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Voyages of Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was a navigator and an admiral for the Crown of Castile whose voyages to America initiated European exploration and colonization of the continent. (The Vikings ca. 1000 had previously had at least a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland). History places great significance on his original voyage of 1492 although he did not actually reach the South American mainland until his third voyage in 1498.
is first voyage, Columbus's three ships (Niña, Pinta and Santa María) left the port of Palos de la Frontera on August 3, 1492.
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Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was a navigator and an admiral for the Crown of Castile whose voyages to America initiated European exploration and colonization of the continent. (The Vikings ca. 1000 had previously had at least a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland). History places great significance on his original voyage of 1492 although he did not actually reach the South American mainland until his third voyage in 1498.
First voyage
On his first voyage, Columbus's three ships (Niña, Pinta and Santa María) left the port of Palos de la Frontera on August 3, 1492. Three days into the journey, on August 6, 1492, the rudder of the Pinta became broken and unhung, rendering the ship disabled. The owners of the ship, Gomez Rascon and Christoval Quintero, were suspected of sabotage, as they and their ship had been pressed into service against their will. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, was able to secure the rudder temporarily with cords until the Canary Islands could be reached on August 9, 1492. Here the fleet repaired the Pinta and re-rigged the Niña's lateen sails to standard square sails.
While securing provisions from the island of La Gomera, Columbus received word that three Portuguese caravels had been seen hovering near El Hierro with the supposed intention of capturing him. However, on September 6, 1492 the westward voyage began without incident.
The conventional story about his first expedition as described in the abstract of his log made by Bartolome de Las Casas is that on the outward bound voyage Columbus recorded 2 sets of distance figures. He reported the shorter distances to his crew so that they would not worry about sailing too far from Spain. However, according Oliver Dunn and James Kelley, this was a misunderstanding by Las Casas. Columbus did report two distances each day but one was in measurements he normally used, the other in the Portuguese maritme leagues used by his crew.'
On September 8, 1492, Columbus observed that the needle of his compass no longer pointed to the North star, a phenomenon which had never before been recorded in Europe. The needle instead had varied a half point to the Northwest, and continued to vary further as the journey progressed. He at first made no mention of this, knowing his crew to be prone to panic with their destination unknown, but after several days his pilots took notice with much anxiety. Columbus keenly reasoned that the needle didn't point to the North star, but to some invisible point on the Earth. His reputation as a profound astronomer held weight with the crew, and his theory alleviated their alarm.
A legend is that the crew grew so homesick and fearful that they threatened to sail back to Spain. Although the actual situation is unclear, most likely the sailors' resentments merely amounted to complaints or suggestions.
After 29 days out of sight of land, on October 7, 1492, the crew spotted shore birds flying west, and they changed direction to make their landfall. A later comparison of dates and migratory patterns leads to the conclusion that the birds were Eskimo curlews and American golden plovers.
Land was sighted at 2 a.m. on October 12, by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodriguez Bermejo) aboard Pinta. Columbus would later assert that he had first seen the light which was suspected as land, and thus earned the reward of 10,000 maravedís. Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos) San Salvador, although the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas or Turks and Caicos this corresponds to is an unresolved topic; prime candidates are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, Grand Turk, or San Salvador Island (named San Salvador in 1925 in the belief that it was Columbus' San Salvador). The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. Columbus proceeded to observe the natives and how they went about.
Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba (landed on October 28) and the northern coast of Hispaniola, by December 5. Here, the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas morning 1492 and had to be abandoned. He was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus founded the settlement La Navidad and left 40 men.
On January 15, 1493, he set sail for home by way of the Azores. To achieve that goal, "He wrestled his ship against the wind and ran into a fierce storm."
Leaving the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, Columbus headed for Spain, but another storm forced him into Lisbon. He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on March 4, 1493, where he was told a fleet of 100 caravels had been lost in the storm. Astoundingly, both the Niña and the Pinta were spared. Not finding the King John in Lisbon, Columbus wrote a letter to him and waited for the king's reply. The king requested that Columbus go to Vale do Paraíso to meet with him. Some have speculated that his landing in Portugal was intentional.
Relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time. Columbus went to meet with the king at Vale do Paraíso (north of Lisbon). After spending more than one week in Portugal, he set sail for Spain. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe. He reached Spain on March 15.
He was received as a hero in Spain. He displayed several kidnapped natives and what gold he had found to the court, as well as the previously unknown tobacco plant, the pineapple fruit, the turkey and the sailor's first love, the hammock. He did not bring any of the coveted East Indies spices, such as the exceedingly expensive black pepper, ginger or cloves. In his log, he wrote "there is also plenty of ají, which is their pepper, which is more valuable than black pepper, and all the people eat nothing else, it being very wholesome" (Turner, 2004, P11). The word ají is still used in South American Spanish for chili peppers.
Columbus's report to the royal court in Madrid was extravagant. He insisted he had reached Asia (it was Cuba) and an island off the coast of China (Hispaniola). His descriptions were part fact, part fiction: "Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures, are both fertile and beautiful...the harbors are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold...There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals...".
In his first journey, Columbus visited San Salvador in the Bahamas (which he was convinced was Japan), Cuba (which he thought was China) and Hispaniola (where he found gold).
Second voyage
On November 3 1493, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica. On the same day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa Maria la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Todos los Santos), he arrived at Guadaloupe (Santa Maria de Guadalupe), which he explored between November 4 and November 10, 1493. The exact course of his voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands including Montserrat (Santa Maria de Monstserrate), Antigua (Santa Maria la Antigua), Redonda (Santa Maria la Redonda), Nevis (Santa María de las Nieves), Saint Kitts (San Jorge), Sint Eustatius (Santa Anastasia), Saba (San Cristobal), Saint Martin (San Martin), and Saint Croix (Santa Cruz). He also sighted the island chain of the Virgin Islands, which he named Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgines, and named the islands of Virgin Gorda, Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).
He continued to the Greater Antilles, and landed at Puerto Rico (San Juan Bautista) on November 19, 1493. The first skirmish between Americans and Europeans since the Vikings took place when his men rescued two boys who had just been castrated by their captors.
On November 22, he returned to Hispaniola, where he found his men at La Navidad had fallen into dispute with natives in the interior and had been killed, but he did not accuse Chief Guacanagari, his ally, of any wrongdoing. Another Chief, named Caonabo, was charged and became the earliest known American native resistance fighter. Columbus established a new settlement at Isabella, on the north coast of Hispaniola, where gold had first been found, but it was a poor location and the settlement was short-lived. He spent some time exploring the interior of the island for gold. Finding some, he established a small fort in the interior. He left Hispaniola on April 24, 1494, and arrived at Cuba (which he had discovered during his first voyage and named Juana) on April 30 and Jamaica on May 5. He explored the south coast of Cuba, which he believed to be a peninsula (of China) rather than an island, and several nearby islands including the Isle of Youth (La Evangelista), before returning to Hispaniola on August 20.
Before he left Spain on his second voyage, Columbus had been directed by Ferdinand and Isabella to maintain friendly, even loving, relations with the natives. He nevertheless sent a letter to the monarchs proposing to enslave some of the native peoples, specifically the Caribs, on the grounds of their aggressiveness and their status as enemies of the Taino. Although his petition was refused by the Crown, in February 1495 Columbus took 1,600 Arawak (a different tribe, who were also hunted by the Carib) as slaves. There was no room for about 400 of them and they were released.
The many voyages of discovery did not pay for themselves; there was no funding for pure science in the Renaissance. Columbus had planned with Isabella to set up trading posts with the cities of the Far East made famous by Marco Polo, but which had been blockaded as described above. Of course, Columbus would never find Cathay (China) or Zipangu (Japan), and there was no longer any Great Khan. Slavery was practiced widely at that time, amongst many peoples of the world, including some Indians. For the Portuguese — from whom Columbus received most of his maritime training — slavery had resulted in the first financial return on a 75-year investment in Africa.
Five hundred sixty slaves were shipped to Spain; 200 died during the route back to Spain and half of the remainder were ill when they arrived. After legal proceedings, some survivors were released and ordered to be shipped home, others sent by Isabella to be galley slaves. Columbus, desperate to repay his investors, failed to realize that Isabella and Ferdinand did not plan to follow Portuguese policy in this respect. Rounding up the slaves led to the first major battle between the Spanish and the natives in the New World.
Columbus was anxious to pay back dividends to those who had invested in his promise to fill his ships with gold. And since so many of the slaves died in captivity, he developed a plan while in the province of Cicao on Haiti. Columbus imposed a tribute system similar to that of the Aztec on the mainland. The natives in Cicao on Haiti all those above 14 years of age were required to find a certain quota of gold every three months. Upon their return, they would receive tokens that they wore around their necks. Any Indian found without a copper token had their hands cut off and subsequently bled to death.
Despite such extreme measures, Columbus did not manage to obtain much and many "settlers" were unhappy with the climate and disillusioned about their chances of getting rich quick. A classic gold rush had been set off that would have tragic consequences for the Caribbean, though anthropologists have shown there was more intermarriage and assimilation than previously believed (see the Black Legend). Columbus allowed settlers to return home with any Indian women with whom they had started families or, to Isabella's fury, owned as slaves.
From Haiti he finally returned to Spain.
Third voyage and arrest
On May 30, 1498, Columbus led the fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, his wife's native land. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. Columbus landed on the south coast of the island of Trinidad on July 31. From August 4 through August 12, he explored the Gulf of Paria which separates Trinidad from Venezuela. He explored the mainland of South America, including the Orinoco River. He also sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita Island and sighted and named Tobago (Bella Forma) and Grenada (Concepcion). He described the new lands as belonging to a previously unknown new continent, but he pictured it hanging from China, bulging out to make the earth pear-shaped.
Columbus returned to Hispaniola on August 19 to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were discontent, having been misled by Columbus about the supposedly bountiful riches of the new world. Columbus repeatedly had to deal with rebellious settlers and natives. He had some of his crew hanged for disobeying him. A number of returned settlers and friars lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him of mismanagement. The king and queen sent the royal administrator Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500, who upon arrival (August 23) detained Columbus and his brothers and had them shipped home. In 2005, a long lost state report was rediscovered depicting Columbus as a particularly cruel ruler. The report may explain part of the reasons for the Spanish Crown's decision to remove Columbus from his position as first governor of the Indies. Columbus refused to have his shackles removed on the trip to Spain, during which he wrote a long and pleading letter to the Spanish monarchs. They accepted his letter and let Columbus and his brothers go free.
Although he regained his freedom, he did not regain his prestige and lost all his titles including the governorship. As an added insult, the Portuguese had won the race to the East Indies: Vasco da Gama returned in September 1499 from a trip to India, having sailed east around Africa.
Fourth voyage
Nevertheless, Columbus made a fourth voyage, nominally in search of a Westward Passage to the Indian Ocean.
Accompanied by his stepbrother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz, Spain on May 12, 1502, with the ships Capitana, Gallega, Vizcaína and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue the Portuguese soldiers who he heard were under siege by the Moors. On June 15, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on June 29, but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Jaina River, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. The only ship to reach Spain had Columbus's money and belongings on it, and all of his former enemies (and a few friends) had drowned.
After a brief stop at Jamaica, he sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on July 30. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. On August 14, he landed on the American mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on October 16.
In Panama, he learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. After much exploration, he established a garrison at the mouth of Rio Belen in January 1503. On April 6, one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked, and the other ships were damaged. He left for Hispaniola on April 16, but sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel any farther, the ships were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on June 25, 1503.
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