1492 from a Bicultural Perspective
Encounters Unforeseen was published in 2017, during the 525th anniversary of the first
encounters between Columbus and Native Americans. Andrew’s blogs posted in 2017 and 2018
to recount what happened on the same dates in 1492 and 1493 are archived below, reordered
chronologically. The archive also includes the sketches of the book’s protagonists and some
additional photos and commentary that Andrew concurrently posted on Facebook. Dates are
based on the Julian calendar used by Europeans in 1492.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Chronology
Monday, February 18, 1493
After three perilous days, the violent storm began to abate on February 15. But the sea remained rough and, now alone, the Niña struggled for two days to make landfall on the southernmost island of the Azores, Santa María. After sunset on the 17th, Columbus anchored...
Friday, February 22, 1493
On February 19, Columbus dispatched half his crew ashore at Santa María, Azores, to fulfill a vow made during the storm for a pilgrimage—barefoot and without pants—to the first church they found dedicated to the Virgin Mary. But the locals, subjects of Portugal’s King...
Early March, 1493
The Niña’s crew had lost sight of the Pinta during the storms off the Azores on the night of February 13 and surmised it had sunk. But the Pinta had survived, and its captain, Martín Alonso Pinzón, brought it to harbor at Bayona on Castile’s western coast, north of...
Sunday, March 3, 1493
Columbus, crew, and the ten Taínos aboard the Niña departed the Azores for Spain on February 24 and suffered more rough weather. Another violent storm enveloped them after sunset on March 3 and, within sight of the Portuguese coast, they almost perished again. The...
Monday, March 4, 1493
At dawn on March 4, Columbus recognized the Rock of Sintra offshore Lisbon, Portugal, and sailed the battered Niña to take refuge in Lisbon’s outer harbor. He knew Portugal’s King John II, having spent a few years trying to convince John to sponsor the voyage (in the...
Friday, March 8, 1493
Portugal’s King John II summoned Columbus to meet northeast of Lisbon, and Columbus brought along at least two of the Taínos. The route to meet John wove through Lisbon, shown below c.1598 (a century later) in Civitates Orbis Terrarum: As dramatized in Encounters...
Sunday, March 10, 1493
The house in the parish of Vale do Paraíso (northeast of Lisbon) where Columbus and the Taínos met King John II still exists, shown below (to the right). King John didn’t believe Columbus’s account of his voyage and asked two Taínos separately to draw a map of their...
Friday, March 15, 1493
Columbus, crew, and the ten Taínos aboard the Niña departed Portugal on March 13 and anchored two days later at Palos, Spain, the small port from which the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María had departed on August 3, 1492. Coincidentally, the Pinta returned to Palos the...
March 15-29, 1493
Columbus’s Journal provides a European historical record of daily events over a seven-month period (August 3, 1492 through March 15, 1493) which is unusual for the 15th century and far exceeds in detail and specificity the related historical record preceding or...
March 31-April 10, 1493
On March 31, 1493, then Palm Sunday, Columbus and the ten Taínos arrived at Seville, shown below c. 1588 (Civitates Orbis Terrarum). They would have entered by the bridge over the Guadalquivir in the lower left (a predecessor to the present Puente de Isabel II),...
©2018 Andrew S. Rowen. All rights reserved.
Site designed and powered by JKS Communications
All Persons Press
New York, New York