Columbus Lands in Bahamas: Europe Enters the Americas
Rodrigo de Triana aboard the Pinta spotted land at approximately 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492. Columbus had promised a silk doublet and a lifetime pension of 10,000 maravedis to whoever saw land first, but he claimed the reward himself, insisting he had seen a light the previous evening. The expedition landed on an island in the Bahamas, probably Watling Island, where they encountered the Lucayan Taino people. Columbus's journal entries from that first day describe the Taino as generous, naive, and ideal subjects for conversion and servitude. Within two years, he had established the encomienda system of forced labor. Within 50 years, the Taino population had collapsed from an estimated 250,000 to near zero through disease, slavery, and violence. The exchange of peoples, crops, and pathogens that followed reshaped every continent on earth.
October 12, 1492
534 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 12
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