Samana Cay
Template:Refimprove Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".
Samana Cay is a now uninhabited island in the Bahamas believed by some researchers to have been the location of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Americas on October 12, 1492.[1]
It is an islet in the eastern Bahamas, Script error: No such module "convert". northeast of Acklins Island. About Script error: No such module "convert". long and up to Script error: No such module "convert". wide with an area of about Script error: No such module "convert". it is bound by reefs. The verdant cay has long been uninhabited, but figurines, pottery shards, and other artifacts discovered there in the mid-1980s have been ascribed to Lucayan Indians, who lived on the cay around the time of Columbus's voyages.
The indigenous people of the island on which Columbus first landed called it "Guanahani." Samana Cay was first proposed to be Guanahani by Gustavus Fox in 1882,[2] but the predominant theory gives the honour to San Salvador Island.[3] However, in 1986, Joseph Judge of National Geographic Magazine made different calculations based on extracts from Columbus's logs and argued for Samana Cay as the location, but his methodology has also been criticised.[4]
Samana was a name of apparent Lucayan origin (meaning "small middle forested land")[5] used by the Spanish to designate one of the islands in the Bahamas. Granberry and Vesceliuus identify that island as the present-day Samana Cay.[6]
Samana Cay had a permanent population during the first half of the 20th century, and the ruins of the settlement are visible on the south side of the island, near the western end. The island is now uninhabited, but residents of nearby Acklins Island visit occasionally to collect cascarilla bark, which grows in abundance on the island.
Notes
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ William D. Phillips Jr., 'Columbus, Christopher', in David Buisseret (ed.), The Oxford Companion to World Exploration, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, online edition 2012).
- ↑ For a brief discussion of the controversy, see William D. Phillips, Jr., and Carla Rahn Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 155–5.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
- ↑ Julian Granberry and Gary S. Vescelius. (2004) Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles. The University of Alabama Press. Template:ISBN p. 83
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".