1493 | Exploration, Colonization
Exploration, Colonization
Christopher Columbus uses wreckage from the Santa Maria to build up the stockade (La Navidad) on Hispaniola (see 1492), leaves 44 men at the fort, sets sail for home January 4 in the Niña, having kidnapped some natives. He is joined 2 days later by Martín Alonso Pinzón in the Pinta. They leave Hispaniola January 16, a storm in the North Atlantic separates them February 14, each captain believes the other to be lost, but Columbus sights an island in the Azores February 14. He lands in the Azores February 26 but is delayed for 6 days by the hostile Portuguese governor; he reaches Lisbon March 4, meets with Portugal's João II, and arrives at his home port of Palos March 15. Pinzón arrives at Palos in the Pinta a few hours later but dies within days. Columbus presents Isabella with "Indians," parrots, strange animals, and some gold; he demands and receives the reward that rightfully belongs to the sailor Rodrigo de Triana of the Pinta, who first sighted land last year.
Ferdinand and Isabella grant Columbus enormous privileges in the territories he has claimed for Spain, and they send him back as governor with about 1,500 men (including close to 200 private investors and a small troop of cavalry) in a fleet of at least 17 ships which sails from Cádiz September 24 and from the Canary Islands October 13. His second voyage has been financed in large part through the sale of assets formerly owned by Jews.
Christopher Columbus sights land in the Lesser Antilles Sunday, November 3, after a 21-day transatlantic crossing, calls the 290-square-mile (751-square-kilometer) island Dominica, sights the 426-square-mile island of Martinique (see 1502), and discovers the 530-square-mile island of Guadeloupe November 4 (its original Arawak tribal inhabitants have been displaced by Caribs, who call the two islands Karaukera, meaning Island of Beautiful Waters). Columbus consecrates it to Our Lady of Guadeloupe of Extremadura; he rescues some Arawak tribespeople who have been taken by Caribs from the island of Boriquén, agrees to return them to that island, reaches it November 19, lands on its west coast, takes possession in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, names it San Juan Bautista in honor of St. John the Baptist, and remains for 2 days; the 3,435-square-mile (8,897-square-kilometer) island is occupied by some 60,000 Taíno natives, a branch of the Arawak, and will later be called Puerto Rico (see Ponce de León, 1508). Columbus sights the 39½-square-mile (102.84-square-kilometer) island of Montserrat and names it for its jagged peaks. He visits the 176-square-mile island of Saint Kitts, which he names for his patron saint Christopher but finds it inhabited by warlike Carib tribespeople and sails on (see 1623). He arrives off Hispaniola November 22, sails westward to La Navidad, and reaches it November 28, only to find that the fort has been burned down and its garrison are all dead, some men having been killed in arguments over gold and women, others slain by natives in revenge for kidnapping their women. Anchoring December 8 at a point farther east on the coast of Hispaniola, Columbus founds a new settlement that he names La Isabela (see 1494).