National Geographic Society Finding : Columbus’ First Landing Moved 65 Miles

Christopher Columbus first set foot in the New World on the remote Bahamian island of Samana Cay, 65 miles from the site that had been believed to be his landing point for more than four decades, the National Geographic Society reported Wednesday in a startling discovery.

“We think we can demonstrate conclusively that this is finally settled,” said Joseph Judge, senior associate editor of National Geographic magazine and chief of a team of experts who have spent five years studying the question of where the expedition landed. “It follows, of course, that the history books are wrong.”

Surrounded by Reef

Samana Cay, an uninhabited island surrounded by a treacherous reef, is the actual site of Columbus’ landing early on the morning of Oct. 12, 1492, according to articles in the November issue of National Geographic magazine, published Wednesday.

Previously, researchers and historians generally had believed that Columbus landed 65 miles northwest of Samana Cay on another Bahamian island. That speck of land was called Watling Island until 1926, but its name was changed to San Salvador--which Columbus had called his landing point in his log--even before a consensus was reached about its distinction.

The findings by the National Geographic Society present a problem for Spain, which plans to re-create Columbus’ voyage landing in San Salvador in 1992, the 500th anniversary of the discovery.

Used Computer Analysis

The National Geographic researchers, who used computer analysis to plot the 3,000-mile, 33-day voyage from the Canary Islands, said that earlier theories did not take into account ocean currents and other factors affecting the expedition’s course.

Columbus would have landed at San Salvador, they said, “only if he had sailed in a nearly straight line. . . . Steering by compass alone, this is a physical impossibility, unless the ocean froze solid and railroad tracks were laid on its surface.”

Nine different Bahamian islands have been suggested as the site of Columbus’ landfall, but debate all but ceased in 1942, when Harvard University’s Adm. Samuel Eliot Morison, a Columbus scholar and nautical expert, declared the question settled in favor of San Salvador.

Log’s Route Examined

The National Geographic group traced the voyage by computer analysis across the Atlantic and then closely examined segments of his log’s route between points in the Caribbean after the original landfall.

Using a new line-by-line translation of a 16th-Century summary of Columbus’ log by Dr. Eugene Lyon, an expert in Old Spanish, researchers re-created the voyage, first on paper and computer screens, then in boats.

During the study, Luis Marden, a former chief of National Geographic’s foreign staff, and his wife, Ethel Marden, a mathematician, discovered a 16th-Century manual that defines the Spanish sea league as 2.82 nautical miles, rather than 3.18 nautical miles, as had been thought. The researchers concluded that the expedition would have landed at a point about 10 miles northeast of Samana Cay.

Sailed Columbus’ Path

Then, after tracing the voyage, the Mardens twice sailed across the Atlantic to Samana Cay by Columbus’ recorded route.

After reaching the hypothesis that Samana Cay was Columbus’ first landfall, members of the research group went to the island, seeking confirmation from the voyage’s log that it was indeed the site. Period pottery was found there, indicating that the island was inhabited or at least visited by natives in Columbus’ time, fitting his description of encountering natives at dawn on the day after the discovery.

Judge also found that the geography of the island was consistent with Columbus’ description, which included a lake in the center of the island, a harbor big enough “for all the ships of Christendom” and a piece of land “made like an island even though it is not”--a peninsula with a narrow neck.