After departing the Samaná peninsula, Columbus drafted two letters about the voyage, likely completing them before the Niña and Pinta were engulfed by a violent storm on February 12, 1493. The first is known as the “Letter to Santángel,” written to King Ferdinand’s advisor Luis de Santángel, which Columbus eventually had copied over a dozen times and dispatched to others to aggrandize his voyage. The second was a similar private letter written to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, meant for their eyes alone.
The private letter was lost to history for almost five hundred years, but in 1985 a purported copy of it and a few other letters written by Columbus relating to subsequent voyages were found—the so-called “Libro Copiador.” While some question the authenticity of these documents, I believe they both reflect a knowledge, outlook, and writing style that Columbus did have and do not reflect a typical forger’s error of inadvertently including knowledge or outlook that could only have been understood subsequently. The documents include new information about the encounters. In my view, while the new information doesn’t significantly alter prior understandings about Columbus, the documents do contain significant new information regarding Caonabó and Guarionex.