by Andrew Rowen | Feb 14, 2022 | New York City
Today, I break from posting chronologically about events depicted in Columbus and Caonabó: 1493–1498 Retold to discuss the weddings and marriages of three couples—Spain’s Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, the Taíno chieftain Caonabó and Anacaona, and Columbus and his...
by Andrew Rowen | Feb 2, 2022 | New York City
Isabela’s construction progressed in January 1494, laid out just as a contemporary Spanish town, with a church, crown, and military buildings at its core, a fortified residence for Columbus and his staff, and the voyagers’ homes emanating from the core, ordered by...
by Andrew Rowen | Jan 21, 2022 | New York City
After crossing Puerto de los Hidalgos, Alonso de Hojeda’s expedition descended south into the great valley of the modern Dominican Republic that Columbus would name La Vega Real (the Royal Plain). Journeying for two weeks, the men forded the Yaque River (which retains...
by Andrew Rowen | Jan 7, 2022 | New York City
Columbus lost no time searching for the gold he’d promised Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. On January 7, 1494, 528 years ago, he dispatched an expedition of over thirty lightly armed soldiers to find it in the island’s mountainous interior, led by the man who would...
by Andrew Rowen | Jan 6, 2022 | New York City
As depicted in Columbus and Caonabó, a third of the voyagers—some four hundred men—were beset with fevers, headaches, vomiting, and diarrhea within days of debarking on the promontory. Modern epidemiologists speculate that the causes included dysentery from the...
