by Andrew Rowen | Jan 1, 2021 | New York City
In early January 1494, the fleet of Columbus’s second voyage anchored at the site where he founded “Española’s” first permanent European settlement—named Isabela in honor of the queen. Most modern historians roundly criticize Columbus’s selection of the site, but my...
by Andrew Rowen | Sep 20, 2020 | New York City
This October 14—528 years ago—Columbus seized his first seven slaves in the Caribbean, only two days after arriving on the island he named “San Salvador,” the Taíno Guanahaní. They were to serve as guides and interpreters. He wrote in his Journal that the island’s...
by Andrew Rowen | Jun 30, 2020 | New York City
526 years ago, on July 7, 1494, an elderly, indigenous man on Cuba’s southern coast admonished Columbus for inspiring great fear and warned that the souls of the enemies of the human race traveled to a dark place on death. Some locations where Columbus and Taíno...
by Andrew Rowen | Jun 1, 2020 | New York City
Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold dramatizes 1492 from the perspective of both Taíno and European protagonists, including depicting Taíno geographic knowledge, Columbus’s cartographic and scriptural arguments that he’d arrive in the “Indies,” and his reliance on...
by Andrew Rowen | Apr 19, 2020 | New York City
In early January (before the pandemic hit NYC!), I spent two weeks in Cuba researching events I’m dramatizing in Encounters Unforeseen’s sequel (1493-98), including visiting sites along the island’s southern coast where Columbus and Taíno chieftains met on his second...
