by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
At dawn on December 26, Guacanagarí rode by canoe to meet Columbus aboard the Niña. That afternoon and over the next week, the two men would have a series of conversations—dramatized in Encounters Unforeseen—resulting in understandings that Columbus would leave a...
by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
By New Year’s Day, Columbus selected almost forty crewmen—roughly equivalent in number to the sunken Santa María’s crew—to be left behind when he departed for Spain. Selection wasn’t difficult because many volunteered, enticed by the gold pieces they had traded for...
by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
Columbus came ashore to say farewell to Guacanagarí and instill both “friendship and fear,” directing crewmen to conduct a mock battle between themselves using swords, crossbow, and artillery. They fired a lombard at some plank siding of the Santa María...
by Andrew Rowen | | Dominican Republic, Haiti
I suspect Columbus drew his famous sketch of Española’s northwestern coast on or about January 11, 1493, when the Niña would have progressed to the point where the map’s coastline ends in the east. The original sketch has been in the collection of the Duques de...
by Andrew Rowen | | Haiti
The garrison of sailors Columbus left with Chief Guacanagarí in January 1493 (see January 1) left no written account, and its history is known principally through reports of Columbus and other Europeans chronicling Columbus’s second voyage. These reports conclude the...
