Andrew’s Current Blog

Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold dramatizes the history leading to 1492 from the perspective of both Taíno and European protagonists, including depicting the weddings and marriages of three couples—Spain’s Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Columbus and his...

Last November, I spent two weeks in the Dominican Republic researching events I’m dramatizing in Encounters Unforeseen’s sequel (1493-98), visiting sites of battles, forts, the first missionary efforts and resistance thereto, and—the subject of this blog—Santo...

This fall, I traveled to Spain to research events from 1493 to 1498 that I’m depicting in the sequel to Encounters Unforeseen, including visiting sites where Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand made fateful decisions regarding “Española’s” subjugation or—as related in...

Best wishes on Indigenous Peoples’ Day! I blog to recount a Taíno story of the sea’s origin—postscript to last year’s blog about mankind’s origin (October 8, 2018). The spirit Yaya had placed his son Yayael’s bones in a gourd to remember him. When Yayael’s mother...

As recounted in prior blogs, Columbus’s march from La Isabela to establish Fort Santo Tomás in March 1494 violated Guarionex’s chiefdom and commenced “Española’s” conquest, whereby Columbus initially sought to intimidate the island’s peoples into submission and...

A third of the men enlisted on Columbus’s second voyage grew seriously ill within days of La Isabela’s founding in January 1494 (see blog of January 6). As the expedition’s provisions exhausted, many men also hungered, reluctant to eat the food obtainable by bartering...

Last week, I traveled to sites in the Lesser Antilles where events occurred during Columbus’s second voyage that I’m depicting in the sequel to Encounters Unforeseen, which will dramatize the history of 1493–1498 through the eyes of the same Taíno and European...

On this date 525 years ago, Columbus commenced construction of his first fort in Española’s interior, built to protect a garrison of men as they explored for gold and commenced subjugation of the Taíno population. He named it for the apostle who initially doubted...

On this date 525 years ago, Columbus and those who sailed on his second voyage (an estimated 1,200–1,500 persons) celebrated their first mass at the settlement he established on “Española’s” central northern coast (in the modern Dominican Republic) and named La...

Best wishes on Indigenous Peoples’ Day! I post to recount the Taínos’ belief about their origin. The fifteenth-century religion of many Taínos held that, in the beginning, mankind had lived in caves located at the center of the world in mountains in the island of the...