Columbus's first voyage
voyage of exploration · 1492 AD–1493 AD
Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain in August 1492 with the Santa María, Pinta and Niña, sponsored by Ferdinand and Isabella to reach Asia. He landed in the Bahamas in October, explored the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola, and left 39 men at La Navidad after the Santa María was wrecked. He returned in March 1493, believing he had reached the Indies. His log survives only in an abstract by Bartolomé de las Casas, and which Bahamian island he first landed on is still debated.
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Recorded boundaries
| Period | Control | Confidence | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1492 AD | — | medium confidence | no observation date recorded | Set out from Palos de la Frontera. Reached La Gomera → San Salvador → Cuba → La Navidad. Set sail on 3 August 1492. Left the Canaries on 6 September, heading due west. Landfall on 12 October on an island the Taíno called Guanahani. This is the traditional identification; Samana Cay and others have been proposed. The Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day. Thirty-nine men were left in a fort built from her timbers; none survived to the second voyage. |
| 1493 AD | — | high confidence | no observation date recorded | Reached Samaná Bay → Azores → Lisbon → Palos de la Frontera. Sailed for home on 16 January 1493. Driven here by a violent storm in February. Storm-driven into Portugal and received by King João II. Returned on 15 March 1493. |
Each row is a snapshot the source recorded, not a continuous history. The period between two observations is an inference this atlas shows rather than hides.
Sources
- Abstracted by Bartolomé de las Casas; transcribed and translated by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley Jr., The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America, 1492–1493, (1989)
- Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (1942)