1492 - Exploration, Colonization

Exploration, Colonization

Christopher Columbus weighs anchor Friday, August 3, with 52 men aboard his 125-foot flagship, the 100-ton Portuguese-built carrack Santa Maria, 18 aboard the 50-ton Pinta commanded by Martín Alonso Pinzón, 52, and another 18 aboard the 40-ton Niña commanded by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, 32 (whose elder brother is a part owner of the two smaller ships) (see Columbus, 1486). The Pinta loses her rudder August 6, the fleet puts in at Tenerife for refitting, the three caravels put out to sea again September 6, Martín Pinzón suggests October 7 that they change course, and a sailor on the Pinta sights land October 12. Financed by Castile's Isabella, Aragon's Ferdinand II, and supporters at Palos on the Tinto River, where the ships were built, Columbus has crossed the Atlantic to make the first known European landing in the Western Hemisphere since early in the 11th century. He disembarks in the Bahamas on a small island known to the natives as Guanahani (he names it San Salvador under the impression that he has reached the East Indies). Columbus lands on the 42,827-square-mile (110,000-square-kilometer) island of Cuba October 28, believes it to be the mainland of Cathay, is welcomed by the island's Taíno natives, is deserted November 21 by Martín Alonso Pinzón (who sails off in the Pinta without permission in quest of gold), sails further eastward, and lands December 6 on the 29,418-square-mile (76,192-square-kilometer) island of Ayti (or Quisqueya), to which he has been borne by adverse winds and which he renames La Isla Española (Hispaniola). He finds the natives wearing gold ornaments and builds a stockade on the northern coast and names it La Navidad, but his Santa Maria runs onto a reef on Christmas Eve and sinks the next day (see 1493).

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The discovery of new land by Christopher Columbus opened the Western Hemisphere to European conquest.

The Taíno culture encountered by Columbus in Cuba will be wiped out within 30 years by disease, forced labor, and Spanish musketry, leaving almost no trace of its existence beyond a few words that will survive in the English words barbecue, canoe, hammock, hurricane, and tobacco.