Artesania Santa Maria 1492

HISTORY OF THE SANTA MARIA NAO: WRONGLY CALLED CARAVEL

Yes, it is possibly the most important ship in history because it was the one where Christopher Columbus was when he discovered America at the end of the fifteenth century, specifically, in 1492. Santa Maria Nao, wrongly called 'caravel' -the other smaller two boats were really caravels, La Niña and La Pinta-, although the three ships were considered caravels in the original documents. In the beginning, Santa Maria’s name was La Gallega, whose owner was Juan de la Cosa.

The adventure began not to discover a new continent, but to find a new safe route to the Pacific Ocean. His first stop was in the Canary Islands, specifically, in La Gomera in order to collect more supplies and fix the damages that the nao could have, built with wood from Cantabria.

In October 12^th, after several crew riots a few day, the cabin boy Rodrigo de Triana spotted land: first they arrived at Guanahani Island, which they called San Salvador, in the Bahamas archipelago, until it reached another one that he named La Española -currently, Haiti-, which did bring Santa Maria "tomb". During the night of December 24^th, the nao remained stranded because of a sandbank due to a malpractice of the lookout man. Immediate consequence? The coral reefs destroyed the hull of the boat, the crew had to climb on La Niña. In this sense, it was rumored that Columbus was interested in that sinking to return since they had not found gold in bulk, trying to deceive the Catholic Kings in order to return to Castile. Finally, with the materials that were left of the sinister Santa Maria nao, they lifted the Christmas Fort with palisade, the first European in the New Continent.

Then, yes, Columbus returned to the Iberian Peninsula with La Pinta and La Niña, to later return to America, where he ran into the death of the forty colones he had left. Why? It seems that the Indians did it to punish them for having stolen their food and their women. Surprisingly for the time, Columbus did not penalize the natives leader, but allowed other abuses, while Isabel La Católica forbade the punishments to be carried out, but she was not given much attention.