We may safely decide that Watling Island, named after a buccaneer or pirate of the seventeenth century, is best supported by investigation as the landfall of Columbus.
Cronau, who visited Watling Island in 1890, supposes that Columbus' ships, after making the land, continued on their course, under the reduced sail, at the rate of four or five miles an hour; and at daylight found themselves off the northwest end of the island. Mr. Cronau evidently is not a seafaring man or he would know that no navigator off an unknown island at night would stand on, even at the rate of one mile an hour, ignorant of what shoal or reefs might lie off the end of the island.
[5] The following from Las Casas' epitome of the log is all the information we have concerning the "sighting" of the New World:
"Thursday, October 11, 1492.—Navegó al Ouesudueste, turvieron mucho mar mas que en todo el viage habian tenido. Despues del sol puesto navegó á su primer Camino al Oueste; andarian doce millas cada hora. A las dos horas despues de media noche pareció la tierra, de la cual estarian dos leguas. Amainaron todas las velas y quedaron con el treo que es la vela grande sin bonetas, y pusiérouse á la corda temporizando hasta el dia viernes que llegaron á uná isleta de los Lucayos que se llamaba en lengua de indios Guanahani."
That is: "They steered west-southwest and experienced a much heavier sea than they had had before in the whole voyage. After sunset they resumed their former course west, and sailed twelve miles an hour. At 2 o'clock in the morning the land appeared (was sighted), two leagues off. They lowered all the sails and remained under the storm sail, which is the main sail without bonnets, and hove to, waiting for daylight; and Friday [found they had] arrived at a small island of the Lucayos which the Indians called Guanahani."
It will be observed that these are the words of Las Casas, and they were evidently written some years after the event.
[6] Helps refers to the island as "one of the Bahamas." It has been variously identified with Turks Island, by Navarette (1825); with Cat Island, by Irving (1828) and Humboldt (1836); with Mayaguara, by Varnhagen (1864); and finally, with greatest show of probability, with Watling Island, by Muñoz (1798), supported by Becher (1856), Peschel (1857), and Major (1871).
[7] See page 217, post.
[8] The greatest blot on the character of Columbus is contained in this and a succeeding letter. Under the shallow pretense of benefiting the souls of idolators, he suggested to the Spanish rulers the advisability of shipping the natives to Spain as slaves. He appeals to their cupidity by picturing the revenue to be derived therefrom, and stands convicted in the light of history as the prime author of that blood-drenched rule which exterminated millions of simple aborigines in the West Indian Archipelago.
[9] The countries which he had discovered were considered as a part of India. In consequence of this notion the name of Indies is given to them by Ferdinand and Isabella in a ratification of their former agreement, which was granted to Columbus after his return.—Robertson's "History of America."