Friday, Oct. 12
Last night fell with all of the men anxiously watching for the land that would end this long voyage. The wind was brisk and we were making good time. The Pinta, a better sailer than the Santa Maria, was out ahead, and two hours after midnight a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana in the rigging of the Pinta called down that he could see land. They immediately made the signals that I had ordered. We judged the land to be about two leagues from us, so we hauled down all the sails and jogged on and off passing time until daylight.With dawn we saw that we had reached an islet that we later learned was called Guanahani in the language of the inhabitants here. We could see people on the beach, and I quickly determined to go ashore in the armed launch. I took Martin Alonzo Pinzon and his brother, Vicente Yanez Pinzon, captain of the Nina. I bore the royal banner and the captains the two flags with the green cross. As we put ashore I called to the two captains and to the others who had jumped onto the land and to the royal clerk and the comptroller to witness that in the presence of all I would take, as in fact I did take, possession of the said island for the King and the Queen, my Lords.
On the island we saw very green trees, many ponds and fruits of various kinds. Soon many people of the island gathered around us. All that I saw were young people, not more than 30 years of age. They are well-formed, with handsome bodies and good faces, the color of the Canarians, neither black nor white. Their hair is coarse and short. They wear it down over their eyebrows except for a little in the back, which they wear long and never cut. Some of them paint their faces and some their whole body. They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly what is said to them, and I believe they will become Christians very easily and that they will be better converted to our Holy Faith by love than by fear.
Giving thanks to God for our victory, I have called this island San Salvador - Holy Savior, and from here I will push on to find the island of Cipango, which I now know is very near and, with the grace of God, accomplish all I have promised to your Highnesses.
From "The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America, 1492-1493," translated by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley Jr. Published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
1989 Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelly Jr.
Conclusion
With the epic landfall of Oct. 12, 1492, Columbus began the process of exploration that took him among many of the islands of the northern and central Caribbean. Particularly important to him were Cuba, Dominican Republic/Haiti, and Puerto Rico. On Christmas Eve he lost his flagship, the Santa Maria, on reefs off the Dominican Republic and left 39 men as the first modern European colony founded in the Western Hemisphere. The Nina and the Pinta returned to Spain, with Columbus arriving in Palos March 15, 1493.
Columbus made three subsequent voyages to the "New World," each more problematical than the last. The second trip left Spain in September 1493, and a third in 1498. From this trip Columbus returned to Spain a prisoner in chains because of his failures as governor of the new colonies. Many of his rights were now revoked. Old and sick, he completed one final voyage, which he called his "high voyage," between 1502 and 1504.
Columbus, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, died in Valladolid on the high plateaus of central Spain, May 20, 1506, where he had gone to again petition the court for a return of his full rights as "discoverer," those rights that belong to the brave.