FIRST VOYAGE
Columbus’s tiny fleet set sail from Palos on
August 3, 1492. After pausing to pick up sup-
plies in the Canary Islands, they headed into
unfamiliar Atlantic waters on September 6.
Most sea voyages of the era were relatively
short. As the days at sea became weeks, the
men under Columbus’s command became
uneasy. He began to keep two logbooks: In
one, he overestimated the expedition’s
progress to calm the nerves of the crew, while
in the other, he secretly recorded their actual
progress. The ships and their restless sailors
passed far beyond the point at which Colum-
bus had calculated they would land at Japan.
They were somewhat heartened by signs that
land must be somewhere within reach, when
migrating birds passed overhead and objects
like leaves and tree branches floated past.
On the night of October 11, a light was
briefly sighted in the distance. The men’s
hearts sank when it disappeared. At 2 A.M.,
more than a month after leaving the Canary
Islands, sailor Rodrigo de Triana (also known
as Juan Rodríguez Bermejo) sighted a distant
small island by moonlight and shouted out
the news.
At daylight Columbus and the other cap-
tains went ashore. Columbus immediatelyThe Four Voyages of Columbus B 27
In 1492 Columbus sailed from the port town of Palos, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and shown in a
19th-century engraving.(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-106031])