Hispaniola
Columbus sights Hispaniola from the sea
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗A scout boat's candle went out inside the unfamiliar harbour, leaving the ships hunting for its light in the dark — and Columbus spent the whole night offshore.
5 December 1492: an island to the southeast
A northeasterly wind kept Columbus from pursuing another reported island and carried his fleet away from Cuba. Leaving on 5 December 1492, the expedition sighted a very large island to the southeast; the Indigenous people carried aboard called it Bohío.
Columbus changed course toward it, making 88 miles — 22 leagues in the journal's reckoning — by sunset, and ordered the faster Niña ahead to scout a harbour before dark.
A night spent offshore
A boat went in to take soundings, but its candle went out. The Niña sailed toward a replacement light while Columbus's flagship stayed outside, tacking through the night.
The ships entered the harbour only the following afternoon, 6 December, and Columbus named it Puerto de San Nicolás, on the northwestern coast of present-day Haiti.
Not a landing, and not a discovery
The listed claim that Columbus set foot on the island on 5 December does not survive the journal, which leaves him offshore all night. Nor was La Navidad founded that day; it was built later in December from the wreckage of the Santa María.
The island was already populated and connected to other Caribbean societies — fires were visible at night and columns of smoke by day.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 3 audit passes
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- The date is secure for the sighting and approach, but not for the listed claim of setting foot ashore. The journal explicitly leaves Columbus offshore on the night of 5 December.
- The original shipboard journal is lost. The surviving Diario is Bartolomé de las Casas's later abstract and transcription, which alternates between paraphrase and passages presented as Columbus's own words.
- The name Bohío may have been used by Columbus's Indigenous informants in a broader or differently understood sense; the identification with Hispaniola comes from the voyage's route.