Columbus returned to Isabela in late March 1494, having left Pedro Margarite and a garrison of almost sixty men in the island’s mountainous Cibao to complete Fort Santo Tomás’s construction (see post of March 12). Within just days—April 1, 1494 (528 years...

The twelve ships Columbus had dispatched to Spain from Isabela on February 2, 1494 (see post of February 2), arrived Cádiz on March 7, and the surviving indigenous captives he’d taken on Guadeloupe and St. Croix (see posts of November 4 and 14) were transferred to the...

With Isabela’s construction underway on the coast, on March 12, 1494 (528 years ago), Columbus heralded his conquest of “Española,” marching with five hundred men into the mountainous region the Taínos called the Cibao to build a fort intended to garrison soldiers who...

The island’s Taíno chieftains scrutinized Isabela’s construction in early 1494 and the permanent presence apparently intended—but they didn’t attack. The chieftains then traded peacefully among themselves and with other peoples in the Caribbean (excepting Caribes),...

Today, I break from posting chronologically about events depicted in Columbus and Caonabó: 1493–1498 Retold to discuss the weddings and marriages of three couples—Spain’s Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, the Taíno chieftain Caonabó and Anacaona, and Columbus and his...

Isabela’s construction progressed in January 1494, laid out just as a contemporary Spanish town, with a church, crown, and military buildings at its core, a fortified residence for Columbus and his staff, and the voyagers’ homes emanating from the core, ordered by...

After crossing Puerto de los Hidalgos, Alonso de Hojeda’s expedition descended south into the great valley of the modern Dominican Republic that Columbus would name La Vega Real (the Royal Plain). Journeying for two weeks, the men forded the Yaque River (which retains...

Columbus lost no time searching for the gold he’d promised Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. On January 7, 1494, 528 years ago, he dispatched an expedition of over thirty lightly armed soldiers to find it in the island’s mountainous interior, led by the man who would...

As depicted in Columbus and Caonabó, a third of the voyagers—some four hundred men—were beset with fevers, headaches, vomiting, and diarrhea within days of debarking on the promontory. Modern epidemiologists speculate that the causes included dysentery from the...

As depicted in Columbus and Caonabó, in December 1493 fierce easterly trade winds and harsh winter storms severely impeded Columbus’s journey east to select a permanent site to initiate the island’s conquest. When he finally anchored in the inlet at Río de Gracia,...