1492: Columbus Makes Landfall in the Caribbean

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• Background Info
• Vocabulary

• On October 12, 1492, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus made landfall in what is now the Bahamas. Columbus and his ships landed on an island that the native Lucayan Taino people called Guanahani. Columbus re-named it San Salvador. 

   

  No one is quite sure where Guanahani/San Salvador is. Columbus describes the island as “very flat, with very green trees,” and a “very large lake in the middle.” That describes hundreds of islands and atolls in the Bahamas! Columbus isn’t even clear if Guanahani/San Salvador is a single island or a small archipelago. 

   

  Juan de la Cosa was a cartographer sailing with Columbus. (He was also the owner of Columbus’ largest vessel, the Santa Maria.) De la Cosa made a map of the voyage years later. While he rather accurately represents the position and shape of the islands we know as Cuba and Hispaniola, the position of Guanahani/San Salvador is unclear.

   

  Historically, most people thought the island first sighted by Columbus’ crew was Watlings Island. In fact, the name of the island was changed to San Salvador in 1925. (It is still called San Salvador today.) However, a National Geographic investigation in the 1980s claimed the real site of Guanahani/San Salvador is the uninhabited island of Samana Cay. Still other historians think Guanahani/San Salvador is the nearby Plana Cays.

• Term	Part of Speech	Definition	Encyclopedic Entry
  accurately	Adverb	exactly or perfectly.
  archipelago	Noun	a group of closely scattered islands in a large body of water.	Encyclopedic Entry: archipelago
  atoll	Noun	a coral reef or string of coral islands that surrounds a lagoon.	Encyclopedic Entry: atoll
  cartographer	Noun	person who makes maps.
  crew	Noun	workers or employees on a boat or ship.
  explorer	Noun	person who studies unknown areas.
  Hispaniola	Noun	large island in the Caribbean Sea, home to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
  investigation	Noun	process involving examination and research into a topic or situation.
  island	Noun	body of land surrounded by water.	Encyclopedic Entry: island
  lake	Noun	body of water surrounded by land.	Encyclopedic Entry: lake
  map	Noun	symbolic representation of selected characteristics of a place, usually drawn on a flat surface.	Encyclopedic Entry: map
  position	Noun	location.
  represent	Verb	to stand for a person, community, or idea.
  Taino	Noun	native people of parts of northern South America and the Caribbean.
  uninhabited	Adjective	place where no people make a permanent home.
  vessel	Noun	craft for traveling on water, usually larger than a rowboat or skiff.
  voyage	Noun	long journey or trip.