The Story of La Niña

As previously mentioned, Niña was fitted with Latin sails at first, but was later re-rigged with square sails for optimised performance in the ocean. Whilst there isn’t much, if any accurate documentation of Niña’s design, the ship is thought to have weighed around 60 tonnes, with a 15-metre deck. There are conflicting accounts regarding the number of sails Niña had, with some claiming there to have been three, and others four.

On Christopher Columbus’ first voyage, La Niña carried a crew of 26 men, and she was captained by Vincente Yanez Pinzon, a famed Spanish navigator. He departed from Palos de la Frontera with his three ships, and he was actually aboard the Santa Maria, the largest of the three.

It was on the 7^th October 1492 that the crew spotted a flock of birds, signifying their proximity to land, and a few days later the captain of the Pinta, Martin Alonso Pinzon, confirmed the land sighting and signalled Columbus. Columbus would go on to state he had already spotted the land, and so he’d be given the lifetime pension promised to whomever first saw land by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Christopher Columbus named this island San Salvador, and it’s now known as the Bahamas. He called the inhabitants Indians, and was curious in regard to their golden ear ornaments. He later imprisoned the locals, and forced them to guide him to the source of the gold. Columbus also noted how primitive they were in terms of warfare, and is believed to have said, “The people here are simple in war-like matters… I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased.”

After this, Columbus ventured to the northern coast of Cuba in late October, before journeying to Hispaniola in December. The Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day of that year, and there was no other choice but to abandon her. Columbus decided to use the wreckage as a source for target practice for their cannons, to impress the local people. A native chieftain, Guacanagari, accepted Columbus and granted him permission to leave some of his men behind. Christopher Columbus then founded the settlement of La Navidad, in present-day Haiti.

His last stop of the voyage was in the Bay of Rincon, in northeast Hispaniola. This was in January of 1493, and here he encountered the Ciguayos; the only group of natives who were violently resistant towards Columbus and his men.  

Columbus then set sail for Spain, and La Niña was almost capsized in February 1493, in the east of the Azores. This is a small archipelago in the North Atlantic, around 900 miles west of Portugal’s capital, Lisbon. A storm was tossing the ship across the waves, and Columbus subsequently ordered his crew to take a series of vows to perform specific acts when they returned to Spain, such as religious pilgrimages. A month later, on the 4^th March 1493, La Niña reached Lisbon.