Place

Santa María wreck region

Approximate area on Hispaniola’s north coast where Santa María grounded during the night of 24–25 December 1492. The precise wreck site has not been securely identified.

Coordinates19.74, -72.06

Related expeditions

3 August 1492–15 March 1493

Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage

Christopher Columbus led a Castilian-sponsored fleet west from Palos de la Frontera seeking a maritime route to Asia. It did not reach Asia. The expedition crossed from the Canary Islands to Guanahani in the Bahamas, explored parts of Cuba and Hispaniola, established La Navidad after the loss of Santa María, and returned to Spain by way of the Azores and Lisbon. The Caribbean lands it entered were already inhabited by diverse Indigenous peoples, including Lucayan and Taíno communities.

Sources and further reading

Journal of Christopher Columbus (During His First Voyage, 1492–93), Cambridge University Press. Published edition and English translation of Bartolomé de las Casas’s abstract of the lost first-voyage journal; the principal primary narrative for dates, courses, landfalls, encounters, and the loss of Santa María, used with awareness of its textual history.
The Empirical Reconstruction of Columbus’ Navigational Log and Track of His 1492–1493 Voyage, The Journal of Navigation, Cambridge University Press. Peer-reviewed navigational reconstruction used to guide representative Atlantic routing and to document the uncertainty surrounding track and landfall reconstruction.

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