by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
With a light breeze permitting departure, Columbus’s two ships sailed from Baie de l’Acul to retrace the route his embassy had taken the prior day to visit Guacanagarí. The ships progressed slowly. Columbus turned to his Journal, taken by the Taínos’ friendliness,...
by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
Around midnight on Christmas Eve, the Santa María foundered on a reef off Point Picolet. Columbus took various measures to try to save the ship, including sawing off a mast to lighten it, but the tide was receding and the Santa María impaled on the reef and began to...
by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
At dawn on December 26, Guacanagarí rode by canoe to meet Columbus aboard the Niña. That afternoon and over the next week, the two men would have a series of conversations—dramatized in Encounters Unforeseen—resulting in understandings that Columbus would leave a...
by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
By New Year’s Day, Columbus selected almost forty crewmen—roughly equivalent in number to the sunken Santa María’s crew—to be left behind when he departed for Spain. Selection wasn’t difficult because many volunteered, enticed by the gold pieces they had traded for...
by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
Columbus came ashore to say farewell to Guacanagarí and instill both “friendship and fear,” directing crewmen to conduct a mock battle between themselves using swords, crossbow, and artillery. They fired a lombard at some plank siding of the Santa María...
