The term “glass” developed in the late Roman Empire.

It was in the Roman glassmaking center at Trier, now in modern Germany, that the late-Latin term glesum originated, probably from a Germanic word for a transparent, lustrous substance.

While naturally occurring glass, especially the volcanic glass obsidian, had been used by many Stone Age societies across the globe for the production of sharp cutting tools and, due to its limited source areas, was extensively traded, archaeological evidence suggests that the first true glass was made in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or Ancient Egypt.

The earliest known glass objects, of the mid-third millennium BCE, were beads, perhaps initially created as accidental byproducts of metalworking (slags) or during the production of faience, a pre-glass vitreous material made by a process similar to glazing.

Glass remained a luxury material, and the disasters that overtook Late Bronze Age civilizations seem to have brought glassmaking to a halt.

Indigenous development of glass technology in South Asia may have begun in 1730 BCE, whereas in ancient China, glassmaking seems to have a late start, compared to ceramics and metal work.

In the Roman Empire, glass objects have been recovered across the Roman Empire in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts.

Glass begins to be used extensively during the Middle Ages.

Anglo-Saxon glass has been found across England during archaeological excavations of both settlement and cemetery sites.

Glass in the Anglo-Saxon period is used in the manufacture of a range of objects including vessels, beads, windows and was also used in jewelry.

Optical glass for spectacles has been in use since the late Middle Ages.

The production of lenses has become increasingly proficient, aiding astronomers as well as having other application in medicine and science.

Glass is employed from the tenth century onward in stained glass windows of churches and cathedrals, with famous examples at Chartres Cathedral and the Basilica of Saint Denis.

Architects by the fourteenth century are designing buildings with walls of stained glass such as Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, (1203-1248) and the East end of Gloucester Cathedral.

Stained glass has a major revival with Gothic Revival architecture in the nineteenth century.

The use of large stained glass windows becomes less prevalent with the Renaissance and a change in architectural style.

The use of domestic stained glass increases until it is general for every substantial house to have glass windows.

These are initially of small panes leaded together, but with the changes in technology, glass can be manufactured relatively cheaply in increasingly larger sheets, leading to larger window panes, and, in the twentieth century, to much larger windows in ordinary domestic and commercial premises.

Such new types of glass as laminated glass, reinforced glass and glass bricks in the twentieth century increase the use of glass as a building material and result in new applications of glass.

Multistory buildings are frequently constructed with curtain walls made almost entirely of glass.

Similarly, laminated glass is widely applied to vehicles for windscreens.

While glass containers have always been used for storage and are valued for their hygienic properties, glass has been utilized increasingly in industry.

Glass is also employed as the aperture cover in many solar energy systems.

The Quest for Gold and the European Age of Exploration

The desire for gold was one of the primary motivations behind European explorations and conquests in Africa and the Western Hemisphere during the 15th and 16th centuries. Wealth from gold fueled economies, financed wars, and expanded European influence worldwide.

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Gold and the African Expeditions

• Portuguese Expansion (15th Century)

  • Portugal, under Prince Henry the Navigator, began exploring the West African coast in search of gold sources.
  • The Portuguese established trading posts (feitorias) along the coasts of Senegal, Ghana (Gold Coast), and Benin, tapping into existing African gold trade networks.
  • In 1471, the Portuguese reached the Gold Coast (modern Ghana), one of the richest gold-producing regions in Africa.
  • By 1482, they built Elmina Castle, their first major African trading fort, to control the gold trade.

• The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade Declines

  • Before European expansion, gold was traded across the Sahara to North Africa and the Mediterranean.
  • The Portuguese diverted the gold trade to the Atlantic, weakening North African and Islamic control over West African gold.
  • European access to African gold strengthened monarchies and banking systems, financing further explorations and military conquests.

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Gold and the Discovery of the Western Hemisphere

• Christopher Columbus’s Voyages (1492–1504)

  • Spain’s sponsorship of Columbus was partly motivated by the promise of gold.
  • In Hispaniola and Cuba, Columbus’s men searched for gold deposits, enslaving indigenous peoples to work in gold mines.
  • The lack of substantial gold deposits in the Caribbean pushed Spain to explore deeper into the Americas.

• The Spanish Conquests in the Americas

  • Hernán Cortés (1519–1521) defeated the Aztec Empire, capturing its golden treasures, melting them down to finance the Spanish Crown.
  • Francisco Pizarro (1532–1533) conquered the Inca Empire, where gold was considered sacred, seizing vast quantities from temples, royal tombs, and palaces.
  • The gold and silver mines of Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) became the largest sources of wealth for Spain, financing its imperial dominance in Europe.

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Impact of the Gold Rush on European Empires

• Economic and Political Power

  • Gold allowed European monarchies to strengthen their military and bureaucratic systems.
  • The influx of gold fueled the Commercial Revolution, expanding banking, investment, and trade.

• The Slave Trade and Labor Exploitation

  • The insatiable demand for gold led to forced labor systems like the encomienda in the Americas.
  • African slave labor became essential in gold and silver mining operations.

• Increased Rivalries and Colonization

  • European powers competed fiercely for control of gold-rich territories, leading to colonial wars and empire-building.
  • The search for gold pushed explorers deeper into uncharted lands, accelerating European territorial expansion.

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Conclusion: Gold as the Catalyst for Global Expansion

The quest for gold was one of the strongest driving forces behind European exploration and conquest. It funded empires, fueled wars, and transformed global economies, playing a pivotal role in shaping the Age of Exploration and the creation of the Atlantic World.

 

Middle America (1396–1539 CE)

Isthmian Crossroads, Mesoamerican States, and the First Atlantic Conquests

Geographic Definition of Middle America
Middle America encompasses Isthmanian America—Costa Rica, Panama, the San Andrés Archipelago, the Galápagos Islands, and the Darién of Colombia with the Cape lands of Ecuador—and Southern North America—Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
Anchors include the Valley of Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula, the Chiapas–Guatemalan cordillera, the Cordillera Central of Panama–Costa Rica, the Darién Gap, the Gulf of Panama, and the Pacific outliers of the Galápagos. Bounded by South America Major to the south (beginning beyond the Darién and Ecuador’s cape lands), this narrow continental hinge joined the Caribbean and Pacific, making it one of the most strategic corridors in the Americas.

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Geography & Environmental Framework

The early Little Ice Age modestly cooled highlands while preserving tropical rainfall regimes.
Caribbean slopes remained humid; Pacific faces saw sharper dry seasons. Highland basins—from the Valley of Mexico to Antigua Guatemala—supported dense populations, while lowland coasts and floodplains favored cacao groves, salt pans, and fishing settlements. Offshore, the Galápagos oscillated with El Niño, their upwellings feeding seabird and turtle populations even in the absence of permanent human settlement.

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Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Highlands: Shorter growing seasons and frost risk in the Basin of Mexico and Guatemalan plateaus tested maize at altitude, but terrace and irrigation systems buffered yields.

• Lowlands: Periodic drought affected Maya lowlands; hurricanes struck Caribbean coasts episodically; torrential rains inundated the Darién and Pacific estuaries.

• Galápagos: El Niño brought rainfall pulses and disrupted marine upwelling cycles, altering rookery success.

Despite variability, societies mitigated risk through waterworks, multicropping, storage, and exchange.

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Societies & Subsistence

Mesoamerican States and City-Regions (Southern North America)

• Central Mexico: The Mexica (Aztecs) dominated the Basin of Mexico, their capital Tenochtitlan anchored by chinampas (raised-field “floating” gardens) yielding maize, beans, squash, amaranth, chilies, and flowers. Tribute maize, cacao, and cotton flowed along calzadas and causeways; ward-based calpulli organized labor and land.

• Maya realms: After Mayapán’s collapse, smaller Maya polities in Yucatán and the Chiapas–Guatemalanhighlands sustained milpa agriculture, terrace fields, cacao orchards, and coastal fisheries. City-temple complexes, ball courts, and market towns persisted in flexible political mosaics.

• Pacific & Gulf coasts: Estuarine villages combined maize horticulture with salt-making, shellfishing, and long-distance trade.

Isthmian Chiefdoms and Riverine Worlds (Isthmanian America)

• Panama & Costa Rica: Chibchan and Cueva chiefdoms farmed maize, manioc, and cacao; gold–copper metallurgy, polished stone axes, and cotton textiles marked status. Dispersed hamlets and river villages linked floodplain fields to coastal fisheries.

• Darién & Ecuador’s capes: Stilt-house communities managed riverine farming, fishing, and trade in cotton, salt, and shell ornaments between Caribbean and Pacific.

• San Andrés & Galápagos: The archipelagoes remained uninhabited—waypoints in ecological and, by the sixteenth century, nautical networks.

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Technology & Material Culture

• Architecture & waterworks: Pyramids, palaces, and tzompantli precincts in stone; chinampa hydraulic systems; highland terraces and canals; stilt houses in floodplains.

• Crafts & records: Polychrome pottery, featherwork, turquoise mosaics, and bark-paper codices recorded ritual and dynastic history.

• Metallurgy & textiles: Isthmian gold–copper alloys, jade and shell ornaments; cotton weaving across lowlands and highlands.

• Weapons & tools: Atlatl, obsidian blades, bows, shields; dugout canoes for coasting and river travel.

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Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Overland isthmus trails: Portage paths linked cacao zones, salt flats, and coasts—an overland bridge between the Caribbean and Pacific.

• Mesoamerican trade: Mexica pochteca moved obsidian, cacao, cloth, and feathers across tribute routes radiating from Tenochtitlan; Maya merchants trafficked salt, jade, and cotton between Yucatán, highlands, and coasts.

• River and coastal canoes: Navigated the Usumacinta, Grijalva, Motagua, Chagres, and Tuira, and along both littorals.

• European intrusion: In 1510 Spaniards founded Santa María la Antigua del Darién; Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed to the Pacific (1513). Hernán Cortés toppled the Mexica (1519–1521); Pedro de Alvarado and allies invaded Guatemala (1524); Nicaragua fell in the 1520s. From Panama, Pizarro and Almagro launched the Andean conquest.

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Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Mexica cosmology: Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc, and solar order sustained imperial ritual—sacrifice renewed cosmic balance; the ball game dramatized conflict and renewal.

• Maya traditions: Ancestor veneration, council houses (popol nah), divinatory almanacs, and painted codicesencoded history and prophecy.

• Isthmian ritual: Shamanic healing, ancestor shrines, and prestige goldwork structured authority from Veraguasto Darién.

• Across the isthmus and highlands, poetry, festivals, and mask-dances knit together cosmic cycles with communal time.

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Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Highlands: Terraces, irrigation, and chinampa intensification stabilized yields under frost and drought; surplus storage and tribute redistribution spread risk.

• Lowlands & isthmus: Milpa rotations conserved soils; stilt houses mitigated floods; diversified diets—cacao, fish, palm fruits—balanced climate uncertainty.

• Galápagos: Unpeopled ecosystems adapted to El Niño variability; rookeries persisted as part of a wider Pacific web.

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Technology & Power Shifts (Conflict Dynamics)

The first Atlantic conquests cascaded through Middle America.
Cortés’s alliances—and epidemics—toppled the Mexica; Alvarado smashed highland Maya states; isthmian chiefdoms resisted but were overwhelmed by warfare, forced labor, and disease after 1510. From Panama, the bridge between seas became the staging ground for the Andean invasion. Yet pockets of autonomy survived in forests, mountains, and marshlands, where ritual and kin networks preserved identity beneath the new colonial order.

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Transition (to 1540 CE)

By 1539 CE, Middle America stood transformed.
The Basin of Mexico was a Spanish capital; Guatemala and Nicaragua were colonial provinces; Panama had become the hinge of Spain’s oceanic empire. The Galápagos entered charts; the isthmus’s trails became imperial roads.
Still, Maya towns, Chibchan river villages, and refugee communities endured—maintaining languages, planting cycles, and ritual geographies in the interstices of conquest. Between two oceans, Middle America’s ancient corridors now carried a new world of ships, silver, and crosses—yet beneath them flowed the older currents of maize, cacao, and memory that would continue to shape the centuries to come.

Isthmian America (1396–1539 CE): Crossroads of Continents and Spanish Intrusion

Geographic & Environmental Context

The subregion of Isthmian America includes Costa Rica, Panama, the Galápagos Islands, the San Andrés Archipelago, and the northeastern edge of South America (the Darién of Colombia and the capes of Ecuador). Anchors included the Cordillera Central of Panama and Costa Rica, the Darién Gap, the coasts of the Gulf of Panama, and the Pacific outliers of the Galápagos. This narrow isthmus bound together Pacific and Caribbean, making it one of the most strategic corridors in the Americas.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Little Ice Age brought modest cooling but retained high rainfall across most of the isthmus. The Caribbean side experienced humid equatorial rains, while Pacific slopes endured a sharper dry season. The Galápagos were subject to El Niño cycles, alternately increasing rainfall and disrupting marine upwellings, affecting seabird and turtle populations. Hurricanes rarely reached the region, but torrential rains and flooding in the Darién constrained settlement.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Panama and Costa Rica: Populated by Chibchan- and Cueva-speaking peoples who practiced maize, manioc, and cacao cultivation, combined with fishing, hunting, and foraging. Villages ranged from dispersed hamlets to larger chiefdom centers.

• Darién: Supported riverine farming and fishing societies, with villages on raised platforms in flood-prone areas.

• Capes of Ecuador: Hosted coastal farmers and fishers who traded cotton, salt, and shell ornaments.

• Galápagos and San Andrés Archipelago: Uninhabited, though the Galápagos may have been visited intermittently by seafarers from Ecuador or northern Peru for turtles and fish.

Technology & Material Culture

Local crafts included polished stone axes, gold ornaments, and ceramics. Chibchan metallurgy blended hammered gold with copper alloys. Cacao served as both food and currency. Wooden dugout canoes carried people and goods between river mouths and along coasts. Shell beads, cotton cloth, and feather ornaments circulated through regional exchange.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Canoes plied the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, linking river mouths and estuaries.

• Trails across the Isthmus connected cacao-producing zones with salt flats, creating a vital overland passage between seas.

• The Galápagos lay beyond normal voyaging networks but were ecologically connected by seabird migrations and turtle rookeries.

• In 1510, Spaniards founded Santa María la Antigua del Darién, the first enduring European town on the mainland. From there, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus in 1513, becoming the first European to view the Pacific Ocean.

• Expeditions under Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro launched from Panama toward Peru in the 1520s and 1530s.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Indigenous cosmologies emphasized ancestor veneration, shamanism, and sacred landscapes tied to rivers and mountains. Gold ornaments embodied prestige and ritual power. Spanish missionaries imposed crosses and chapels, though Indigenous rituals endured in villages and forests. Oral traditions preserved memory of migrations, river spirits, and ancestral origins.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Communities adapted to flooding with stilt houses, diversified diets through riverine fishing and farming, and used cacao and trade networks to spread risk. In the Galápagos, seabirds and turtles exploited shifting upwellings and El Niño variability, sustaining unpeopled but vibrant ecosystems.

Transition

By 1539 CE, Isthmian America had become the launching point of Spanish conquest across the Andes and Pacific. Indigenous communities persisted in Costa Rica, Panama, and the Darién, though epidemics and violence had already begun devastating populations. The Galápagos remained uninhabited but entered Spanish charts. This narrow, strategic corridor—long an Indigenous crossroads—had become the hinge of Spain’s oceanic empire.

The first written records of an outbreak of syphilis in Europe occurs in 1494/1495 in Naples, Italy, during a French invasion.

Because it is spread by returning French troops, the disease is known as "French disease", and it will not be until 1530 that the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro first applies the term "syphilis" to the disease.

The exact origin of syphilis is unknown.

There are two primary hypotheses: one proposes that syphilis was carried to Europe from the Americas by the crew of Christopher Columbus, the other proposes that syphilis previously existed in Europe (as a mutated variety of yaws) but went unrecognized.

Evidence published in late 2011 will suggest that the Columbian hypothesis is the valid one.

The Columbian theory holds that syphilis was a New World disease brought back by Columbus and Martín Alonso Pinzón.

Columbus's voyages to the Americas had occurred three years before the Naples syphilis outbreak of 1494.

This theory is supported by genetic studies of venereal syphilis and related bacteria, which found a disease intermediate between yaws and syphilis in Guyana, South America.

Researchers concluded that syphilis was carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus' voyages.

Many of the crew members who served on this voyage had later joined the army of King Charles VIII in his invasion of Italy in 1495, resulting in the spreading of the disease across Europe and as many as five million deaths.

The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions and low immunity of the population of Europe.

The syphilis virus, spreading quickly, reaches Switzerland and Germany in 1495, and by 1500 reaches epidemic proportions.

Europeans begin treating syphilis with mercury compounds, based on Arabic use of these compounds to treat skin diseases.

Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama becomes, in 1498, the first European to sail around Africa to reach India, opening the East to Portuguese commerce.; his crew members may have brought syphilis to South India.

Syphilis is almost immediately stigmatized: each country blames the outbreak on a neighbor country or rival bloc.

The Danish, the Portuguese and the inhabitants of the Mahgreb name it ‘the Castilian disease’ or ’the Spanish Disease.

The French call it ‘the Neapolitan disease’.

Italians, Germans, and English name syphilis ‘the French disease’; the Poles call it ‘the German disease’ and the Russians name it ‘Polish disease’.

The Turks call syphilis the ‘Christian disease’.

In northern India, the Muslims blame the Hindus for the outbreak; the Hindus blame the Muslims.

Both parties ultimately blame the Europeans.

Maize, unknown outside the New World, is extensively cultivated in all its present forms by the indigenous peoples of North and South America.

Nuclear American peoples, now almost entirely reliant on cultivation, have domesticated hundreds of species of plants for use not only as foods, but also as raw materials (such as pima cotton), as poisons, and as hallucinogens and stimulants.

Domesticated plants and agricultural techniques have gradually spread to other parts of the Americas, although most other New World cultivators, such as those in the tropical forest of South America and in the Southeast and Southwest of North America, continue to supplement cultivation with ancient food-collecting techniques.

At the time of contact between Old World and New, the area of the future United States has a population averaging only about one person per thirteen to twenty-six square kilometers (roughly one person per five to ten square miles).

Isthmian America (1492–1503 CE): Arrival of Spanish Explorers

The arrival of Europeans profoundly altered the history of Isthmian America. Rodrigo de Bastidas, a wealthy notary from Seville, became one of the earliest Spanish explorers to reach this critical juncture between the continents. In 1501, sailing westward from Venezuela in search of gold and other riches, Bastidas explored approximately 150 kilometers of coastline, including territories that are now part of Panama and coastal regions near the Gulf of Urabá. Although he failed to find significant quantities of gold, his voyage marked the beginning of sustained European interest in the region.

The following year, in 1502, Christopher Columbus arrived on his fourth and final voyage to the New World. Columbus navigated along the Isthmian coast, exploring several points of interest including a sheltered, horseshoe-shaped harbor that he named Puerto Bello (“beautiful port”), subsequently known as Portobelo. Columbus’s explorations sparked renewed European attention, soon prompting further voyages focused on colonization and exploitation.

At the same time, the indigenous societies of the region—including the Manteño-Huancavilca civilization along the Ecuadorian coast, the sophisticated Gran Coclé culture in central Panama, and diverse peoples such as the Ngäbe, Guna, Naso, Bokota, and the resilient Chocoan-speaking peoples—began to experience increasing disruption. While initially European contacts remained brief, the groundwork was now laid for future confrontations and transformations that would permanently reshape their cultural, political, and economic landscapes.

An extraordinary tale unfolds on the island of Hispaniola, a thriving land inhabited by the Taíno and Ciboney peoples, in the year 1492.

Forty-year-old Genoese navigator Cristóbal Colón (anglicized as Christopher Columbus), on receiving an apparently final refusal in 1492, prepares to go to France, but a final appeal to Queen Isabella proves successful.

An agreement between the Spanish crown and Columbus sets the terms for the planned three-ship expedition.

The Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria are outfitted in the minor port of Palos.

Juan de la Cosa is the owner and master of the Santa Maria, Columbus's flagship.

Two brothers—Martin Alonzo Pinzon, who receives command of the Pinta, and his younger brother Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who captains the Niña—aid Columbus in recruiting a crew.

The elder Pinzon is probably part owner of both the Pinta and the Niña.

They leave Palos on August 3, 1492, re-rig the Niña in the Canaries, and sail to the west on favorable winds.

Columbus had underestimated the distance; he thought it was about three thousand miles (forty-eight hundred kilometers).

After landing in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, the three ships take on a number of locals, then make their way to Cuba, the largest island in the Antilles archipelago, with some fifty thousand inhabitants.

Reaching the island in two weeks, Columbus lands delegations to seek the court of the emperor of China and gold.

Columbus apparently believes that he has reached the East Indies.

Consequently, he calls the inhabitants of the island Indians, a misnomer still generally used today in labeling the indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America.

After six weeks in Cuba, Columbus’s expedition sails east to Hispaniola, the most populous of the Antilles, where, at Christmas, the Santa Maria is wrecked near Cap-Haïtien.

Columbus gets his men ashore.

The native Arawaks appear friendly and the Europeans exchange their trade goods for gold.

The Magua, with Guarionex as cacique, is in the farther northeast.

The Xaragua, with Bohechio as cacique, occupies the western plains of present Haiti.

The Higuey, with Cotubanama or Cayacoa as cacique, occupies the easternmost peninsula, Rico.

Columbus finds the Tainos occupied with fighting against the warlike Caribs, who have invaded the eastern part of Hispaniola.

As he will report to his royal sponsors, Columbus takes possession of a large town and names it the City of Navidad.

Pinzon meanwhile abandons Columbus in the Antilles for six weeks, probably to explore Hispaniola for gold and spices.

On Pinzon’s return, Columbus censures him for disobeying orders.

Leaving a garrison of thirty-nine (or twenty-one) men behind in an unfinished fort built from the timbers of his wrecked flagship, Columbus sails for home on the Niña to reveal the New World to the inhabitants of the Old.

As he will write some months later, he takes "by force some of the natives, that from them we might gain some information of what there was in these parts; and so it was that we immediately understood each other, either by words or signs."

He reports cotton growing in the Bahamas.

He also finds the Arawak Indians of the Caribbean smoking tobacco in loosely rolled cigars (a practice documented in the Mayan culture more than two thousand years ago).

Encountering Caribs in eastern Hispaniola, observes the inhabitants using the dried, elastic sap of a wild climbing vine to make soft, resilient playballs; they call this material “cachuchu, ““the wood that weeps.” (The French will later corrupt the name of the material to “caoutchoc”.)

Forty-year-old Genoese navigator Cristóbal Colón (anglicized as Christopher Columbus), on receiving an apparently final refusal in 1492, prepares to go to France, but a final appeal to Queen Isabella proves successful.

An agreement between the Spanish crown and Columbus sets the terms for the planned three-ship expedition.

The Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria are outfitted in the minor port of Palos.

Juan de la Cosa is the owner and master of the Santa Maria, Columbus's flagship.

Two brothers—Martin Alonzo Pinzon, who receives command of the Pinta, and his younger brother Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who captains the Niña—aid Columbus in recruiting a crew.

The elder Pinzon is probably part owner of both the Pinta and the Niña.

They leave Palos on August 3, 1492, re-rig the Niña in the Canaries, and sail to the west on favorable winds.

Columbus had underestimated the distance; he thought it was about three thousand miles (forty-eight hundred kilometers).

After landing in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, the three ships take on a number of locals, then make their way to Cuba, the largest island in the Antilles archipelago, with some fifty thousand inhabitants.

Reaching the island in two weeks, Columbus lands delegations to seek the court of the emperor of China and gold.

Columbus apparently believes that he has reached the East Indies.

Consequently, he calls the inhabitants of the island Indians, a misnomer still generally used today in labeling the indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America.

After six weeks in Cuba, Columbus’s expedition sails east to Hispaniola, the most populous of the Antilles, where, at Christmas, the Santa Maria is wrecked near Cap-Haïtien.

Columbus gets his men ashore.

The native Arawaks appear friendly and the Europeans exchange their trade goods for gold.

The Magua, with Guarionex as cacique, is in the farther northeast.

The Xaragua, with Bohechio as cacique, occupies the western plains of present Haiti.

The Higuey, with Cotubanama or Cayacoa as cacique, occupies the easternmost peninsula, Rico.

Columbus finds the Tainos occupied with fighting against the warlike Caribs, who have invaded the eastern part of Hispaniola.

As he will report to his royal sponsors, Columbus takes possession of a large town and names it the City of Navidad.

Pinzon meanwhile abandons Columbus in the Antilles for six weeks, probably to explore Hispaniola for gold and spices.

On Pinzon’s return, Columbus censures him for disobeying orders.

Leaving a garrison of thirty-nine (or twenty-one) men behind in an unfinished fort built from the timbers of his wrecked flagship, Columbus sails for home on the Niña to reveal the New World to the inhabitants of the Old.

As he will write some months later, he takes "by force some of the natives, that from them we might gain some information of what there was in these parts; and so it was that we immediately understood each other, either by words or signs."

He reports cotton growing in the Bahamas.

He also finds the Arawak Indians of the Caribbean smoking tobacco in loosely rolled cigars (a practice documented in the Mayan culture more than two thousand years ago).

Encountering Caribs in eastern Hispaniola, observes the inhabitants using the dried, elastic sap of a wild climbing vine to make soft, resilient playballs; they call this material “cachuchu, ““the wood that weeps.” (The French will later corrupt the name of the material to “caoutchoc”.)