Columbus’s fleet sailed from Boriquén (Puerto Rico) to “Española” on November 22, 1493, and last rites were given the sailor most seriously wounded on St. Croix. The next day, 528 years ago, the ships anchored briefly off Española’s mountainous Samaná peninsula (Dominican Republic).
Columbus had visited the peninsula on his first voyage and then abducted four Samanáns, who constituted four of the ten Taínos taken to Spain on that voyage. Only one of these four had survived European diseases to sail on the second voyage and return home.
Columbus directed the sailor’s burial ashore. He also released ashore the surviving abducted Samanán, instructing him to tell his people that Christians came in peace.
The photos below are of the great Samaná bay. A skirmish between Columbus’s men and Samanáns had occurred on the first voyage, and the first photo looks seaward from the beach known as Playa de las Flechas (Beach of the Arrows), where some historians believe the hostilities occurred (others say the Bay of Rincón, further north). The second is of the beach, and the third the inner portion of the bay seen from the atop the peninsula.
