The First Voyage of Columbus

Everyone knows this song which has the famous line "in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue", and everyone knows that he sailed the Niña, the Pinta, and Santa Maria. But is that the whole story? Of course not. Columbus made four voyages to the New World before he died in 1506. And what you don't know may surprise you! Here's the story of the first voyage.

Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos de la Frontera on August 3, 1492. He had three ships: the large Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Santa Clara (which had been nicknamed the Niña, which is Spanish for "little girl" since the Santa Clara was smaller than the Santa Maria). The three ships stopped at the Canary Islands for restocking and supplies before leaving on September 6 to cross the ocean. Around 2 AM on the morning of October 12, a lookout named Rodrigo de Triana spotted land from the Pinta. He alerted the captain (Martin Alonzo Pinzon) who verified that it was land. He shot a cannon to alert Columbus on the Santa Maria. (This is important because Columbus told the king and queen of Spain that he was the first to see land, because they had promised a lifetime pension to whoever spotted land first.)

Approximate Trip of the First Voyage

We know that Columbus and his men landed on an island they called San Salvador, and we know it is in the Bahamas, but we don't know exactly which island it was. There are three possibilities: Samana Cay, Plana Cays, or and island that was named San Salvador Island in 1925. Although we don't exactly know which people he encountered, we know that the first group were friendly. Columbus knew they were of no match for him and his men, writing in his diary "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased." 

After some more stops on small islands, they landed on the northeast coast of Cuba on October 28. After some exploring of the shore, on November 22, Pinzon on the Pinta left to find an island the natives had told them about which was supposed to be rich in gold. Columbus and the other two ships continued exploring and arrived on the northern coast of Hispaniola on December 5. On December 25, the Santa Maria ran aground and had to be abandoned. Columbus met with a native tribe who agreed to the idea that Columbus leave behind some men. So 39 men were left and founded the settlement of La Navidad (which is present day Mole-Saint-Nicholas, Haiti). Columbus on the Santa Clara (the Niña) rejoined the Pinta on January 6. 

The last stop of the voyage was on January 13 on Samana Peninsula on Hispaniola. They encountered a tribe that showed force against the explorers. They used arrows against Columbus and his crew, so they called it the Bay of Arrows (which is today Bay of Rincon in the Dominican Republic). It was here that Columbus kidnapped some of the natives to take back to Spain. (The exact number isn't known because only seven or eight actually made the trip.) 

He set sail for Spain, but a storm forced the two ships to the port of Lisbon, Portugal, on March 4, 1493. After a week in Lisbon, they set sail and arrived at the port of Palos on March 15.

Naturally, word spread quickly of Columbus's discovery, but had he discovered a "New World"?