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...
by Andrew Rowen | | Dominican Republic
Guacanagarí had alerted Columbus that the Pinta had been sighted to the east, whereupon Columbus dispatched a letter borne by Guacanagarí’s subjects entreating Martín Alonso Pinzón to reunite with Columbus, but refraining from asserting that Pinzón’s separation had...
by Andrew Rowen | | Dominican Republic
Sailing east, Columbus anchored in the bay Martín Alonso Pinzón had named for himself, renaming it Río de Gracia (River of Grace) in reference to Columbus’s pardon for Martín’s desertion. But the bay still bore Martín’s name a century later (see sketch at December...
by Andrew Rowen | | Dominican Republic, Haiti
I suspect Columbus drew his famous sketch of Española’s northwestern coast on or about January 11, 1493, when the Niña would have progressed to the point where the map’s coastline ends in the east. The original sketch has been in the collection of the Duques de...
