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71-744: In 1502, during his fourth and final voyage , Christopher Columbus discovered the Chagres River. By 1534, the Monarchy of Spain had, following its conquest of Peru , established a rainy-season gold route over the isthmus of Panama— Camino Real de Cruces —using mule trains and the Chagres River . The trail connected the Pacific port of Panama City to the mouth of the Chagres, from whence Peru's plunder would sail to Spain's storehouses in

142-495: A further element of key importance in the voyages of Columbus, the trade winds . He planned to first sail to the Canary Islands before continuing west by utilizing the northeast trade wind. Part of the return to Spain would require travelling against the wind using an arduous sailing technique called beating , during which almost no progress can be made. To effectively make the return voyage, Columbus would need to follow

213-649: A group of at least 20 women the Caribs had been keeping as sex slaves , swam ashore, having recognized their homeland. The women rescued in Guadeloupe explained that any male captives were eaten, and that their own male offspring were castrated and made to serve the Caribs until they were old enough to be considered good to eat. The Europeans rescued three of these boys. San Lorenzo Protected Area San Lorenzo Protected Area (SLPA; "Area Protegida San Lorenzo")

284-558: A letter to the Vatican dated 1 November 1493, the historian Peter Martyr described Columbus as the discoverer of a Novi Orbis (" New Globe "). The pope issued four bulls (the first three of which are collectively known as the Bulls of Donation ), to determine how Spain and Portugal would colonize and divide the spoils of the new lands. Inter caetera , issued 4 May 1493, divided the world outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along

355-485: A map depicting such a route, with no intermediary landmass other than the mythical island of Antillia . In 1484 on the island of La Gomera in the Canaries , then undergoing conquest by Castile , Columbus heard from some inhabitants of El Hierro that there was supposed to be a group of islands to the west. A popular misconception that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because Europeans thought

426-444: A mutiny by sailors who wanted to abandon the search and return to Spain. On the next day, they saw several artefacts floating up the sea, which caused them to believe that land was nearby. Columbus changed the fleet's course to due west, and sailed through the night, with many sailors looking for land. At around 10:00 pm on 11 October, Columbus thought he saw a light "like a little wax candle rising and falling". Four hours later, land

497-506: A north–south meridian 100 leagues west of either the Azores or Cape Verde Islands in the mid-Atlantic, thus granting Spain all the land discovered by Columbus. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas , ratified in the next decade by Pope Julius II , moved the dividing line to 370 leagues west of the Azores or Cape Verde. The stated purpose of the second voyage was to convert the indigenous Americans to Christianity. Before Columbus left Spain, he

568-503: A sensation: Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures, are both fertile and beautiful ... the harbors are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold. ... There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals... Upon Columbus's return, most people initially accepted that he had reached the East Indies, including the sovereigns and Pope Alexander VI , though in

639-707: A ship named Pinta probably identical to that from the first expedition. In addition, the expedition saw the construction of the first ship in the Americas, the Santa Cruz or India . On 3 November 1493, Christopher Columbus landed on a rugged shore on an island that he named Dominica . On the same day, he landed at Marie-Galante , which he named Santa María la Galante . After sailing past Les Saintes ( Todos los Santos ), he arrived at Guadeloupe ( Santa María de Guadalupe ), which he explored between 4 November and 10 November 1493. The exact course of his voyage through

710-641: A shorter route to the Orient , Columbus and his crew took three medium-sized ships, the largest of which was a carrack (Spanish: nao ), the Santa María , which was owned and captained by Juan de la Cosa , and under Columbus's direct command. The other two were smaller caravels ; the name of one is lost, but it is known by the Castilian nickname Pinta ("painted one"). The other, the Santa Clara ,

781-491: A still safer place to land, so the Niña moved once again. At this spot, Columbus took aboard several islanders with food. When told of the vow to Our Lady, the islanders directed the crew to a small shrine nearby. Columbus sent half of the crew to the island to fulfil their vow, but he and the rest stayed on the Niña , planning to send the other half later. While the shore party were in prayer, they were taken prisoner by order of

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852-577: A travel distance of 2,400 nautical miles was about four times too low (which was accurate). In 1486, Columbus was granted an audience with the Catholic Monarchs, and he presented his plans to Isabella. She referred these to a committee, which determined that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. Pronouncing the idea impractical, they advised the monarchs not to support the proposed venture. To keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open,

923-547: Is a 12,000-ha area in Panama. It includes Fort San Lorenzo and Fort Sherman . At its longest point, is measures 24 kilometres (15 mi) from "Toro Point to the town of Escobal". The widest point of its width measures 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) "from the southeastern corner of Limón Bay to the beaches northeast of the town of Piña". All areas of the SLPA were returned to Panama on June 30, 1999. Major physiographic features of

994-558: The Arabic mile (about 1,830 m), he had used the Italian mile (about 1,480 meters). Alfraganus had calculated the length of a degree to be 56⅔ Arabic miles (66.2 nautical miles). Columbus therefore estimated the size of the Earth to be about 75% of Eratosthenes's calculation, and the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan as 2,400 nautical miles (about 23% of the real figure). There was

1065-618: The Caribbean coast form part of the defence system built by the Spanish Crown to protect transatlantic trade." Chagres features prominently in The Adventures & Brave Deeds Of The Ship's Cat On The Spanish Maine: Together With The Most Lamentable Losse Of The Alcestis & Triumphant Firing Of The Port Of Chagres , a children's book by Richard Adams . Voyages of Christopher Columbus Between 1492 and 1504,

1136-661: The Catholic Monarchs of Spain ) in 1469, and the completion of the Reconquista in 1492, when the joint rulers conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada , which had been providing Castile with African goods through tribute . The fledgling Spanish Empire decided to fund Columbus's expedition in hopes of finding new trade routes and circumventing the lock Portugal had secured on Africa and the Indian Ocean with

1207-543: The Greater Antilles , first sighting the eastern coast of the island of Puerto Rico , known to its native Taino people as Borinquen , on the afternoon of 17 November 1493. The fleet sailed along the island’s southern coast for a whole day, before making landfall on its northwestern coast at the Bay of Añasco , between the towns of Mayagüez and Aguadilla , early on 19 November 1493. Upon landing, Columbus christened

1278-535: The Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming many islands including Santa María de Montserrat ( Montserrat ), Santa María la Antigua ( Antigua ), Santa María la Redonda ( Redonda ), and Santa Cruz ( Saint Croix , on 14 November). He also sighted and named the island chain of Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes (the Virgin Islands ), and named

1349-466: The Niña ' s lateen sails were re-rigged to standard square sails. Final provisions were secured, and on 6 September the ships departed San Sebastián de La Gomera for what turned out to be a five-week-long westward voyage across the Atlantic. As described in the abstract of his journal made by Bartolomé de las Casas , on the outward bound voyage Columbus recorded two sets of distances: one

1420-661: The North Star . It was once believed that Columbus had discovered magnetic declination , but it was later shown that the phenomenon was already known, both in Europe and in China. After 29 days out of sight of land, on October 7 1492, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds", some of which his sailors trapped and determined to be "field" birds (probably Eskimo curlews and American golden plovers ). Columbus changed course to follow their flight. On October 10, Columbus quelled

1491-545: The leading Atlantic ports of the isthmus: Nombre de Dios , at first; and, later, Portobelo . (The dry-season, overland route—the Camino Real —connected Panama City with those ports directly.) Attracted to the treasure, pirates began attacking Panama's coast around 1560. To protect the Atlantic terminus of Las Cruces Trail (Camino Real de Cruces), Spain built Fort San Lorenzo at the Chagres River's mouth. The work began in 1598 by order of King Philip II. From 1587 to 1599,

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1562-557: The 1481 papal bull Aeterni regis . In response to the need for a new route to Asia, by the 1480s, Christopher and his brother Bartholomew had developed a plan to travel to the Indies (then construed roughly as all of southern and eastern Asia) by sailing directly west across what was believed to be the singular "Ocean Sea," the Atlantic Ocean . By about 1481, Florentine cosmographer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli sent Columbus

1633-638: The 30,000 acres (12,000 ha) of the San Lorenzo Protected Area , all former Canal Zone territory. In 1980, UNESCO declared Fort San Lorenzo, together with the fortified town of Portobelo about 30 miles (48 km) to the northeast, to be a World Heritage Site under the name, " Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama ." The organization describes the fortifications as follows: "Magnificent examples of 17th- and 18th-century military architecture, these Panamanian forts on

1704-592: The Americas, in the Bay of Rincón at the eastern end of the Samaná Peninsula in northeast Hispaniola. There he encountered the Ciguayos , the only natives who offered violent resistance during this first voyage. The Ciguayos refused to trade the number of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and another wounded with an arrow in his chest. Because of

1775-480: The Catholic Monarchs gave him an allowance, totaling about 14,000 maravedís for the year, or about the annual salary of a sailor. In 1488 Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal, receiving a new invitation for an audience with John II. This again proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal following a successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa. With an eastern sea route now under its control, Portugal

1846-606: The Ciguayos' use of arrows, Columbus named the inlet the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows). Four natives who boarded the Niña at Samaná Peninsula told Columbus of what was possibly the Isla de Carib, which was supposed to be populated by cannibalistic Caribs , as well as Matinino, an island populated only by women, which Columbus associated with an island in the Indian Ocean described by Marco Polo . On 16 January 1493,

1917-670: The Earth was flat can be traced back to a 17th-century campaign of Protestants against Catholicism, and was popularized in works such as Washington Irving 's 1828 biography of Columbus. In fact, the knowledge that the Earth is spherical was widespread, having been the general opinion of Ancient Greek science, and gaining support throughout the Middle Ages (for example, Bede mentions it in The Reckoning of Time ). The primitive maritime navigation of Columbus's time relied on both

1988-453: The Earth was much smaller and that Asia was only a few thousand nautical miles to the west of Europe. Columbus believed the incorrect calculations of Marinus of Tyre , putting the landmass at 225 degrees, leaving only 135 degrees of water. Moreover, Columbus underestimated Alfraganus 's calculation of the length of a degree, reading the Arabic astronomer's writings as if, rather than using

2059-680: The Italian navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus led four transatlantic maritime expeditions in the name of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain to the Caribbean and to Central and South America. These voyages led to the widespread knowledge of the New World . This breakthrough inaugurated the period known as the Age of Discovery , which saw the colonization of the Americas , a related biological exchange , and trans-Atlantic trade . These events,

2130-497: The Portuguese Azores Islands , but others felt that they were considerably north of the islands. Columbus turned out to be right. On the night of 17 February, the Niña laid anchor at Santa Maria Island , but the cable broke on sharp rocks, forcing Columbus to stay offshore until morning when a safer location was found nearby. A few sailors took a boat to the island, where they were told by several islanders of

2201-590: The Spanish conquest of the Americas . Columbus died in 1506, and the next year, the New World was named "America" after Amerigo Vespucci , who realized that it was a unique landmass. The search for a westward route to Asia was completed in 1521, when the Magellan expedition sailed across the Pacific Ocean and reached Southeast Asia , before returning to Europe and completing the first circumnavigation of

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2272-472: The Spanish fortifications at Portobelo and Chagres . With the Bourbon Reforms , Spain had mostly abandoned trade at Portobelo, instead strengthening its fortifications at Chagres, and, upstream, Gatun . With the decline of Portobelo, Chagres surpassed it as the chief Atlantic port of the isthmus. By the middle of the 18th century, however, the Spanish had largely abandoned both of the old trails over

2343-465: The bank opposite the original village and fortress. The rebirth of Chagres' importance was short-lived. Although the advent of steamboat service on the Chagres River had, by 1853, shortened the time required to cross the isthmus from several days to about twelve hours, the 1855 completion of the Panama Railway further reduced the transcontinental travel time to about three hours. As a result,

2414-421: The best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves . They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language. Columbus called

2485-564: The curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he would be able to catch the " westerlies " that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. The navigational technique for travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the volta do mar ('turn of the sea'). Columbus's knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at

2556-590: The effects and consequences of which persist to the present, are often cited as the beginning of the modern era . Born in the Republic of Genoa , Columbus was a navigator who sailed in search of a westward route to India , China , Japan and the Spice Islands thought to be the East Asian source of spices and other precious oriental goods obtainable only through arduous overland routes . Columbus

2627-434: The following year, using San Lorenzo as his base of operations. In the 1680s, the Spanish constructed a new fort 80 feet (24 m) above the water. Set on a cliff overlooking the entrance to the harbor, the fort was protected on the landward side by a dry moat with a drawbridge. During this time, the town of Chagres was established under the protection of the fort. In 1739 and 1740, British Admiral Edward Vernon attacked

2698-411: The fortifications evolved into a sea-level battery and they were completed in 1601. The plans of the massive fortress were made by the Italian engineer Baptist Antonelli. The castle of San Lorenzo was built on top of a high reef, in a position that dominated the entrance of the Chagres River. In 1670, buccaneer Henry Morgan ordered an attack that left Fort San Lorenzo in ruins. He invaded Panama City

2769-435: The generally accepted view of his time was in his incorrect assumption of a significantly smaller diameter for the Earth, claiming that Asia could be easily reached by sailing west across the Atlantic. Most scholars accepted Ptolemy 's correct assessment that the terrestrial landmass (for Europeans of the time, comprising Eurasia and Africa ) occupied 180 degrees of the terrestrial sphere, and dismissed Columbus's claim that

2840-426: The homeward journey was begun. While returning to Spain, the Niña and Pinta encountered the roughest storm of their journey, and on the night of 13 February, lost contact with each other. All hands on the Niña vowed, if they were spared, to make a pilgrimage to the nearest church of Our Lady wherever they first made land. On the morning of 15 February, land was spotted. Columbus believed they were approaching

2911-576: The indigenous Americans indios (Spanish for 'Indians') in the mistaken belief that he had reached the East Indies; the islands of the Caribbean are termed the West Indies because of this error. Columbus initially encountered the Lucayan , Taíno , and Arawak peoples. Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoners and insisted that they guide him to

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2982-466: The island San Juan Bautista after Saint John the Baptist , preacher and prophet who baptized Jesus Christ , and remained anchored there for two days, 20 and 21 November 1493. Fleet member Diego Álvarez Chanca recounts that as they sailed along the southern coast of Puerto Rico , a Taino woman and boy, who had volunteered to join them on-board in Guadeloupe , after having been rescued together with

3053-530: The island of Virgin Gorda . On Santa Cruz , the Europeans saw a canoe with a few Carib men and two women. They had two male captives, and had recently castrated them. The Europeans pursued them, and were met with arrows from both the men and women, fatally wounding at least one man, who perished about a week later. The Europeans either killed or captured all aboard the canoe, thereafter beheading them. Another

3124-462: The island's captain, João de Castanheira, ostensibly out of fear that they were pirates. Castanheira commandeered their shore boat, which he took with several armed men to the Niña , planning to arrest Columbus. When Columbus defied him, Castanheira said he did not believe or care about Columbus' story, denounced the Spaniards, and went back to the island. After another two days, Castanheira released

3195-643: The isthmus, preferring to sail around the tip of South America at Cape Horn . For over a century, Fort San Lorenzo was used as a prison. The 1848 finding of gold in California stimulated new vitality at the mouth of the Chagres River. Westbound prospectors who preferred to avoid crossing the "Great American Desert" or rounding Cape Horn would follow the old path of the Las Cruces Trail, beginning their transcontinental journey at "Yankee Town" or "Yanqui Chagres"—the wild-west boomtown that sprang up on

3266-798: The mid-15th century, Europe enjoyed a safe land passage to China and India —sources of valued goods such as silk , spices , and opiates —under the hegemony of the Mongol Empire (the Pax Mongolica , or Mongol Peace). With the Fall of Constantinople to the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1453, European countries sought to compete with the Silk Road dominated by the gunpowder empires through expanded use of ocean voyages to scope out and establish new trade routes. Portugal

3337-603: The morning of October 12. Columbus called this island San Salvador; its indigenous name was Guanahani . The modern San Salvador Island in the Bahamas is considered to be the most likely candidate for this island. Columbus wrote of the natives he first encountered in his journal entry of 12 October 1492: Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves

3408-433: The mouth of Chagres River. The town of Chagres—which, by then, had only 96 houses and 400 to 500 inhabitants—was then "depopulated," and its former residents were resettled to Nuevo Chagres , located about 8.2 miles (13.2 km) to the southwest, along the coast. Fort San Lorenzo has been designated as government-protected since 1908. Currently, the ruins of Fort San Lorenzo and the Chagres village site are contained within

3479-487: The natives, a few Taíno he had kidnapped, flowers, and a hammock. He also brought the previously unknown tobacco plant, the pineapple fruit, and the turkey. He did not bring any of the precious East Indies spices such as black pepper, ginger or cloves. In his log, he wrote "there is also plenty of 'ají', which is their pepper, which is more valuable than black pepper, and all the people eat nothing else, it being very wholesome". Columbus brought captured Taínos to present to

3550-477: The newly claimed and colonized for the Crown; he would also receive ten percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity if he was successful. He had the right to nominate three people, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. The terms were unusually generous but, as his son later wrote, the monarchs were not confident of his return. For his westward voyage to find

3621-414: The prisoners, having been unable to get confessions from them or to capture his real target, Columbus. Some claimed that Columbus was captured, but this is contradicted by Columbus's logbook. Leaving the island of Santa Maria in the Azores on 23 February, Columbus headed for Castilian Spain, but another storm forced him into Lisbon . He anchored next to a king's harbor patrol ship on 4 March 1493, where he

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3692-577: The railway’s Atlantic terminus, Colón , became Panama's Atlantic port, and Chagres receded from importance. The construction of the Panama Canal , completed in 1914, required the construction of the massive Gatun Dam , about 7.2 miles (11.6 km) upriver from Chagres, permanently sealing off the river from inland trade. Although Chagres fell outside the original boundary of the Panama Canal Zone , that zone expanded in 1916 to include

3763-450: The rudder of the Pinta broke. Martín Alonso Pinzón suspected the owners of the ship of sabotage, as they were afraid to go on the journey. The crew was able to secure the rudder with ropes until they could reach the Canary Islands, where they arrived on 9 August. The Pinta had its rudder replaced on the island of Gran Canaria , and by September 2 the ships rendezvoused at La Gomera, where

3834-527: The source of the gold. Columbus noted that their primitive weapons and military tactics made the natives susceptible to easy conquest. Columbus observed the people and their cultural lifestyle. He also explored the northeast coast of Cuba , landing on 28 October 1492, and the north-western coast of Hispaniola , present day Haiti , by December 5 1492. Here, the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day , 25 December 1492, and had to be abandoned. Columbus

3905-463: The sovereigns, never having met the infamous Caribs. In Columbus's letter on the first voyage , addressed to the Spanish court, he insisted he had reached Asia, describing the island of Hispaniola as being off the coast of China. He emphasized the potential riches of the land, exaggerating the abundance of gold, and that the natives seemed ready to convert to Christianity. The letter was translated into multiple languages and widely distributed, creating

3976-407: The stars and the curvature of the Earth. Eratosthenes (who assumed three variables he had not proved: the distance of the sun, parallel light rays, and that the earth was spherical) had measured the diameter of the Earth with good precision in the 2nd century BC, and the means of calculating its diameter using an astrolabe was known to both scholars and navigators. Where Columbus differed from

4047-433: The time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season , skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a tropical cyclone , both of which, by chance, he avoided. Around 1484, King John II of Portugal submitted Columbus's proposal to his experts, who rejected it on the basis that Columbus's estimation of

4118-576: The voyage to be in violation of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas . After spending more than a week in Portugal, Columbus set sail for Spain. He arrived back in Palos on 15 March 1493 and later met with Ferdinand and Isabella in Barcelona to report his findings. Columbus showed off what he had brought back from his voyage to the monarchs, including a few small samples of gold, pearls , gold jewelry from

4189-494: The world. Many Europeans of Columbus's day assumed that a single, uninterrupted ocean surrounded Europe, Asia and Africa, although Norse explorers had colonized areas of North America beginning with Greenland c.  986 . The Norse maintained a presence in North America for hundreds of years, but contacts between their North American settlements and Europe had all but ceased by the early 15th century. Until

4260-732: Was directed by Ferdinand and Isabella to maintain friendly, even loving, relations with the natives. He set sail from Cádiz , Spain, on 25 September 1493. The fleet for the second voyage was much larger: two naos and 15 caravels. The two naos were the flagship Marigalante ("Gallant Mary") and the Gallega ; the caravels were the Fraila ('the nun'), San Juan , Colina ('the hill'), Gallarda ('the gallant'), Gutierre , Bonial , Rodriga , Triana , Vieja ('the old'), Prieta ('the brown'), Gorda ('the fat'), Cardera , and Quintera . The Niña returned for this expedition, which also included

4331-547: Was finally convinced by the king's clerk Luis de Santángel , who argued that Columbus would bring his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange the funding. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch Columbus, who had travelled several kilometers toward Córdoba. In the April 1492 " Capitulations of Santa Fe ", Columbus was promised he would be given the title "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" and appointed viceroy and governor of

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4402-410: Was in measurements he normally used, the other in the Portuguese maritime leagues used by his crew. Las Casas originally interpreted that he reported the shorter distances to his crew so they would not worry about sailing too far from Spain, but Oliver Dunn and James Kelley state that this was a misunderstanding. On 13 September 1492, Columbus observed that the needle of his compass no longer pointed to

4473-403: Was nicknamed the Niña ("girl"), perhaps in reference to her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers ( Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez , respectively). On the morning of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera , Huelva , going down the Rio Tinto and into the Atlantic. Three days into the journey, on 6 August 1492,

4544-426: Was no longer interested in trailblazing a western trade route to Asia crossing unknown seas. In May 1489, Isabella sent Columbus another 10,000 maravedis , and the same year the Catholic Monarchs furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost. As Queen Isabella's forces neared victory over the Moorish Emirate of Granada for Castile, Columbus

4615-403: Was partly inspired by 13th-century Italian explorer Marco Polo in his ambition to explore Asia. His initial belief that he had reached "the Indies" has resulted in the name " West Indies " being attached to the Bahamas and the islands of the Caribbean . At the time of Columbus's voyages, the Americas were inhabited by Indigenous Americans , and Columbus later participated in the beginning of

4686-434: Was received by the native cacique (chieftain) Guacanagari , who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including the interpreter Luis de Torres , and founded the settlement of La Navidad . He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship, until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January. On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in

4757-431: Was sighted by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermejo) aboard the Pinta . Triana immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout, and the ship's captain, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the land sighting and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard . Columbus would later assert that he had first seen land, thus earning the promised annual reward of 10,000 maravedís . They landed on

4828-413: Was summoned to the Spanish court for renewed discussions. He waited at King Ferdinand's camp until January 1492, when the monarchs conquered Granada. A council led by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera , found Columbus's proposal to reach the Indies implausible. Columbus had left for France when Ferdinand intervened, first sending Talavera and Bishop Diego Deza to appeal to the queen. Isabella

4899-474: Was the main European power interested in pursuing trade routes overseas, with the neighboring kingdom of Castile —the predecessor to Spain —having been somewhat slower to begin exploring the Atlantic because of the land area it had to reconquer from the Moors during the Reconquista . This remained unchanged until the late 15th century, following the dynastic union by marriage of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon (together known as

4970-450: Was thrown overboard, and when he was spotted crawling away holding his entrails, the Arawaks recommended he be recaptured so he would not alert his tribe; he was thrown overboard again, and then had to be shot down with arrows. Columbus's childhood friend Michele da Cuneo—according to his own account—took one of the women in the skirmish, whom Columbus let him keep as a slave; Cuneo subsequently beat and raped her. The fleet continued to

5041-430: Was told a fleet of 100 caravels had been lost in the storm. Astoundingly, both the Niña and the Pinta had been spared. Not finding King John II of Portugal in Lisbon, Columbus wrote to him and waited for a reply. The king agreed to meet Columbus at Vale do Paraíso, despite the poor relations between Portugal and Castile at the time. Upon learning of Columbus's discoveries, the Portuguese king informed him that he believed

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