by Andrew Rowen | Aug 5, 2023 | New York City
By the summer of 1495, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand had grown sufficiently concerned with Fray Buil’s, Pedro Margarite’s, and others’ criticisms of Columbus’s governance and the failure of gold shipments home to appoint an investigator to review his conduct and...
by Andrew Rowen | Jul 4, 2023 | New York City
Following the hurricane (see prior post), Columbus ordered Isabela’s shipwrights to construct two new caravels, the first ships so designed made in the Americas. He’d survived violent storms—during the return ocean crossing of the first voyage and the Cuban...
by Andrew Rowen | Jun 4, 2023 | New York City
A tremendous storm ravaged “Española” in the summer of 1495 (528 years ago), and the Spaniards adopted the Taínos’ word for it—hurakán—as the storm’s fury and swirl so distinguished it from storms they knew. As depicted in Columbus and Caonabó, the hurricane uprooted...
by Andrew Rowen | May 6, 2023 | New York City
Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand’s instructions to Columbus at the commencement of the second voyage required that all trade with “Indians” be conducted by barter. In practice, the key barter envisioned was trading items such as hawks’ bells, bead necklaces, and...
by Andrew Rowen | Apr 16, 2023 | New York City
The four ships bearing 550 Taíno captives that Columbus dispatched from Isabela on February 24, 1495 (see posts of February 1 and 25) arrived at Cádiz, Spain, on April 7, 1495. As depicted in Columbus and Caonabó, the ships had labored two weeks skirting east from...
