3-1 Columbus First Voyage 4 minute version

The first voyage of exploration made by Christopher Columbus began on the 3rd of August in the year 1492. He and his crew set off in three ships, the Santa Maria, the Niña and the Pinta. They left from the harbour of Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain and sailed first to the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. Here they stocked up on supplies before venturing out into the wide-open Atlantic Ocean, in a part of the world where the prevailing trade winds conveniently blow from east to west. After nearly five weeks at sea, the explorers began to grow worried they would run out of food and water if they didn't find land soon. But on October 12th of 1492, a lookout aboard the Pinta alerted the crew that he had spotted an island. And Columbus immediately assumed that it must lay off the coast of Asia. But in reality, that island was not far from the mainland of North America, a continent that, at the time, was essentially unknown to Europeans. As they headed to shore in a small boat, Columbus was completely overjoyed at what he believed he had accomplished. He soon claimed the island for Spain and named it San Salvador, or Holy Saviour. Today, that island is just one of the many hundreds of islands that comprise the nation that we now call the Bahamas. It was here that the explorers first made contact with the Tainos, a hospitable group of indigenous people that Columbus referred to as Indios, based on his belief that he was near India. Columbus noted that some of the Tainos wore gold jewelry, so he assumed that the source of the precious metal must lie close by. He also noted the scars on their bodies, which he believed had come from fighting off enemies who had tried to enslave them. Observing their absence of sophisticated weaponry and apparent lack of any religion with which they were familiar, Columbus believed that they would be an easy group to conquer. He later wrote, As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force, in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. It probably was the Tainos' information that prompted Columbus to sail to nearby Cuba to search for whatever gold and other valuable items he could locate in the native settlements along the coast. But after finding very little, he soon grew discouraged. It was at that point that the captain of the Pinta abandoned the expedition and sailed off on an unapproved mission through the southern Bahamas to try to find another island that the native people had said was filled with gold. The other two ships continued on without the Pinta, eventually reaching an island now known as Hispaniola that Columbus originally named Española. It was here, along the northern shore of what is now the nation of Haiti, that the Santa Maria was shipwrecked on Christmas Day of 1492. After that happened, Columbus salvaged what he could from the wreckage, and some of it helped build La Navidad, the first European settlement in the New World. A short time later, he sailed along the coast of Hispaniola, leaving 39 crew members behind to colonize the settlement. His ship, the Niña, reconnected with the Pinta on January 15 of 1493, and the explorers began their long journey back to Europe, taking with them a little tobacco, a small amount of gold, and some captive Taino people. The two ships sailed off together in a northeasterly direction, but were separated during a storm. Columbus headed to safety in the Azores, a group of beautiful mountainous islands belonging to Portugal that lie about 900 miles, or 1,400 kilometers, off the western coast of Europe. After leaving the Azores, Columbus encountered another storm, but he sailed on to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, at right around the same time the Pinta landed in northern Spain. It's interesting to note that in Lisbon, Columbus spoke with a Portuguese explorer who, just six years earlier, had become the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa. His name was Bartolomeu Dias. After spending more than a week in Portugal, Columbus set sail for Spain, entering the harbour of Palos de la Frontera on the 15th of March, 1493. After he landed, it wasn't long before word of his amazing discoveries of a new world spread across Europe.