Crossing
the Ocean- Sea
Danilo Anton
The
small fleet departed from Palos on Friday, August 3rd,
1492, setting course for the Canary Islands, on the initial phase of
their planned itinerary.
The
first leg of the trip was quite eventful. A severe storm damaged “La
Pinta” and it was
left behind. The two remaining ships arrived at the island of Gomera
where they remained for two weeks. After a brief crossing to Gran
Canaria they were rejoined by “La
Pinta” and returned
to Gomera for the final outfitting before the ocean crossing.
On
the morning of September 6, 1492, the three ships began their daring
leap to the unknown horizon. Immediately after leaving Gomera, they
crossed a Spanish carabel from whose crew they learned about the
proximity of a Portuguese fleet. The news complicated the situation.
The Admiral knew the dangers he was facing. The Portuguese, very
defensive of their oceanic territory, might stop and arrest them.
Columbus’
brother, Bartholomew, had been appointed Chief Cartographer of
Portugal. Both because of these family ties and his previous links
with the Portuguese kingdom, he could be accused of spying for the
Castilians and executed.
It
was apparently at this moment that Columbus decided to keep his
navigation records in two different diaries. In one he wrote the
real positions, in the other fake data to confuse the Portuguese in
case they were detained.
We
know of only one of those diaries. It reached us through a copy made
a few decades later by Bartolome de las Casas a few decades later
using documents from Ferdinando Columbus’ libraryi.
In
a South-Southwesterly direction
According
to Luis Coin, who researched the issue in depth, the ships did not
travel West, as stated in the known journal, but South-Southwest
(therefore toward the area under Portuguese control) aiming to find
the right winds. Evidence supporting this theory is very convincing.
First, during the initial days of the trip, Columbus’ diary
mentions a countercurrent which does not exist West of the Canary
Islands, but is found Southwest of the archipelago (particularly from
July through October). Secondly, at that moment he noticed that the
ocean water was less salty. That does not occur West of the Canary
Islands, but it does to the South and Southwest, as a result of a
rise of deep, cold, fresher water of polar origin which happens at
exactly that place. As a result of this upwelling the sea is very
rich in fish, particularly schools of thon and other species, as
described by Columbus in his chronicle. This fertility cannot be
found in the central Atlantic, contradicting known diary statements.
Another anomaly took place some days later, when the sailors saw
tropical birds in the middle of the ocean, 500 miles “West” of
the Canary Islands. Curiously, Columbus was not surprised. The
presence of these birds could easily be explained if the path of the
ship was South-Southwest instead of West.
Coin
found several other incongruent aspects in the Las Casas copy: an
inaccurate position of the Sargasso sea, progressions in excess of
4.5 nautical miles during the night, advances of 55 leagues during
calm days, and crew members swimming in the sea while the boat was
travelling fast.
Turning
West
According
to Coin, the turn to the West took place at about 20o
or 19o latitude
North, that is, seven degrees (800 km) South-Southwest of the Canary
islands. This hypothesis is compatible with the later “perception”
Columbus had of navigating between two islands in the Diary entry of
September 19 and the subsequent sighting of the coastline on
September 25th,
barely 20 days after his departure from Gomera. The island would have
been Sombrero, in the Virgin Islands group. On the following morning,
the land was lost to sight.
New
sightings took place afterward: on the dawn of October 1st,
Martin Alonso Pinzón saw a flat island, probably of the Turks and
Caicos group, but Columbus refused to go there. He prefered to reach
the mainland by taking advantage of the favorable winds. On October
7th
the “La Niña”
crew observed the semblance of an island, but its profile was lost
when the leading carabel arrived. Some days later the island of
Guanahani appeared in the distance. On October 12, as is well known,
Columbus and his crew disembarked and “took possession” in the
name of the Kings.
The
research work carried out by Coin clearly demonstrates the
inaccuracies and secretiveness of Columbus’ log. In order to ensure
his control of the situation the Genoese sailor kept part of the
information to himself. Likewise, we can assume that he may have
acted in the same way with his diaries of other trips, hiding data
he did not want known by others (such as the name Amerrique).
The
secret of Juan de la Cosa`s map
In
Juan de la Cosa’s map, prepared after Columbus’ return from his
second voyage, many features of the American continent are included:
the coasts of South and North America, Cuba, Haiti and other
Caribbean islands. Curiously, the Central American region, which
represented a key element in understanding the configuration of the
continent, was deliberately covered by a figure of Saint Christopher.
We do not know what information was concealed by the image. Maybe it
was the way to the Western ocean beyond the Central American isthmus.
Or possibly the location of the gold mines of Amerrique.
It was at that moment that information about these wealthy lands
began to reach Europe.
Three
years later, in 1503, during his fourth trip, Columbus did visit the
coasts of Amerrique.
He enthusiastically described the riches of the country, but in no
place did he mention the Costa Rica, the land-where-the-wind-blows,
Amerrique.
A
covert operation
His
reticence is understandable. Columbus was a very secretive person. He
always kept the most important pieces of information for himself. He
did that all his life, but more so when he had been displaced from
the governship of Hispaniola and betrayed by so many. He let the
Kings know that the new western lands were very rich in gold, but he
did not provide any specific information that could lead anybody to
find them. Most particularly, he concealed the designation of the
golden land: Amerrique.
However,
he was not able to hide the name from the members of the crew. By
late 1503, when the survivors returned to Europe, the news spread
like gunpowder. A new land, rich in gold, had been discovered west of
the oceanic islands. The native name was Amerrique, perhaps America.
In a few months everybody knew about it. On the far reaches of the
European world, people started using this new word for the Mundus
Novus. In 1507, when Jean Basin and Martin Walseemüller published
their famous Introductio
Cosmographiae, the
name America was already widely known and used. Almost certainly
Basin and Walseemüller did not know where that name originated.
Perhaps they believed that it came from the first name of Vespucci,
the author of the famous letters, may be they’ve got their
information from unknown contemporary sources, or simply they
invented it.
That
was the beginning of the fraud.
i
Ferdinando Columbus was Christopher Columbus’s second son.
From the book "Amerrique, the Orphans of Paradise", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones
Blog in Spanish daniloanton.blogspot.com
