voyage of christopher columbus map

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

Christopher Columbus

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 11, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not “discover” the so-called New World—millions of people already lived there—his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of exploration and colonization of North and South America.

Christopher Columbus and the Age of Discovery

During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in this “ Age of Discovery ,” also known as “ Age of Exploration .”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods as well as enslaved people from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Did you know? Christopher Columbus was not the first person to propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing west from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea is almost as old as the idea that the Earth is round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)

Other European nations, particularly Spain, were eager to share in the seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of the 15th century, Spain’s “ Reconquista ”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom after centuries of war—was complete, and the nation turned its attention to exploration and conquest in other areas of the world.

The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline

• 1451 Columbus is born
• 1492–1493 Columbus sails to the Americas
• 1493–1496 Columbus returns to Hispaniola
• 1498–1500 Columbus seeks a strait to India
• 1502–1504 Columbus's last voyage
• 1506 Columbus dies

Christopher Columbus is born in the Republic of Genoa. He begins sailing in his teens and survives a shipwreck off the coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks aid from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to cross the Atlantic Ocean and reach Asia from the east, but the king declines to fund it.

After securing funding from Spain’s King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella, Columbus makes his first voyage to the Americas with three ships—the Niña , the Pinta and the Santa Maria . In October 1492, his expedition makes landfall in the modern-day country of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

In November 1943, Columbus returns to the settlement on Hispaniola to find the Europeans he left there dead. During this second voyage, which lasts over two years, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Spanish subjects seize land and force Native people to work on it. More

In the summer of 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets out on this third voyage with the goal of finding a strait from present-day Cuba to India. He makes his first landfall in South America and plants a Spanish flag in present-day Venezuela. After failing to find the strait, he returns to Hispaniola, where Spanish authorities arrest him for the brutal way he runs the colony there. In 1500, Columbus returns to Spain in chains. More

The Spanish government strips Columbus of his titles but still frees him and finances one last voyage , although it forbids him return to Hispaniola. Still in search of a strait to India, Columbus makes it as far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In his return journey, his ships become beached in present-day Jamaica and he and his crew live as castaways for a year before rescue. More

On May 20, 1506, Columbus dies in Valladolid, Spain at age 54, still asserting that he reached the eastern part of Asia by sailing across the Atlantic. Despite the fact that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of the gold he looted in the Americas, Columbus spends the last part of his life petitioning the crown for more recognition.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, is believed to have been born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

Columbus’ Quest for Gold

On Christopher Columbus’s second voyage to the Americas, he enslaved the Indigenous people and forced them to mine for gold.

Columbus’ Mutinous Crew

After 60 days and no sign of their destination, Columbus’ doubtful crew wanted to turn back.

How Early Humans First Reached the Americas: 3 Theories

How and when did humans first set foot in North America? Here are three theories.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but his math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage . 

He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile .

Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of whatever riches he found, along with a noble title and the governorship of any lands he should encounter.

Exploration of North America

The Vikings Discover the New World The first attempt by Europeans to colonize the New World occurred around 1000 A.D. when the Vikings sailed from the British Isles to Greenland, established a colony and then moved on to Labrador, the Baffin Islands and finally Newfoundland. There they established a colony named Vineland (meaning fertile region) […]

The Viking Explorer Who Beat Columbus to America

Leif Eriksson Day commemorates the Norse explorer believed to have led the first European expedition to North America.

Christopher Columbus Never Set Out to Prove the Earth was Round

Humans have known the earth is round for thousands of years.

Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in three ships: the Niña , the Pinta and the Santa Maria . On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island in what we now know as the Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that he had promised to his Spanish patrons, but he did not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, it also recorded his initial impressions of the local people and his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

10 Things You May Not Know About Christopher Columbus

Check out 10 things you may not know about the Genoese explorer who sailed the ocean blue in 1492.

The Ships of Christopher Columbus Were Sleek, Fast—and Cramped

Two of Christopher Columbus’ ships were so small that men had no refuge to sleep and poor food storage led to wormy meals.

Christopher Columbus: How The Explorer’s Legend Grew—and Then Drew Fire

Columbus's famed voyage to the New World was celebrated by Italian‑Americans, in particular, as a pathway to their own acceptance in America.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Columbus returned to the Americas. He found the Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed west to continue his mostly fruitless search for gold and other goods. His group now included a large number of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu of the material riches he had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 enslaved people to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody revolt against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for gold and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most serious charges but stripped of his noble titles, the aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown to pay for one last trip across the Atlantic. This time, Columbus made it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon two of his four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the explorer returned to Spain, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on the American continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. African coffee and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy —he is remembered as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.

HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage

Ten years after his 1492 voyage, Columbus, awaiting the gallows on criminal charges in a Caribbean prison, plotted a treacherous final voyage to restore his reputation.

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

The Ages of Exploration

Christopher columbus, age of discovery.

Quick Facts:

He is credited for discovering the Americas in 1492, although we know today people were there long before him; his real achievement was that he opened the door for more exploration to a New World.

Name : Christopher Columbus [Kri-stə-fər] [Kə-luhm-bəs]

Birth/Death : 1451 - 1506

Nationality : Italian

Birthplace : Genoa, Italy

Christopher Columbus leaving Palos, Spain

Christopher Columbus aboard the "Santa Maria" leaving Palos, Spain on his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The Mariners' Museum 1933.0746.000001

Introduction We know that In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But what did he actually discover? Christopher Columbus (also known as (Cristoforo Colombo [Italian]; Cristóbal Colón [Spanish]) was an Italian explorer credited with the “discovery” of the Americas. The purpose for his voyages was to find a passage to Asia by sailing west. Never actually accomplishing this mission, his explorations mostly included the Caribbean and parts of Central and South America, all of which were already inhabited by Native groups.

Biography Early Life Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, part of present-day Italy, in 1451. His parents’ names were Dominico Colombo and Susanna Fontanarossa. He had three brothers: Bartholomew, Giovanni, and Giacomo; and a sister named Bianchinetta. Christopher became an apprentice in his father’s wool weaving business, but he also studied mapmaking and sailing as well. He eventually left his father’s business to join the Genoese fleet and sail on the Mediterranean Sea. 1 After one of his ships wrecked off the coast of Portugal, he decided to remain there with his younger brother Bartholomew where he worked as a cartographer (mapmaker) and bookseller. Here, he married Doña Felipa Perestrello e Moniz and had two sons Diego and Fernando.

Christopher Columbus owned a copy of Marco Polo’s famous book, and it gave him a love for exploration. In the mid 15th century, Portugal was desperately trying to find a faster trade route to Asia. Exotic goods such as spices, ivory, silk, and gems were popular items of trade. However, Europeans often had to travel through the Middle East to reach Asia. At this time, Muslim nations imposed high taxes on European travels crossing through. 2 This made it both difficult and expensive to reach Asia. There were rumors from other sailors that Asia could be reached by sailing west. Hearing this, Christopher Columbus decided to try and make this revolutionary journey himself. First, he needed ships and supplies, which required money that he did not have. He went to King John of Portugal who turned him down. He then went to the rulers of England, and France. Each declined his request for funding. After seven years of trying, he was finally sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.

Voyages Principal Voyage Columbus’ voyage departed in August of 1492 with 87 men sailing on three ships: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. Columbus commanded the Santa María, while the Niña was led by Vicente Yanez Pinzon and the Pinta by Martin Pinzon. 3 This was the first of his four trips. He headed west from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean. On October 12 land was sighted. He gave the first island he landed on the name San Salvador, although the native population called it Guanahani. 4 Columbus believed that he was in Asia, but was actually in the Caribbean. He even proposed that the island of Cuba was a part of China. Since he thought he was in the Indies, he called the native people “Indians.” In several letters he wrote back to Spain, he described the landscape and his encounters with the natives. He continued sailing throughout the Caribbean and named many islands he encountered after his ship, king, and queen: La Isla de Santa María de Concepción, Fernandina, and Isabella.

It is hard to determine specifically which islands Columbus visited on this voyage. His descriptions of the native peoples, geography, and plant life do give us some clues though. One place we do know he stopped was in present-day Haiti. He named the island Hispaniola. Hispaniola today includes both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In January of 1493, Columbus sailed back to Europe to report what he found. Due to rough seas, he was forced to land in Portugal, an unfortunate event for Columbus. With relations between Spain and Portugal strained during this time, Ferdinand and Isabella suspected that Columbus was taking valuable information or maybe goods to Portugal, the country he had lived in for several years. Those who stood against Columbus would later use this as an argument against him. Eventually, Columbus was allowed to return to Spain bringing with him tobacco, turkey, and some new spices. He also brought with him several natives of the islands, of whom Queen Isabella grew very fond.

Subsequent Voyages Columbus took three other similar trips to this region. His second voyage in 1493 carried a large fleet with the intention of conquering the native populations and establishing colonies. At one point, the natives attacked and killed the settlers left at Fort Navidad. Over time the colonists enslaved many of the natives, sending some to Europe and using many to mine gold for the Spanish settlers in the Caribbean. The third trip was to explore more of the islands and mainland South America further. Columbus was appointed the governor of Hispaniola, but the colonists, upset with Columbus’ leadership appealed to the rulers of Spain, who sent a new governor: Francisco de Bobadilla. Columbus was taken prisoner on board a ship and sent back to Spain.

On his fourth and final journey west in 1502 Columbus’s goal was to find the “Strait of Malacca,” to try to find India. But a hurricane, then being denied entrance to Hispaniola, and then another storm made this an unfortunate trip. His ship was so badly damaged that he and his crew were stranded on Jamaica for two years until help from Hispaniola finally arrived. In 1504, Columbus and his men were taken back to Spain .

Later Years and Death Columbus reached Spain in November 1504. He was not in good health. He spent much of the last of his life writing letters to obtain the percentage of wealth overdue to be paid to him, and trying to re-attain his governorship status, but was continually denied both. Columbus died at Valladolid on May 20, 1506, due to illness and old age. Even until death, he still firmly believed that he had traveled to the eastern part of Asia.

Legacy Columbus never made it to Asia, nor did he truly discover America. His “re-discovery,” however, inspired a new era of exploration of the American continents by Europeans. Perhaps his greatest contribution was that his voyages opened an exchange of goods between Europe and the Americas both during and long after his journeys. 5 Despite modern criticism of his treatment of the native peoples there is no denying that his expeditions changed both Europe and America. Columbus day was made a federal holiday in 1971. It is recognized on the second Monday of October.

• Fergus Fleming, Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 30.
• Fleming, Off the Map , 30
• William D. Phillips and Carla Rahn Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 142-143.
• Phillips and Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus , 155.
• Robin S. Doak, Christopher Columbus: Explorer of the New World (Minneapolis: Compass Point Books, 2005), 92.
• The Mariners' Educational Programs
• Bibliography

This map is part of a series of 16 animated maps showing .

▶ view series: the age of discovery, christopher columbus’ first voyage 1492-1493.

This map is part of a series of 16 animated maps showing the history of The Age of Discovery.

Before undertaking his first voyage, Christopher Columbus had sailed on Portuguese ships in the Atlantic Ocean along the African coast to the south and to the British Isles and perhaps Iceland to the north.

But when Lisbon refused to finance his new project, he turned to King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile and asked them to sponsor his voyage to Asia by sailing across the ocean in a westerly direction.

His flotilla of three ships set sail from Southern Spain on 3 August 1492. It headed first for the Canary Islands, where it stayed in port for a month.

Early in September, the ships set a course towards the west.  After a few weeks at sea, the crew began to worry that their mission was a failure, and on 10 October they complained and threatened a mutiny, forcing Christopher Columbus to agree to turn back if no land was sighted within three days.

Two days later, on 12 October, the flotilla anchored off an inhabited island in the Bahamas.  The island was given the name of San Salvador and the sailors called the inhabitants ‘Indians’, because they were convinced they had reached India.

Deciding to go further in search of gold and the continent of Asia, Columbus spent another two months sailing around in the Caribbean Sea. He discovered the islands of Juana, now Cuba, on 26 October and Hispaniola, now Santo Domingo, on 6 December.

When one of his three ships was lost after being driven onto the coast, he was forced to leave 40 men behind before turning back.

The fleet set a north-easterly course until it reached the latitude of the Azores, and then headed due east in order to take advantage of the trade winds for the trip home to Europe.

To prove that he had indeed found land, Christopher Columbus brought back a few natives, some gold and some parrots.

Three ships: These were a carrack named the Santa Maria and two caravels, the Pinta and the Nina.

• ALL OVER THE MAP

A 500-year-old map used by Columbus reveals its secrets

Newly uncovered text opens a time capsule of one of history’s most influential maps.

This 1491 map is the best surviving map of the world as Christopher Columbus knew it as he made his first voyage across the Atlantic. In fact, Columbus likely used a copy of it in planning his journey.

The map, created by the German cartographer Henricus Martellus, was originally covered with dozens of legends and bits of descriptive text, all in Latin. Most of it has faded over the centuries.

But now researchers have used modern technology to uncover much of this previously illegible text. In the process, they’ve discovered new clues about the sources Martellus used to make his map and confirmed the huge influence it had on later maps, including a famous 1507 map by Martin Waldseemuller that was the first to use the name “America.”

MARTELLUS AND COLUMBUS

Contrary to popular myth, 15th-century Europeans did not believe that Columbus would sail off the edge of a flat Earth, says Chet Van Duzer, the map scholar who led the study. But their understanding of the world was quite different from ours, and Martellus’s map reflects that.

Its depiction of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea is more or less accurate, or at least recognizable. But southern Africa is oddly shaped like a boot with its toe pointing to the east, and Asia is also twisted out of shape. The large island in the South Pacific roughly where Australia can actually be found must have been a lucky guess, Van Duzer says, as Europeans wouldn’t discover that continent for another century. Martellus filled the southern Pacific Ocean with imaginary islands, apparently sharing the common mapmakers’ aversion to empty spaces .

Another quirk of Martellus’s geography helps tie his map to Columbus’s journey: the orientation of Japan. At the time the map was created, Europeans knew Japan existed, but knew very little about its geography. Marco Polo’s journals, the best available source of information about East Asia at the time, had nothing to say about the island’s orientation.

Martellus’s map shows it running north-south. Correct, but almost certainly another lucky guess says Van Duzer, as no other known map of the time shows Japan unambiguously oriented this way. Columbus’s son Ferdinand later wrote that his father believed Japan to be oriented north-south, indicating that he very likely used Martellus’s map as a reference.

When Columbus made landfall in the West Indies on October 12, 1492, he began looking for Japan, still believing that he’d achieved his goal of finding a route to Asia. He was likely convinced Japan must be near because he’d travelled roughly the same distance that Martellus’s map suggests lay between Europe and Japan, Van Duzer argues in a new book detailing his findings.

Van Duzer says it’s reasonable to speculate that as Columbus sailed down the coast of Central and South America on later voyages, he pictured himself sailing down the coast of Asia as depicted on Martellus’s map.

You May Also Like

These antique maps showed how people saw the world. What did they get right?

Gettysburg was no ordinary battle. These maps reveal how Lee lost the fight.

These enigmatic documents have kept their secrets for centuries

Restoring a time capsule.

The map is roughly 3.5 by 6 feet. Such a large map would have been a luxury object, likely commissioned by a member of the nobility, but there’s no shield or dedication to indicate who that might have been. It was donated anonymously to Yale University in 1962 and remains in the university’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Over time, much of the text had faded to almost perfectly match the background, making it impossible to read. But in 2014 Van Duzer won a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that allowed him and a team of collaborators to use a technique called multispectral imaging to try to uncover the hidden text.

The method involved taking many hundreds of photographs of the map with different wavelengths of light and processing the images to find the combination of wavelengths that best improves legibility on each part of the map (you can play around with an interactive map created by one of Van Duzer’s colleagues here ).

Many of the map legends describe the regions of the world and their inhabitants. “Here are found the Hippopodes: they have a human form but the feet of horses,” reads one previously illegible text over Central Asia. Another describes “monsters similar to humans whose ears are so large that they can cover their whole body.” Many of these fantastical creatures can be traced to texts written by the ancient Greeks.

The most surprising revelation, however, was in the interior of Africa, Van Duzer says. Martellus included many details and place names that appear to trace back to an Ethiopian delegation that visited Florence in 1441. Van Duzer says he knows of no other 15th-century European map that has this much information about the geography of Africa, let alone information derived from native Africans instead of European explorers. “I was blown away,” he says.

The imaging also strengthens the case that Martellus’s map was a major source for two even more famous cartographic objects: the oldest surviving terrestrial globe , created by Martin Behaim in 1492, and Martin Waldseemuller’s 1507 world map , the first to apply the label “America” to the continents of the western hemisphere. (The Library of Congress purchased Waldseemuller’s map for a record $10 million in 2003.)

Waldseemuller liberally copied text from Martellus, Van Duzer found after comparing the two maps. The practice was common in those days—in fact, Martellus himself apparently copied the sea monsters on his map from an encyclopedia published in 1491, an observation that helps date the map.

Despite their commonalities, the maps by Martellus and Waldseemuller have one glaring difference. Martellus depicts Europe and Africa nearly at the left edge of his map, with only water beyond. Waldseemuller’s map extends further to the west and depicts new lands on the other side of the Atlantic. Only 16 years had passed between the making of the two maps, but the world had changed forever.

Greg Miller and Betsy Mason are authors of the forthcoming illustrated book from National Geographic, All Over the Map . Follow the blog on Twitter and Instagram .

Related Topics

• AGE OF DISCOVERY

This European map inspired a playful cartography craze 500 years ago

The lost continent of Zealandia has been mapped for the first time

Legendary Spanish galleon shipwreck discovered on Oregon coast

Magellan got the credit, but this man was first to sail around the world

Vlad the Impaler's thirst for blood was an inspiration for Count Dracula

• Environment
• Paid Content

History & Culture

• History & Culture
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

Account Options

The First New World Voyage of Christopher Columbus (1492)

European Exploration of the Americas

Spencer Arnold/Getty Images

• Ph.D., Spanish, Ohio State University
• M.A., Spanish, University of Montana
• B.A., Spanish, Penn State University

How was the first voyage of Columbus to the New World undertaken, and what was its legacy? Having convinced the King and Queen of Spain to finance his voyage, Christopher Columbus departed mainland Spain on August 3, 1492. He quickly made port in the Canary Islands for a final restocking and left there on September 6. He was in command of three ships: the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa María. Although Columbus was in overall command, the Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón and the Niña by Vicente Yañez Pinzón.

First Landfall: San Salvador

On October 12, Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor aboard the Pinta, first sighted land. Columbus himself later claimed that he had seen a sort of light or aura before Triana did, allowing him to keep the reward he had promised to give to whoever spotted land first. The land turned out to be a small island in the present-day Bahamas. Columbus named the island San Salvador, although he remarked in his journal that the natives referred to it as Guanahani. There is some debate over which island was Columbus’ first stop; most experts believe it to be San Salvador, Samana Cay, Plana Cays or Grand Turk Island.

Second Landfall: Cuba

Columbus explored five islands in the modern-day Bahamas before he made it to Cuba. He reached Cuba on October 28, making landfall at Bariay, a harbor near the eastern tip of the island. Thinking he had found China, he sent two men to investigate. They were Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, a converted Jew who spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic in addition to Spanish. Columbus had brought him as an interpreter. The two men failed in their mission to find the Emperor of China but did visit a native Taíno village. There they were the first to observe the smoking of tobacco, a habit which they promptly picked up.

Third Landfall: Hispaniola

Leaving Cuba, Columbus made landfall on the Island of Hispaniola on December 5. Indigenous people called it Haití but Columbus referred to it as La Española, a name which was later changed to Hispaniola when Latin texts were written about the discovery. On December 25, the Santa María ran aground and had to be abandoned. Columbus himself took over as captain of the Niña, as the Pinta had become separated from the other two ships. Negotiating with the local chieftain Guacanagari, Columbus arranged to leave 39 of his men behind in a small settlement, named La Navidad .

Return to Spain

On January 6, the Pinta arrived, and the ships were reunited: they set out for Spain on January 16. The ships arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 4, returning to Spain shortly after that.

Historical Importance of Columbus' First Voyage

In retrospect, it is somewhat surprising that what is today considered one of the most important voyages in history was something of a failure at the time. Columbus had promised to find a new, quicker route to the lucrative Chinese trade markets and he failed miserably. Instead of holds full of Chinese silks and spices, he returned with some trinkets and a few bedraggled Indigenous people from Hispaniola. Some 10 more had perished on the voyage. Also, he had lost the largest of the three ships entrusted to him.

Columbus actually considered the Indigenous people his greatest find. He thought that a new trade of enslaved people could make his discoveries lucrative. Columbus was hugely disappointed a few years later when Queen Isabela, after careful thought, decided not to open the New World to the trading of enslaved people.

Columbus never believed that he had found something new. He maintained, to his dying day, that the lands he discovered were indeed part of the known Far East. In spite of the failure of the first expedition to find spices or gold, a much larger second expedition was approved, perhaps in part due to Columbus’ skills as a salesman.

Herring, Hubert. A History of Latin America From the Beginnings to the Present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962

Thomas, Hugh. "Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan." 1st edition, Random House, June 1, 2004.

• La Navidad: First European Settlement in the Americas
• The Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus
• Explorers and Discoverers
• The Road to the American Revolution
• Amerigo Vespucci, Explorer and Navigator
• The Untold History of Native American Enslavement
• The Early American Colonial Regions
• History of the Plymouth Colony
• The Mayflower Compact of 1620
• Facts About the Jamestown Colony
• American Revolution: Battle of Nassau
• American Revolution: The Boston Massacre
• Check Your Knowledge: A 'New World' Discovered
• The Albany Plan of Union
• Chart of the 13 Original Colonies
• The Original 13 U.S. States

Category : Maps of voyages by Christopher Columbus

Media in category "maps of voyages by christopher columbus".

The following 76 files are in this category, out of 76 total.

• Maps of voyages
• Christopher Columbus
• Maps showing 15th-century history
• Maps showing 16th-century history
• North America in the 15th century
• North America in the 16th century
• Maps of Spanish trade routes
• Maps of crossings of the Atlantic Ocean
• Atlantic Ocean in the 15th century
• Atlantic Ocean in the 16th century
• Uses of Wikidata Infobox
• Uses of Wikidata Infobox with no image

Navigation menu

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• The Big Story
• Newsletters
• Steven Levy's Plaintext Column
• WIRED Classics from the Archive
• WIRED Insider
• WIRED Consulting

Uncovering Hidden Text on a 500-Year-Old Map That Guided Columbus

Christopher Columbus probably used the map above as he planned his first voyage across the Atlantic in 1492. It represents much of what Europeans knew about geography on the verge discovering the New World, and it's packed with text historians would love to read---if only the faded paint and five centuries of wear and tear hadn't rendered most of it illegible.

But that's about to change. A team of researchers is using a technique called multispectral imaging to uncover the hidden text. They scanned the map last month at Yale University and expect to start extracting readable text in the next few months, says Chet Van Duzer, an independent map scholar who's leading the project, which was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The map was made in or around 1491 by Henricus Martellus, a German cartographer working in Florence. It's not known how many were made, but Yale owns the only surviving copy. It's a big map, especially for its time: about 4 by 6.5 feet. "It's a substantial map, meant to be hung on a wall," Van Duzer said.

The Martellus map during preparations for multispectral imaging.

The Martellus map is interesting for several historic reasons, Van Duzer says. One is it's relevance to Columbus. "It's extremely likely, just about unquestionable that Christopher Columbus saw this map or a very similar one made by the same cartographer, and that the map influenced his thinking about the world's geography," Van Duzer said.

There are several lines of evidence for this, Van Duzer says. Columbus sailed west from the Canary Islands hoping to find a new trade route to Asia. Writings by Columbus and his son suggest that he began searching for Japan in the region where it appears on the Martellus map, and that he expected to find the island running north to south, as it does on the Martellus map, but not on any other surviving map made before his voyage. (You can see Japan floating too far off the coast of Asia in the top right corner of Martellus's map above).

Of course, what Columbus found instead was something Martellus hadn't known about---the New World.

Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 map was influenced by the earlier map by Martellus (click to enlarge).

Martellus's map was also a big influence on Martin Waldseemüller, another German cartographer whose 1507 map is the first to apply the name "America" to the New World. The Library of Congress purchased the only surviving copy of Waldseemüller's map in 2003 for $10 million. "There are many places where the same information was in the same place on the two maps," Van Duzer said. "The layout is very similar, a lot of the decorative elements are very similar."

What isn't known, because of the condition of the Martellus map, is how similar the text on the two maps is. "One of the most exciting images I've ever seen of a map is an ultraviolet image of the Martellus map taken in the early '60s," Van Duzer said. "If you look at eastern Asia with natural light, if you look closely, you get a hint that there's text there, but if you look in ultraviolet light suddenly you see that there's text everywhere."

Most of the text still isn't legible in those older UV images, but some of the parts that are appear to be drawn from the travels of Marco Polo through east Asia. There are also indications of where sailors could expect to find sea monsters or pearls. "In northern Asia, Martellus talks about this race of wild people who don't have any wine or grain but live off the flesh of deer and ride deer-like horses," Van Duzer said. Waldseemüller copied much of this.

A photo of the Martellus map taken in 1960 with ultraviolet light (right) reveals text in places where it's not normally visible (click to enlarge).

There are also interesting differences between the two maps. Waldseemüller gets the shape of Africa more or less right, but on the Martellus map, southern Africa juts out way too far to the east (Africa is on the left side of both maps). In addition, Martellus's depiction of rivers and mountains in the interior of southern Africa, along with place names there, appear to be based on African sources. It's likely that this information came from an African delegation that visited the Council of Florence in 1441 and interacted with European geographers. Three other surviving maps contain some of this same information, but the Martellus map covers more territory than any of them, making it the most complete surviving representation of Africans' geographic knowledge of their continent in the 15th century. "In my mind, that's absolutely amazing," Van Duzer said.

Van Duzer hopes to learn more about Martellus's sources from the new images the team is creating. Scanning the map only took a day, after two and a half days of set up, he says. The team used an automated camera system developed by a digital imaging company called Megavision. The system uses LEDs to deliver light within a narrow band of wavelengths and minimize the amount of heat and light the map was exposed to. The camera has a quartz lens, which transmits ultraviolet light better than glass. The team photographed 55 overlapping tiles of the map, using 12 different types of illumination, ranging from ultraviolet to infrared.

Conceptually, the process isn't very complicated, says team member Roger Easton, an expert on imaging historical manuscripts at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "We're really just looking at the object under different colors of light and trying to find the combination of images that best enhance whatever it is that we're trying to see."

But extracting legible text from all those images will take a lot of imaging processing and analysis, and a lot of trial and error, Easton says. A combination that works on one part of the map might be useless for another part. "It depends on the details of how the map has eroded or how the color of the pigments has changed," Easton said. "Different pigments reflect different wavelengths of light, and they deteriorate differently too."

When the project is complete, probably sometime next year, the images will be available for scholars and the general public to examine on the website of the Beinecke Digital Library at Yale.

Did This Map Guide Columbus?

Researchers decipher a mystifying 15th-century document

Elizabeth Quill

The map itself is undated, but there are clues it was created in 1491: It quotes a book published that year, and Christopher Columbus may have consulted the map (or a copy) before his great voyage. When he landed in the Bahamas, he thought he was close to Japan, an error consistent with Japan’s location on the map, which depicts Asia, Africa and Europe but not, alas, the Americas. The map, made by a German working in Florence named Henricus Martellus, has long been overlooked because fading obscured much of its text. Until now. 

A new analysis reveals hundreds of place names and 60 written passages, a novel view of Renaissance cartography. “It’s a missing link in our understanding of people’s conception of the world,” says Chet Van Duzer, an independent historian who led the analysis of the map, currently held at Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Martellus relied on Claudius Ptolemy’s projections and then updated them with more recent discoveries—including details from Marco Polo’s voyages and the Portuguese trips around the Cape of Good Hope. The famous Waldseemuller map, which in 1507 depicted the Americas for the first time, appears to have borrowed heavily from Martellus.

To see the writing, researchers photographed the 6- by 4-foot map under 12 frequencies of light, from ultraviolet to infrared. Advanced imaging tools and layering techniques provided the necessary clarity. Below are examples of analyzed map images as viewed at different frequencies, and above is the map itself, with touch points identifying text uncovered by Van Duzer and his colleagues.

Related Reads

The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer

Get the latest History stories in your inbox?

Click to visit our Privacy Statement .

Elizabeth Quill | READ MORE

Elizabeth Quill is a senior editor for Smithsonian magazine.

• Become a teacher

Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506)

Episode #3 of the course “Europe’s greatest explorers”

“It was ordained that I should not go by land to the eastward, by which way it was the custom to go, but by way of the west, by which down to this day we do not know certainly that anyone has passed. . . .” 

– Christopher Columbus, 1492

Christopher Columbus was an experienced merchant sailor and navigator from Genoa who led the first European trans-Atlantic sea voyage in 1492. He has historically been credited with “discovering” America, although today’s historians argue a new understanding of the global impact of Columbus’ voyage.

Not much is known about Christopher Columbus’ life growing up, but by 1477, he and his brother had established themselves as merchant sailors based out of Lisbon, Portugal. Columbus sailed to Ireland, Iceland, West Africa, and around Europe. Marco Polo’s accounts of the riches of China and India inspired Columbus to seek a direct westward-bound route. Contrary to modern belief, the educated noble class of Columbus’ day did not think that the Earth was flat. Columbus’ journey was instead motivated by a drive to find a direct route to India without sailing around Africa.

The routes of the four Voyages of Christopher Columbus

In 1484, Columbus began to solicit funding for a westbound voyage from King John II of Portugal, who declined to finance the expedition. Columbus traveled to Spain for an audience with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1486 but was rejected at least twice before they agreed to sponsor his journey in 1492.

Sailing from the coast of Portugal, Columbus and his crew were the first Europeans to encounter islands in the Caribbean Sea. When he arrived in the Caribbean, he mistakenly believed he was in the western part of India, therefore calling the region the “West Indies” and coining the misnomer of “Indians” for the indigenous people.

Columbus Before the Queen by Emanuel Leutze, 1843

The indigenous people in the Caribbean included the Eastern, Western, and Classic Tainos; the Island-Caribs; and the Guanahatabeyes. The Tainos had no concept of slavery, and they placed a high value in battle on disarming an enemy and sparing his life. It was because they did not kill their enemies that Columbus found them “weak” and “easy to rule.” He had been seeking the gold and rich spices of India and found none of them in the Caribbean, so he loaded his ships with human cargo and returned to Spain with reports of the manual labor that could be found in the “New World.”

Christopher Columbus and his crew landed in the Bahamas in October, 1492

Columbus ultimately sailed four voyages across the Atlantic, visiting modern-day Jamaica, Venezuela, Panamá, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic. Columbus established settlements that grew into colonies, where he acted as governor. He used brutal conversion methods and oppressive tactics to stamp out rebellions from indigenous inhabitants before being relieved of his governorship.

Columbus returned to Spain to demand additional compensation but succumbed to a number of illnesses that plagued him in the final decade of his life. Christopher Columbus died in Spain in 1506 and was initially buried in Seville. His remains were later moved to the Dominican Republic, then to Cuba, before being returned to Spain. The ashes interred in Seville have been confirmed as Columbus’, but there remains some dispute over whether the remains in the Dominican Republic are also from Columbus.

Recommended book

Share with friends