Christopher Columbus

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Christopher Columbus : biography

c. 1451 – 20 May 1506

Second voyage

Columbus left the port of Cadiz on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity.Baccus, M. Kazim Utilization, Misuse, and Development of Human Resources in the Early West Indian Colonies, Wilfrid Laurier University Press (2 January 2000) ISBN 978-0-88920-982-4 pp.6–7 Modern studies suggest that, as reported by the Washington Post, "crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began.""". The Washington Post. 18 May 2009.

As in the first voyage, the fleet stopped at the Canary Islands, from which it departed on 13 October, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition. On 3 November, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, "The Saints"), he arrived at the island of Guadeloupe, which he named Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Cáceres, Spain. He explored that island from 4 to 10 November.

Michele da Cuneo, Columbus’s childhood friend from Savona, sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral."Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Columbus, Oxford Univ. Press, (1991) pp. 103–104 Columbus named the small island of "Saona … to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."Paolo Emilio Taviani, Columbus the Great Adventure, Orion Books, New York (1991) p. 185 The same childhood friend reported in a letter that Columbus had provided one of the captured indigenous women to him. He wrote, "While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked – as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But – to cut a long story short – I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores." This letter has been interpreted by some as providing evidence that Columbus knowingly aided the rape of captured indigenous people.

Pedro de las Casas, father of the priest Bartolomé de las Casas, also accompanied Columbus on this voyage.

The exact course of Columbus’s voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:

  • Montserrat (for Santa María de Montserrate, after the Blessed Virgin of the Monastery of Montserrat, which is located on the Mountain of Montserrat, in Catalonia, Spain),
  • Antigua (after a church in Seville, Spain, called Santa María la Antigua, meaning "Old St. Mary’s"),
  • Redonda (Santa María la Redonda, Spanish for "St. Mary the Round", owing to the island’s shape),
  • Nevis (derived from the Spanish Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, "Our Lady of the Snows", because Columbus thought the clouds over Nevis Peak made the island resemble a snow-capped mountain),
  • Saint Kitts (for St. Christopher, patron of sailors and travelers),
  • Sint Eustatius (for the early Roman martyr, St. Eustachius),
  • Saba (after the Biblical Queen of Sheba),
  • Saint Martin (San Martín), and
  • Saint Croix (from the Spanish Santa Cruz, meaning "Holy Cross").