Nearly five centuries after the voyages of Christopher Columbus, questions still persist about where he first landed in the New World.
The history books tell us his first sighting was an island in the Bahamas. In 1942, Samuel Eliot Morison, noted naval historian and biographer of Columbus, named Wat- ling Island as Columbus’s first landfall. He wrote, “There is no longer any doubt. . . . That alone of any island in the Bahamas, Turks or Caicos groups, fits Columbus’s description.” In 1926, on the basis of earlier investigations, the Bahamian Parliament changed the name of Watling Island to San Salvador—the name given the island by Columbus. In the November 1986 issue of National Geographic, Senior Associate Editor Joseph Judge discounted Morison’s findings. Judge claimed that Columbus stepped ashore on an island now called Samana Cay, latitude 23° 05' north, longitude 73° 45' west. The National Geographic Society had researched that theory intensively for five years.
Nine other landfall islands have been proposed, and some 23 different routes to the New World have been suggested. For centuries, this mystery of the world’s most famous landfall has intrigued and occupied the minds of navigators, historians, geographers, and scientists. Some tried to find the true landfall by calculating the distance from Gomera, Columbus’s point of departure in the Canary Islands. Others backtracked from Cuba, one of Columbus’s known landings. Still others reconstructed relative distances from island to island, comparing their plotting to current charts.
Part of the problem with any of these methods is that what remains of Columbus’s log is only a copy (or a copy of a copy) made by Bartoleme de las Casas, a Spanish Dominican missionary and historian whose History of the Indies (Hawthorne, New York: Mouton De Gruyter, Tres Breve Relation sur la Destruction des Indies, 1975) begins with Columbus’s voyage. The part of the diary dealing with the discovery is written in first-person narrative, and many believe Las Casas copied that part of the log verbatim. Columbus’s son Ferdinand used some of the same language in a biography of his father.
More recent research was conducted by Dr. Steven Mitchell, a professor of geology at California State College in Bakersfield, and three teams of Earthwatch volunteers. As members of Earthwatch, a nonprofit organization that puts money and people at the disposal of scientists conducting research in the field, they had volunteered for the opportunity to take part in a scientific venture that could change the history books. The 49 volunteers, from 20 states, included computer analysts, teachers, writers and editors, retired executives, college students, and a lawyer.
Mitchell, who had been studying Bahamian coastlines since 1975, knew that today’s shorelines are not exactly the same as the ones Columbus saw 500 years ago. Some features have remained the same; others have changed dramatically because of the erosive, often destructive forces of wind and waves. He suggested using a different approach to landfall investigations other than the traditional computerized studies of navigational techniques, sailing Columbus’s route as recorded in his log, or backtracking from the later Cuba landfall. Mitchell preferred to study geological and archaeological evidence and to look more closely at shorelines and land formations. When Columbus arrived at the Bahamian shores, for example, he visited Indian villages, so to solve the age-old question requires a search for the remains of those villages and what is buried underneath the shifting sands. Dr. William Keegan, an archaeologist at the University of South Carolina and a coinvestigator in the lost landfalls of Columbus project, was in charge of that aspect of the search.
“I felt we needed to look at all the theories and study the different approaches,” said Mitchell. Through previous on-site research and field work, he was able to eliminate many of the proposed routes. And of the nine landfall sites proposed, he said only three deserved serious consideration: Joseph Judge and Samana Cay; Samuel Eliot Morison and Watling; and Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander R. T. Gould, who in 1927 suggested Conception Island as the first landfall.
After surveying and testing Conception Island and considering the changes in its shorelines, Mitchell concluded that this uninhabited island should receive equal consideration as the landfall.
Conception Island, four miles long and with an area of four square miles, has a lagoon that occupies most of its center. Smaller lakes are located along the periphery of the lagoon, matching Columbus’s description of “many waters.” Only the “very green trees” do not fit, but Mitchell’s theory covers that discrepancy: Heavy logging has destroyed the trees, and the natural tropical canopy forest has been replaced with scrub and imported trees such as Australian pine and palms. Furthermore, the headlands have eroded, bays have become choked with sand, and reefs may have grown wildly or have been smothered in sediment.
“On approach, the Bahamian islands just do not look the same as they did when Columbus discovered them,” says Mitchell. “Even so, Conception has all the requisite physical features that Samana Cay does not have, including a large central lagoon.”
Mitchell contends that when Columbus returned to his ships and set sail, he could have seen the hills of Long Island and Rum Cay to the south, which looked like numerous islands. And Conception is the right size for what Columbus referred to as an isleta, an island less than four square miles in area.
Views from ships also are important. Columbus wrote that he saw Indian villages on that first island as well as on other islands. Conditions under the water are just as significant. Columbus had to have an anchorage, for example, and a long boat had to be able to reach the shore.
Conception Island, southwest of today’s San Salvador Island, formerly Watling Island, and northwest of Rum Cay, which Morison claims is the second island Columbus visited, offers a solution to the mystery of the light Columbus described as “a little wax candle rising and falling ...” If Columbus landed first on Conception, he would have sailed between Rum Cay and Watling Island at night before sighting land. And a fire might have been burning on Watling’s southeastern shore. On a direct western course, which Columbus had changed to instead of his initial west-southwest course, it could have happened.
On 22 June 1987, Mitchell and his unlikely group of volunteers began testing these theories. The 14 members of Team I conducted field surveys on Long Island, a 60- mile-long Bahamian out island, hypothesized to be the third one visited by Columbus on his voyage of 1492. Mitchell and Dr. Keegan believe Columbus’s log descriptions of this third island, which he named Fernandina, are more detailed and verifiable than those of the first two islands he visited. The plan was to gather concrete evidence of the landings on Long Island and then work backwards to find the first landfall.
Every morning, with backpacks loaded and bota bags slung from their shoulders, team members clambered onto a flatbed truck for a bumpy ride over dusty roads to a drop-off point. From there they hiked two to three miles across rough terrain, up and over jagged limestone cliffs, and through thick scrub, or slogged through tidal waters to reach their destinations.
Following a daily field briefing, they broke into smaller units of two or three people to accomplish various assignments. Some took salt pond core samples, which entailed wading out into mucky salt ponds, hammering long tubes into the bottom, and carefully drawing out a sample that would be analyzed later. Others surveyed the places where Lucayan villages had been located previously, marking off old and new dunes in relation to the village sites. Strong swimmers in the group snorkeled off the coastline to check the depth of channels and to determine the location and age of reefs. At the end of each day, the results of the day’s work were analyzed and added to the growing mass of evidence.
Each day the case for a landing on Long Island’s northern shore was strengthened. The core samples showed evidence of fresh water. The snorkelers found what seemed to be the place Columbus described as a “wonderful port with an entrance, even though one could call it two entrances, for it has a small island in the middle, and they are both very narrow. And within [it is] very wide, enough for a hundred ships if there were depth. . . . ” In the back of their minds, they constantly asked themselves if Columbus could have landed here.
Even though all three of the more plausible landfall theories claim Long Island was the third island visited by Columbus, scholars disagree as to exactly where he landed. Judge claims Columbus landed on the southern end. Morison says the northern end was the landing site. Mitchell’s intent was to determine which theory was the most likely by checking them both. His investigations were based in part on Commander Gould’s suggestion that certain approaches would prove impossible if measured by evidence. Gould said we would then be left with the one solution with the highest degree of probability. Mitchell is still searching for that one solution.
The evidence collected by the Earthwatch team suggests strongly that there are better site candidates on Long Island than the ones suggested by Judge in National Geographic. “We have found good anchorages, evidence of Indian villages, places where longboats could have come in to shore,” said Mitchell. The evidence strongly suggests that two of Columbus’s anchorages off the third island were at Fish Pond Cape and Columbus Harbor.
The second week of the field project found the group anchored off Conception Island, comparing their view of the island to what Columbus said he saw. Excitement rippled through the group when they could see “one piece of land that is made like an island even though it is not . . . which one could cut into an island in two days.”
Eagerly, they began each hot day as before, preparing for field investigations. This time, however, they had to swim from the 85-foot dive boat to the shore before they could begin their work. Shoes, hats, other clothing, and supplies were pushed along in a rubber raft. Ashore once more, one group walked the island’s perimeter and took core samples of the lagoon, while others sought evidence of coastline changes. Divers and snorkelers searched the waters around the island, investigating the reefs and looking for channels where a longboat might have been able to come into a bay.
The first Earthwatch team to investigate Conception Island found a piece of Spanish pottery. Although it does not prove anything about Columbus’s first voyage, the shard of an old Spanish olive jar was uncovered in the middle of an area that had been used by Lucayan Indians. The area had not housed a village, but could have been used for the collection and preparation of food, such as conch. Mitchell claims the pottery probably was deposited on Conception between 1492 and 1512, proving evidence of Spanish-Indian contact on Conception, because the islands were depopulated by 1512 after the Lucayan Indians fell victim to disease and slavery.
“What we found supports the Conception theory; this island has to be considered more seriously as the first landfall,” says Mitchell. “There is good evidence in the island, its physical features, the size of the lagoon, prehistoric Indian activity, and the Spanish pottery. I’m not saying it is the (Columbus) landfall, but clearly it must be considered.”
Later investigations by Earthwatch and Mitchell added support to this theory. Team 2 picked up the search on 20 July and concentrated on Crooked Island as either the second (Judge’s theory) or the fourth (Morison’s) island visited by Columbus. Investigators and volunteers made detailed coastal geological surveys and shallow offshore snorkeling surveys. The archaeological group located three previously unknown Lucayan Taino sites and discovered a ceramic zemi, a representation of Lucayan ancestral spirits at one site. This was the first ceramic zemi to be found north of the Caicos Islands. Also uncovered was a collection of bones and the comer of a floor of a prehistoric house, the first Lucayan Taino house floor identified during excavations in the Bahama Islands.
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A Comparison of the Tracks |
|
|
Columbus |
Morison/Obregon |
Judge/Fox |
Mitchell/Gould |
1. San Salvador |
Watling Island |
Samana Cay |
Conception Island |
2. Santa Maria de la |
Rum Cay |
Crooked Island |
Rum Cay |
Conception |
|
|
|
3. Femandina |
Long Island— |
Long Island— |
Long Island— |
|
north shore |
south shore |
north shore |
4. Isabela |
Crooked Island |
Fortune Island |
Crooked Island |
5. Islas de Arena* |
Ragged Islands* |
Ragged Islands |
Ragged Islands |
6. Cuba |
Cuba |
Cuba |
Cuba |
* According to Mitchell, all of today’s searchers agree that the present Ragged Islands were Columbus’s Islas de Arena. |
In August, Team 3 sailed the 40-foot Sea Joy over the Morison, Judge, and Gould tracks along the coasts of Long, Crooked, Acklins, and Conception Islands, and Samana Cay and Rum Cay. Team 3 anchored off Conception Island, as Team 1 had done, and conducted further geological surveys. Meanwhile, the archaeology group went to Acklins Island, where they investigated ten Lucayan Taino sites.
And so another theory—the Mitchell/Gould track— entered the Columbus landfall controversy. So far, Mitchell is not making any definitive claims. He knows there is a possibility that 500 years down the road, scientists might be asking the same question: “Where did Columbus land?" And always having a question means that someone will always try to answer it. Right now, Mitchell and his volunteers are continuing to search for an answer to the question.
Annotated Bibliography
Cherrington, M. “Columbus Was Here. Or Was He?” Earthwatch Expedition News (Nov. 1986), pp. 4-6. Takes no position on the Columbus landfall controversy but discusses the purposes of the Landfalls of Columbus Expedition and encourages readers to keep an open mind.
Judge, J. “Where Columbus Found the New World,” National Geographic Magazine, v. 170, no. 5 (1986), pp. 566-599. The intriguing story, well illustrated in four-color photographs and maps, behind National Geographic's claim that Columbus’s first New World landfall was Samana Cay, a small, outlying eastern Bahamas island lying in latitude 23° 05' north, longitude 73° 45' west. A refutation of Samuel Eliot Morison’s theory that Columbus first landed on Watlings Island, the article is supported by a new translation of a copy of the Columbus diario (a summary of the discoverer’s log), a transatlantic voyage based on day-by-day positions in the log, a computer analysis, and archaeological evidence. Also includes an explanation by Luis Marden of how the day-by-day plotting was accomplished.
Lyon, E. “Translation of The Diario of Christopher Columbus, October 10- October 27, 1492.” Contained in the National Geographic Society’s Columbus Casebook, published with November 1986 issue of National Geographic, v. 170, no. 5 (1986). A line-by-line translation with explanatory footnotes of those momentous days when Columbus and his men, after venturing across the unknown Atlantic in three small ships, approached and then discovered a New World. In reading the translation, one has the feeling of looking over Columbus’s shoulder as he wrote the words
Mitchell, S. and Keegan, W. Lost Landfalls of Columbus, Earthwatch Expedition Briefing (1987), 150 pages. An explanation of preliminary research accomplished in the Bahamas and the theories to be researched during a six-week Earthwatch expedition. Includes research objectives, descriptions of the islands to be studied, past geomorphological and archaeological findings, maps, drawings, references, and a bibliography.
Mitchell, S. Final Field Report on Lost Landfalls of Columbus Earthwatch Expedition (1987). A report on the first scientific exploration of Conception Island, claimed by Mitchell as a prime candidate for the landfall island, plus details of the geological and archaeological investigations of Long Island, Acklins Island, and Crooked Island. Details the work done by three teams of scientists and volunteers over a six-week period.
Morison, S. E. Admiral of the Ocean Sea—A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little, Brown and Company (1942). A lively, entertaining but erudite biography that traces the life of Christopher Columbus from 1451 when he was bom in Genoa, Italy, to 20 May 1506, when he died in Valladolid, Spain, never having attained the glory and riches he had sought so assiduously. This book established Morison’s belief (based on his own research and sailing of what he believed to be the Columbus track) that Columbus’s landfall was Watlings Island, known at the time as Guanahani, named San Salvador by Columbus. Morison’s position is clear. He wrote: ”... there is no longer any doubt that the island called Guanahani, which Columbus renamed after Our Lord and Saviour, was the present San Salvador or Watlings. That alone of any island in the Bahamas, Turks, or Caicos groups fits Columbus’s description. The position of San Salvador and of no other island fits the course laid down in his Journal, if we work it backward from Cuba.”
Richardson, P. L., and Goldsmith, R. A. “The Columbus Landfall: Voyage Track Corrected for Winds and Currents.” Oceanus, v. 30, no. 3 (1987). Two oceanographers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) offer another computer-generated track of Columbus’s first transatlantic voyage and suggest that Watlings Island, today’s San Salvador, was the original San Salvador of Columbus.
The following appeared as part of the Earthwatch Expedition Briefing:
Gould, R. T. “The Landfall of Columbus: An Old Problem Re-stated,” Geographical Journal, v. 69, (1927), pp. 403-429. Presented as a paper at the afternoon meeting of the National Geographic Society on 14 February 1927. A summary of facts and opinions about the Columbus landfall going back to 1731 and Catesby’s suggestion that Cat Island was the landfall. Presents a review of methods on which various theories for landfall are based and Gould’s proposition that troubles in identifying the landfall arise because of topographical changes due to volcanic and other destructive forces. Gould’s vote is for Watling Island, in agreement with Morison.
Link, Edwin A. and Marion C. “A New Theory on Columbus’s Voyage Through The Bahamas.” Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, v. 135, no. 4 (1958), 45 p. In 1958, the Links proposed that Columbus “made his first landing in the New World on the shores of the Caicos Islands and not on Watling as is generally accepted today.” They also claimed that Columbus had sailed a course different from any proposed by previous investigators. Based on a study of original source material, aerial reconnaissance of the Bahamas, and a tracking of Columbus’s voyage in a small craft, they concluded that Columbus arrived first in the East Caicos, as was proposed by Captain P. Verhoog, a retired officer of the Holland-America line, who published his investigation in a treatise published in Amsterdam in 1947.
Molander, A. “The Search for San Salvador.” Journal of the Bahamas Historical Society, v. 4, no. 1 (1982), pp. 3-8. Molander, an aerospace engineer and amateur historian, and one of the most recent entries in the landfall arena, states that Columbus did not use the risky method of dead reckoning as claimed by Morison, but instead made excellent use of latitude sailing. This brought Columbus to the northern shore of Eleuthera Island and thus to a landfall at Egg Island. Molander bases his claim for an Egg Island landfall partly on 66 clues he has found in the Columbus Journal.