Qualla: Guanahani

Guanahani: Introduction

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, Jean-Baptiste Le Pers, Public domain. At 10 p.m. on October 11, 1492, Christopher Columbus saw something from the deck of the Santa Maria - a flickering glow, "like a small wax candle that rose and lifted up." Some of his crew saw it too. Others did not. Five hours later, at 2 a.m. on October 12, a lookout aboard the Pinta spotted land. Columbus went ashore that morning and named the island San Salvador. The Taino people who lived there already had a name for it: Guanahani, meaning "small upper waters land." Columbus described it as very flat, very green, with many waters and a great lagoon in the middle. Then he left, and a debate began that has not ended in five hundred years. Which island, exactly, had he found?

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Image: Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, Jean-Baptiste Le Pers | Public domain

Guanahani: The Paper Trail of a Lost Logbook

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit various, Public domain. Columbus presented his original ship's log to the Spanish sovereigns at Barcelona upon his return in 1493. Queen Isabella ordered a copy made. The original disappeared. The copy - the so-called Barcelona copy - passed to Columbus at the start of his second voyage and remained wit...

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Image: various | Public domain

Guanahani: Ten Islands, One Landing

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alain Manesson Mallet, Public domain. At least ten Bahamian islands have been proposed as the real Guanahani. San Salvador Island, formerly called Watlings Island, has held the title since 1925, when it was officially renamed based on the identification first proposed by Juan Bautista Munoz in 1793. The influential h...

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Image: Alain Manesson Mallet | Public domain

Guanahani: Compasses, Currents, and Contradictions

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alain Manesson Mallet, Public domain. Historians have used two main methods to locate Guanahani. The first traces Columbus's transatlantic route using the distances and directions recorded in the Diario, adjusted for the uncertain length of his league, the unknown speed of ocean currents in 1492, and the magnetic dec...

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Image: Alain Manesson Mallet | Public domain

Guanahani: A Bean-Shaped Island with Many Waters

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alain Manesson Mallet, Public domain. Columbus left a description that is both vivid and maddeningly vague. Guanahani was flat, green, bean-shaped, surrounded by a reef with a harbor "large enough to store all ships of Christendom" between reef and shore. It had muchas aguas - many waters - and a large laguna in the ...

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Image: Alain Manesson Mallet | Public domain

Guanahani: The Name That Outlasted Its Map

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alain Manesson Mallet, Public domain. Columbus mentioned Guanahani only once in the letter he wrote to his patron Luis de Santangel upon returning to Spain in 1493. That single mention, in a letter printed widely and translated across Europe, was enough to make the name famous. The Taino people who gave the island it...

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Image: Alain Manesson Mallet | Public domain