Rodrigo de Triana
Rodrigo de Triana (b. XV century) was a Spanish sailor. He was a crew member of one of Christopher Columbus's caravels on his first voyage, in which the discovery of the American continent took place. According to historiography, he was the lookout who sighted the New World.
Birth and provenance
The birthplace of Rodrigo de Triana is disputed, so several hypotheses are being considered.
Information
The logbook of Christopher Columbus mentions that a sailor sees land at 2 in the morning, later stating that the first to see land is Rodrigo de Triana.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo points out the Huelva municipality of Lepe as the birthplace of the person who sighted America, seeing fires or candles on the coast, at night, in General and natural history of the Indies of 1535. The work attributes to Rodrigo de Triana the sighting of America at dawn.
The first volume of The history of the Indies and the conquest of Mexico (the name of the work varies depending on the edition), published in 1552 and written by Francisco López de Gómara, contains information regarding the origin of the sailor In chapter XVI, The discovery of the Indies by Christopher Columbus, it reads:
He pursued his way, and then saw a sailor from Lepe and a Salcedo. On the next day, which was 11 October of the year of 1492, said Rodrigo de Triana: "Earth, earth", to whose sweet word they all came to see if it was true; and as they saw it, they began the Te Deum laudamus, kneeling and weeping with pleasure. They made a sign to the other companions to rejoice and give thanks to God, who had shown them what they so desired. There they saw the ends of rejoicing that sailors do: some kissed Columbus' hands, others offered him for servants, and others asked him for mercy. The land they first saw was Guanahaní, one of the Lucayas islands, which fell between Florida and Cuba, in which land was taken, and the possession of the Indies and New World, which Columbus discovered by the Kings of Castile.
In chapter X, The honor and favors that the Catholic Monarchs gave Columbus for having discovered the Indies, another reference to the origin of Rodrigo de Triana can be seen:
From where I suspect that the queen favored more than not the king the discovery of the Indies; and also because it did not allow to pass to them but to Castilians; and if any Aragones went there, it was with his license and express commandment. Many of those who had accompanied Columbus in this discovery asked for mercy, but the kings did not do them all. And so, the sailor of Lepe went over to Berberia, and there he reneged the faith, because neither Columbus gave him any robes nor the king mercy, for having seen him first than another of the fleet lumbre in the Indies.
Although there is no complete list of the sailors that Columbus took on his first voyage, historian Alice Bache Gould managed to compile a richly documented list of 90 sailors, which is the most complete known. In said passenger list there is only one resident of Lepe, named Pedro Izquierdo, who was a cabin boy on the Santa María. In addition, there is a resident of La Redondela, a coastal town very close to Lepe, whose name was Pedro Lepe and who did not return to Spain, since he was part of the Spaniards that Columbus left behind at Fort Navidad and who died along with the others. companions of the stockade in an attack by the natives.
Seville
According to the testimony of a witness named Fernando García Vallejos, questioned by a prosecutor in 1515, the first sailor to sight land was called Juan Rodríguez Bermejo and he was from a place in Seville called "Molinos". Another witness, Manuel de Valdovinos, who calls him Juan Bermejo, also claimed that he was from Seville.
Local tradition says that Rodrigo was from the Seville neighborhood of Triana.
Other names
Although he is called Rodrigo de Triana in Christopher Columbus' logbook, other names have been given to him.
Juan Rodriguez Bermejo
According to historian Alice Bache Gould the name "Rodrigo" is actually the last name "Rodriguez" poorly copied. This name is attributed to it thanks to the testimony of a witness, Fernando García Vallejos, who, when questioned by a prosecutor (on the occasion of the Columbian lawsuits) in 1515, declared:
On this Thursday night the moon was cleared, and a sailor was said to be Juan Rodríguez Bermejo, neighbor of Molinos, of the land of Seville, as the moon cleared, of the said ship of Martin Alonso Pinzón saw a white head of sand, and lifted up his eyes and saw the earth, and then plucked with lombardy and gave a thunder: Land! Land!
In 1525 Juan Rodríguez Bermejo participated as a pilot in the expedition to the Moluccas, in Southeast Asia, together with García Jofre de Loaisa. In this expedition was Juan Sebastián El Cano, who had completed the first circumnavigation in 1522 of the Earth, initiated by Ferdinand Magellan. The Moluccan expedition would last from 1525 to 1536. Juan Rodríguez Bermejo would die during it, on June 24, 1526. He was married to Catalina Muñoz.
Juan Bermejo
There are two other witnesses who testified before the prosecutor in 1515 in the context of the Columbian lawsuits.
Manuel de Valdovinos explains himself as follows:
[...] sailing to the fourth vineyard the land a Juan Bermejo of Seville, and that the first land was the island of Guanahani.
The witness Diego Fernández Colmenero talks about the matter as follows:
[...] a sailor who dezias Juan Bermejo, saw the land of Guanahani first than another person, and who asked albrycias to captain Martin Alonso Pinçon; and that ansy desqubrio the earth first.
Rodrigo Bermejo
Historian Ángel Ortega, in his work La Rábida: Critical Documentary History (1925), identified him with Rodrigo Bermejo, pilot of the Casa de la Contratación in Seville.
Rodrigo Perez de Acevedo
It is the name given to it in the municipality of Lepe, in the province of Huelva.
Sighting of America
According to Columbus's logbook, he was the first Spaniard to sight the new continent on the caravel Pinta. The diary jumps immediately from October 11 to October 13, 1492, understanding the events narrated as October 12:
And because the carabela Pinta was more sailing and went before the Admiral, he found land and made the signs that the Admiral sent. This land first saw a sailor who said Rodrigo de Triana [... ]
Rodrigo spotted a small island in the Lucayan archipelago (known today as the Bahamas), in the Caribbean Sea. The island in particular was known by the natives as Guanahani and was baptized by Christopher Columbus as San Salvador, in honor of Jesus Christ and the salvation that finding land implied after that long journey.
Watling Island, located in the Bahamas itself, was proposed in the XIX (19) century as the island where Columbus landed in 1492. Thus, in 1925, another island formerly considered the original San Salvador, now called Cat Island, was deprived of honor to give Watling Island the name of San Salvador, which it still retains today.. Finally, in 1986 the National Geographic Society pointed out that the island sighted and where Columbus landed for the first time in America is Cayo Samaná, another small island also in The Bahamas. Cayo Samaná is a small elongated island, today uninhabited, 16 kilometers long and approximately 3 and a half kilometers wide.
The time of discovery according to Christopher Columbus' logbook would be "two hours past midnight", that is, 2 in the morning of October 12, 1492, when they were two leagues (marine).
The aforementioned book General and Natural History of the Indies by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, from 1535, in its Book II (2), chapter V (5), contributes a lot to this moment. It narrates that first, at night, Columbus saw candles on land, warning a couple of crew members. Later, and still at night, a lookout sailor from Lepe sighted the candles. He later recounts that, the next morning, at dawn, a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana was the first to see land. In addition, he moves the discovery to the morning of October 11, instead of October 12.
And that month, when Admiral Colon said these words, he knew that he was near the earth, in the face of the heavens; and he admonished the pilots that, if the caravels were to turn away, in any case fortuitous, the one from the other, that passed that trance they ran toward the side or wind that commanded them, to keep them down again. And as the night came, he commanded to nick the candles, and to run with themselves the low trims; and thus walking, a sailor of them that went in the captain, the native of Lepe, said, "Earth!... Earth..." And then a servant of Colom, named Salcedo, said, "That is what the Admiral, my lord, has already said," and incontinent Colom said, "Ratus has I said, and I have seen that light that is on the ground." And so it was: that on Thursday, at two hours after midnight, the Admiral called to a hidalgo said Escobedo, a treasurer of the Catholic King, and told him that he saw light. And another day of tomorrow, in enlightenment, and at the time that the day before he had said Colom, from the nao-capitan one saw the island that the Indians call Guanàhaní, from the part of the Trotamontana or North. And the one who saw the earth first, when it was already day, was called Rodrigo de Triana, eleven days of October of the year already said of a thousand and four hundred and ninety-two.[... ]
Tornando a la historia, that island that I saw first, I have said, is one of the islands that say of the Lucayos. And that sailor who said first that he saw light on the ground, then turned into Spain, because he was not given the robes, despicted of this, he passed into Africa and reneged from the faith. This man, second I heard of Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and Hernán Pérez Mateos, who found themselves in this first discovery, was from Lepe, as I said.
Land sighting without prize
According to the diary of Columbus's first voyage, the King and Queen of Spain promised a reward of 10,000 maravedis to the first to sight land. As the voyage turned out to be much longer than initially planned, Columbus also offered a silk doublet as a reward for his part.
Rodrigo de Triana sighted land at 2 in the morning on October 12, 1492 (according to Columbus' logbook, since according to General and Natural History of the Indies, Historiographical book of 1535, Rodrigo de Triana sees land at dawn, corresponding to the sighting at 2 in the morning of a leper on October 11). However, Colón argues that at 10:00 p.m. on October 11, some four hours earlier, he had seen lights rising and falling on the horizon through his cabin window, which he interpreted could be candles on land, and that after seeing that, he first notified Pero Guitiérrez, who said he could see the candles as well, and then Rodrigo Sánchez de Segovia, who said he did not see any of that, Columbus arguing that this was because Rodrigo Sánchez de Segovia was located in a place where you couldn't see what he wanted to show you. In this way, Rodrigo de Triana would not collect the substantial reward. The diary narrates the events as follows:
[...] since the Admiral, at ten o'clock in the night, being in the castle of popa, vid lumbre; although it was so çerrada that he did not want to affirm that it was land, but he called to But Gutiérrez repostero d'estrados del Rey e dixole que pareçía lumbre, que mirase él, y así lo hecho, y vindola. He also spoke to Rodrigo Sánchez de Segovia, who the King and the Queen are embiading in the navy by a veedor, who saw nothing because it is not in place to see it. After that the Admiral made him exodus, he saw himself once or two, and was like a candle of wax that stood and lifted up, which a few seemed to be indiçio of land; but the Admiral had to be by the earth. Therefore, when they dixed the Salve, that they accustomed to dezir and sing in their own way all the sailors and are all found, prayed and admonished them the Admiral who made good keep to the castle of proa, and look good for the land, and that the one who ordered it first that by land would give it then a silk jumbowithout the other mercedes that the Kings were promised, which were 10 million maravedis I swear to whoever first saw him. At two o'clock, after midnight, the land seemed to be two leagues. They stopped all the candles, and remained with the treo that is the great candle, without boots, and stood in the cord, temporizing until Friday that they came to an islet of the Lucayos, which is called in the language of Guanahaní Indians.
According to the work General and Natural History of the Indies (1535), seeing the leper denied his reward, he renounced his faith and went to live in Africa. In General History of the Indies (1552) it is mentioned that he went to Barbary, that is, to the Maghreb.
Transcendence
There are several theories as to when humans first came to America. According to the first studies on the Clovis culture, man arrived in America 12,000 years ago, although other later writers have placed the event between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago. Others have even pushed this fact back to 30,000 years ago. It is unknown if the first settlers arrived via the Bering Strait or on an Oceanian-Polynesian-South American route.
Signs of Viking settlements in North America were discovered in the 20th century. However, the Vikings later abandoned these settlements without this having an impact on European culture.
It was the expedition of Christopher Columbus of 1492 that really had a historical continuity, since after it began a series of almost immediate successive voyages to discover the American continent, creating the notion of the New World. Columbus thought that he was in Asia, where he had tried to reach, sailing west, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs. The sighting of Rodrigo de Triana de América marked a before and after in the history of humanity, fully and instantly starting the Modern Age.
Tributes
In 1928, the Seville Ibero-American Exposition Committee commissioned the sculptor Manuel Delgado Brackenbury to create a statue of Rodrigo de Triana to be placed in the Plaza de los Conquistadores, in the southern part of the exhibition site. After the exhibition was held, the statue was taken to the municipal warehouses. In 1948 the statue was placed in Chapina square, but it was removed again in 1962. In 1973 the sculptor José Lemus made another different statue of Rodrigo de Triana, which was placed in Pagés del Corro street. The statue shows a Rodrigo pointing to the land on a masonry pedestal that reads "Land!". In the city there is also a street called Rodrigo de Triana.
In Lepe, the figure of the leper who, according to historiography, sighted America is honored. In this way, in Lepe an urbanization, a school and one of the main streets of the historic center are called Rodrigo Pérez de Acevedo, in addition to appearing on the city's shield in a lookout post.
In Dos Hermanas, province of Seville, there is a street called Juan Rodríguez Bermejo.
In 1992, a memorial entitled Monument to the Triana Angels, made by Gabriel Mozas, was placed in the Chapina square. It is a bronze relief of modern art attached to a stone wall. It is dedicated to Rodrigo de Triana, Rodrigo de Bastidas, Andrés de Morales and the rest of the people from Triana who collaborated in the discovery of America.
In 1988 the Spanish adventurer Vital Alsar traveled with his ship Marigalante from America to the Muelle de las Delicias in Seville and deposited a chest of coins in the chapel of the Virgen de la Antigua in the cathedral from different parts of the world in homage to Rodrigo de Triana and to all the navigators who participated in the discovery of America. The chest is deposited in the offices of the cathedral chapter.
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