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
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