5 to 6 December 1492 · Indigenousspan
Columbus writes new names over Quisqueya, Bohio and Babeque
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Columbus first made out the north coast of the island from the deck of the Santa Maria on 5 December 1492 and recorded that it was a very great island. The next day, the feast of Saint Nicholas, he entered an empty harbour and named it for the saint. Tortuga was named in the same days. The words went onto parchment in a neat firm hand, and those sheets survive in Madrid in the library of the Dukes of Alba. The people already living there had names for their country. Quisqueya, Bohio and Babeque appear in the early Spanish records and then stop appearing, because a name survives only while somebody with authority keeps using it. Naming is cheap, and it is also the first administrative act of a conquest. Once a harbour is Puerto de San Nicolas on a Spanish chart it can be granted, garrisoned and defended by people who have never seen it. Mole Saint-Nicolas is still called that today.
A code like HT-WIB-000044 is a bates number. It marks one page of our stamped scan of the book, so the same page can be found again by anyone working from the same copy. Open one to see every entry drawn from that page.