Those who insist on celebrating Columbus Day on October 12 would find themselves in trouble if the investigations that They affirm that the cry of the so-called Rodrigo de Triana occurred on the 13th.
But since such a number was identified with bad luck and that the 12th was the feast of Our Lady of Pilar, patron saint of the Catholic Monarchs, and that year it fell on Friday, the day of the passion of Jesus, The admiral would have changed the date to please his benefactors.
On October 12 or 13, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his men were off the islet of Guanahaní, which Columbus called San Salvador. Don Cristóbal was confident that he had reached Asia, although he was surprised not to come across the classic Chinese merchants.but with “very beautiful and peaceful” people.
The brilliant Gabriel García Márquez, based on the Columbus Diary brings us closer The Autumn of the Patriarch to the vision that the original inhabitants may have had about the invaders:
“…And finally he found someone to tell him the truth, my general, that they had arrived some strangers chattering in Ladino language Well, they did not say the sea but the sea and they called the macaws parrots, almadías to the cayucos and assegayas to the harpoons, and having seen that we came out to receive them swimming around their ships, they perched on the masts of the masts.
and they shouted to each other that look how well done, with very beautiful bodies and very good faces, and hair thick and almost like horse silk.and having seen that we were painted so as not to be skinned by the sun, they became agitated like wet parrots shouting that look, they paint themselves dark, and they are the color of canaries, neither white nor black,
and as many as there are, and we didn’t understand why the hell they made fun of us so much, my general, if we were as natural as our mothers gave birth to us and instead They were dressed like the jack of clubs despite the heat (…)” (1)
A new continent
The admiral continued touring the new lands and arrived at the great island of Cuba. (land or central land in native language), which Juana baptized, in honor of the daughter of the Catholic kings, whom years later they would call “the crazy one”; and to the island that the natives called Haiti (mountainous land in Arawak), which he called Hispaniola.
There, with the remains of the Santa María, which had been shipwrecked, He built, on December 25, 1492, the Natividad fortin which he left a group of thirty men under the command of Diego de Arana.
In a desperate attempt to confirm his hypothesis of reaching Asia Sailing towards the West, the admiral had no better idea, before embarking on the return, than to have all the members of his crew declare under oath and before the royal notary that the coast they had traveled (Cuba) could not be an island, and made everyone sign the following text:
In Haiti, in December 1492, he built the Natividad fort. / Photo: iStock.“Before many leagues, sailing along the said coast, one would find land where political people deal, and who know the world.”
Before the return Colón had a fight over the profits obtained with his partner Martín Alonso Pinzón, who decided to separate from the rest and try your luck with La Pinta.
The return trip was complicated, plagued by storms and setbacks. Columbus arrived in the Azores and from there headed towards Lisbon where he was received in his capacity as admiral by the King of Portugal, John II.
Neither slow nor lazy, Don Juan told Cristóbal that the discovered lands belonged to Portugal and tried to retain the admiral, but Columbus He managed to reach the port of Palos aboard the Niña on March 15, 1493 loaded with riches.unknown fruits and animals and only six of the fourteen natives who had been forcibly embarked.
1. Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 1975.
