy weather. If the caravel had not been very sound and well equipped, I fear we would have been lost.

During the day I made about 33 or 36 miles with great difficulty and in constant danger.

  The next day, the weather continued to be grim.

From sunset yesterday until sunrise this morning I experienced great difficulty with the wind, high waves, and a stormy sea. There had been lightning three times toward the NNE, which is a sure sign that a great storm is coming from that direction or from the direction contrary to my course. I went with bare masts most of the night, then raised a little sail and went about 19 miles. The wind abated a little today; then it increased and the sea became terrible, with the waves crossing each other and pounding the ships. I made about 41¼ miles by sunset. 

The storm continued to pound the Niña and the Pinta for the third day, February 14th. 

The wind increased last night, and the waves were frightful, coming in opposite directions. They crossed each other and trapped the ship, which could not go forward nor get out from between them, and they broke over us. I carried the mainsail very low, simply to escape somewhat from the waves. I went this way for three hours and made about 15 miles. The wind and the sea increased greatly, and seeing the great danger I began to run before the wind, letting it carry me wherever it wanted, for there was no other remedy. Then the caravel Pinta, on which was Martin Alonso, began to run also and eventually disappeared from sight, although all night long I showed lights and the Pinta responded until it was not able to do so any longer because of the force of the storm and because she was far off from my course. I went this night to the NE by east for 40½ miles. After sunrise the wind became stronger and the crossing waves more terrible. I carried only a low mainsail, so that the ship might escape some of the waves breaking over her and not sink. I went on a course to the ENE and then NE by east. I went like this for 6 hours and made 22½ miles.

  Finally, after sunset, the storm began to lift although the sea remained very high on February 15th. 

Last night, after sunset, the skies commenced to clear toward the west, indicating that the wind was about to blow from that direction. I had the bonnet placed on the mainsail. The sea was still very high, although it was subsiding a little. I sailed to the ENE at a speed of 3 knots, and in 12 hours of the night I went 39 miles. After sunrise we saw land, off the prow to the ENE. Some said it was the island of Madeira; others, the Rock of Sintra in Portugal, near Lisbon. The wind changed and blew ahead from the ENE and the sea came very high from the west. The caravel must have been 15 miles from land. According to my navigation I think we are off the Azores and believe the land ahead is one of those islands. The pilots and sailors believe that we are already off Castile.

That evening, Columbus wrote a letter to Luis de Santángel, who had been a principal financier for the voyage and an almost identical letter to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. In these letters, Columbus claimed to have discovered a series of islands in the East Indies and he described these islands, especially Cuba and Hispaniola and the indigenous people whom he met along the way. He coined the term “Indian” and emphasized that they could easily be converted to Catholicism. He commented on the local rumor concerning a tribe of cannibalists that he called “Caribs.” He provided few details of the ocean voyage and suggests that he left the Santa María and its crew to build a fort and settlement and become colonists. Finally, he urged Ferdinand and Isabella to sponsor a second and larger expedition, promising to return with immense riches.

Columbus spent several days searching for an island with an appropriate anchorage. Finally on Monday, February 18th, after sunrise, he anchored at the island of Santa María (36⁰58’29”N 25⁰05’41”W) in the Portuguese Azorean archipelago. 

After sunset, three men came down to the shore and Columbus sent his small boat for them. They brought fowl and fresh bread and a message from the captain of the island. He would arrive the next day to greet them. The three men stayed overnight on the Niña. 

The good fortune of the day would change the next day. Little did Columbus know that King John had ordered that Columbus and his crew be detained so they could not return to Castile.

Because last Thursday, when we were in the midst of the anxiety occasioned by the storm, we made several vows, one of which was to go in shirts to the shrine of Our Lady when we came to the first land, I decided that half my people would go to fulfill the vow at a small house near the sea, a place like a hermitage. After this group completed their vow, I would go with the other half. Feeling that the country was safe, and having confidence in the offers of the captain and in the peace existing between Portugal and Castile, I asked the three messengers to go to the village and send a priest to say a mass for us.

The first half of the crew went in their shirts to fulfill their vow, and while praying they were attacked and seized by all the villagers, on horseback and on foot, and by the captain as well. At the time I did not know this and remained, unsuspectingly, until 11 o’clock in the morning, expecting the boat to return so that I might go myself with the other people to fulfill our vow. When I saw that our people did not return, I suspected that they were detained or that the boat had wrecked, since the entire island is surrounded by very high cliffs. I was not able to see what was going on because the hermitage is behind a point. I raised anchor and set sail directly toward the hermitage. It was then that I saw many horsemen, well armored, who dismounted, got into the boat, and came to the ship to take me.

Columbus avoided capture for three days and on Friday, February 22nd, he was able to get his crew back. The next day, they set sail for Castile.

The Niña sailed east for 280 miles. Then on Tuesday, the fourth night, the Niña was driven off course due to contrary winds, great waves, and a high sea. Columbus wrote on Wednesday, February 27th, “I am very much concerned with these storms, now that I am so near the end of my journey.”

On Thursday evening, the Niña fought shifting winds, South and SE and then NE and ENE. On Friday evening and Saturday, the Niña was able to maintain a course East by North until Saturday evening, March 2nd, when the weather changed again.

After sunset . . . I sailed on my course to the east. A squall came upon me that split all the sails and I found myself in great danger, but God willed that I be delivered from it................ I went about 45 miles before the sails split. We then went with bare masts on account of the fury of the wind and sea, which rolled over us in two directions. We saw indications of being near land and found ourselves quite near to Lisbon.

On Sunday evening, March 3rd, the Niña had to endure another treacherous storm.

Last night we experienced a terrible storm and thought we would be lost because the waves came from two directions, and the wind appeared to raise the ship in the air, with the water from the sky and the lightning in every direction. It pleased Our Lord to sustain us, and we continued in this fashion until the first watch, when Our Lord showed us land. In order not to approach the land until we knew more about it and until we could find a harbor or place to save ourselves, I raised the mainsail, since there was no other remedy, and we sailed some distance with great danger, putting to sea. Thus God protected us until daylight, for it was with infinite labor and fright.

When the sun came up I recognized the land, which was the Rock of Sintra, near the river at Lisbon. I decided to enter because I could not do anything else........... At 9 o’clock in the morning I stopped at Rastelo, inside the river at Lisbon, where I learned from the seafaring people that there never has been a winter with so many storms; 25 ships had been lost in Flanders, and there were others here that had not been able to depart for four months.

  On Monday, March 4th, having anchored at Rastelo, a port on the outskirts of Lisbon on the Tagus River, Columbus wrote to King John asking for permission to take the Niña to Lisbon.

I wrote to the King of Portugal, who was 27 miles from here, that Your Highnesses had ordered me not to fail to enter the harbors of His Highness and ask for whatever I might need in return for my money. I requested that the King permit me to take the ship to the city of Lisbon, for here in this sparsely populated place some dishonest persons who thought that I might be carrying a great deal of gold might undertake to commit some crime against me; also, His Highness should know that I did not come from Guinea but from the Indies.

  The next morning, the great Portuguese navigator, Bartolomé Diaz, approached the Niña.

Columbus made the following entry on Tuesday, March 5th, of their interesting exchange. 

This morning, Bartolomé Diaz of Lisbon, master of the large ship of the King of Portugal, which was also anchored in Rastelo and which was better equipped with canons and arms than any ship I have ever seen, came to the caravel with a small, armed vessel. He told me to get aboard the small vessel in order to go and give an account of myself to the Factors of the King and to the Captain of the great ship. I replied that I am the Admiral of the Sovereigns of Castile, and that I did not render such accounts to such persons, nor would I leave my ship unless compelled to do so by force of arms. The master replied that I might send the master of the caravel, and I replied that I would send neither the master nor any other person unless it was by force because I consider it the same to allow another person to go as to go myself, and it was the custom of the Admirals of the Sovereigns of Castile to die rather than surrender their people. The master moderated his demands and said that since I had made that determination, it should be as I wished, but he requested to see the letters from the Sovereigns of Castile, if I had them. It pleased me to show them to him; then the master returned to his ship and related the matter to his Captain, who was named Alvaro Dama. The Captain came to the caravel with great ceremony, complete with drums, trumpets, and pipes, making a great display. He spoke with me and offered to do anything that I ordered him to do.

  As Columbus waited on the Niña, he commented on Wednesday, March 6th.

When word spread that I had come from the Indies, many people came from the city of Lisbon to see me and the Indians. It was wonderful to see the way they marveled at us. They gave thanks to the Lord, saying that because of the great faith the Sovereigns of Castile possess and their desire to serve God, the Divine Majesty has given them all of this.

  The crowds continued Thursday and included “many men of distinction, among them the agents of the King.” On Friday, Columbus received a letter from King John inviting him for a visit.

Columbus was less than enthusiastic.

. . . Since the weather was not suitable for departure with the ship, I went in order to avoid suspicion, although I did not want to go. I went as far a Sacavem to spend the night. The King has ordered his agents to give me and my people everything we need for the ship, without charge, and to make sure that everything is done that I wish.

  Before leaving the Niña, Columbus added a brief postscript to his letter to Luis de Santángel and gave his letter to a currier to be delivered to him at Queen Isabella’s court. In the Santángel letter was the letter to Isabella and Ferdinand.

Columbus left Sacavem the next morning and arrived at Valle del Paraíso that evening.

. . . The King ordered that I should be received with great honor by the principal personages of his household, and he himself received me with great honor and showed me much respect, asking me to sit down and talking very freely with me. . . .

  That Saturday and Sunday, March 9th and 10th, Columbus met with King John who Columbus knew because the king had rejected Columbus’s proposal that led to Columbus’s petitioning Isabella and Ferdinand. John reminded Columbus the islands Columbus discovered were below the latitude line of the Canary Islands (approximately 27⁰50’N), the boundary set by the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçpvas as the area of Portuguese exclusivity and was confirmed by the papal bull Aeterni regis in 1481.

On Monday, March 11th, Columbus took leave from King John and began his travels back to the Niña. 

Today I took leave of the King, who gave me some messages for the Sovereigns on his part and showed me great kindness all the time. I left after eating, and the King sent Don Martín de Noroña with me. All his cavaliers came to accompany me, and they paid me honors for quite a period of time. I then went to the monastery of San Antonio, which is near a place called Villafranca, where the Queen was staying. I went to pay homage to her and to kiss her hands, for she had sent me a message saying that I was not to leave until she saw me. With her was the Duke and the Marquis, and there I received great honor. I took leave of her at night and went to Alhandra to sleep.

  Columbus reached the Niña the night of Tuesday, March 12th, and at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, March 13th, even though the sea was rough and the wind was NNW, he ordered the anchors on the Niña raised and they set sail for Sevilla, a short distance from Palos. 

Columbus returned to Palos on March 15, 1493. By coincidence, the Pinta also returned to Palos on March 15th but Martin Alonso Pinzón was not as fortunate as Columbus. Exhausted and suffering from a recurring fever, Pinzón was carried from his ship on a stretcher and died later that month at La Rabida Monastery.

A copy of Columbus’s letter to Luis de Santánge was printed in Barcelona. On a communication dated late in March, Isabella and Ferdinand acknowledged receipt of Columbus’s letter.

Sometime during that time, Columbus’s letter to Isabella and Ferdinand was read in open court. 

Columbus's presence at court was subsequently requested so he sailed to Barcelona to meet with them. He gave them a full account of his voyage to the West Indies although he still believed that he had sailed to the East Indies. 

A Latin translation of the letter sent to Isabella and Ferdinand reached Pope Alexander VI in Rome. The Pope was no stranger to Castile and Aragron since he was born into the prominent Borgia family in Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Aragon. At the time of receiving Columbus’s letter, the Pope was arbitrating the claims of the crowns of Portugal and Castile as to the Atlantic.

Within a year of Columbus’s return to Palos and thanks to the invention of the Gutenberg printing press fifty years earlier, eight more editions of the Latin version were printed across Europe — two in Basel, three in Paris, two in Rome and one in Antwerp. Between 1493 and 1500, about 3,000 copies were printed, about half in Italy. All of Europe now knew that a New World lay west across the Atlantic Ocean.

Martin A. Frey
July 5, 2024