Chapter 1 The Arrival of Columbus The crew aboard the Niña the Pinta and the Santa María was getting restless The 90 men had been at sea for more than two months already Where were they Would their food supplies hold up long enough Would they be able to find their way back to Spain Their captain Christopher Columbus knew that he was about to have a mutiny on his hands But Columbus was not ready to turn around He had promised King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that this voyage would be a success Perhaps more important he had spent most of his adult life planning this trip Columbus swore that he could sail west from Spain halfway around the world He was determined to be the first to find a water route to the Indies the eastern part of Asia Christopher Columbus 1451 1506 4
Columbus anxiously scanned the seas for any sign of land Then on October 7 1492 birds were sighted Land had to be close by Columbus declared that the first sailor to spot land would receive a handsome reward At 2 a m on October 12 1492 a Spanish sailor aboard the Pinta woke up the men shouting Tierra Tierra Land Land Dimly lit by moonlight the shore lay above the black water Later that morning Columbus became the first European to step on the white sand of that land Almost immediately natives arrived at the beach with great curiosity The islanders were unlike anybody the Spaniards had ever seen Most of them were naked Their bodies were decorated with black red and white paint One story goes that Columbus’s crew cried when they lost sight of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa Those islands were the last familiar piece of land the men would see for months 5
Columbus believed he had successfully discovered a water route to Asia The natives he thought were from an island in the East Indies near Japan or China He called them Indians But Columbus was still thousands of miles from Asia What he didn’t know what no European knew was that North and South America blocked the way from Europe to Asia In reality Columbus was on the shore of an island in the Bahamas south of Florida Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in a small wooden ship with sails I therefore gave red caps to some and glass beads to others They hung the beads around their necks along with some other things of slight value that I gave them And they took great pleasure in this and became so friendly that it was a marvel They traded and gave everything they had with good will but it seems to me that they have very little and are poor in everything I warned my men to take nothing from the people without giving them something in exchange The Log of Christopher Columbus Today I made 180 miles 289 69 kilometers at a speed of 71⁄2 knots I recorded only 144 miles 231 75 kilometers in order not to alarm the sailors if the voyage is lengthy The Log of Christopher Columbus 6
THE TAINO PEOPLE No one knows for sure which island Columbus landed on The natives called it Guanahani These islanders were probably Taino Columbus described the Taino people as being tall and tan They had straight hair which they knotted in the back They had a custom of binding their heads which made their foreheads wide and flat Columbus often referred to the Taino as a kind gentle people At the same time he considered them primitive in part because of their lack of clothing and guns In reality the Taino had a highly developed culture The Taino were skilled farmers They made cotton cloth pottery and wood carvings They built large wooden canoes that could hold more than 100 people The swift boats were used for fishing The Taino also paddled to nearby islands where they traded with neighboring communities The natives lived close to one another in thatch houses They often gathered at a central plaza for meetings and dances Boys and girls played games with rubber balls Tobacco leaves were lit and passed around as an act of friendship In fact the word tobacco comes from the Taino as do other words such as hammock hurricane and canoe An illustration from the late 1800s shows Columbus and members of his crew soon after landing in the Bahamas The Spaniards brought small objects such as beads and bells to trade with the native people 7
