12 October 1492: Columbus reaches America and nothing is ever the same

Historical Anniversary · 12 October 1492

In short: on 12 October 1492 Columbus’s expedition reached Guanahani, in the Caribbean, and opened permanent contact between Europe and the Americas. It was a turning point with profound and uneven consequences, one that requires looking at both the exchanges and the violence of the conquest, and at the Black Legend that surrounded it.

By Alejandro Noguera Borel, Director of Museo L’Iber.

On 12 October 1492, Christopher Columbus’s expedition reached a Caribbean island that its inhabitants knew as Guanahani and that the navigator named San Salvador. That event opened a new chapter in world history: permanent contact between Europe and the Americas, with far-reaching consequences for both continents.

But what really happened on that day, and how did the world change from then on?

An expedition in search of Asia: from Palos to 12 October 1492

Towards the end of the 15th century, the European monarchies were looking for new trade routes to Asia. Christopher Columbus proposed reaching those lands by sailing westwards and secured the support of the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the same year in which the Reconquista ended with the fall of Granada.

On 3 August 1492, he set sail from Palos de la Frontera with three ships: the Santa María, the Pinta and the Niña. After a stopover in the Canary Islands, the expedition crossed the Atlantic and reached the Caribbean on 12 October.

Columbus believed he had reached the outskirts of Asia, without realising that he was facing lands unknown to Europeans.

The Americas before Columbus

The American continent was not an empty land. For thousands of years it had been inhabited by peoples with highly diverse cultures, languages and forms of organisation. Taíno communities lived in the Caribbean; the Maya and Mexica societies developed in Mesoamerica, and the Inca Empire flourished in the Andes, among many other civilisations.

The arrival of the Europeans did not mark the beginning of the history of the Americas, but a new phase in the relations between societies that, until then, had had no known direct contact across the Atlantic.

Conquest, exchange and transformation

Contact between Europe and the Americas led to exchanges of food, animals, knowledge and products that transformed everyday life in many territories. Maize, potatoes, tomatoes and cocoa spread to other continents, while the Europeans brought to the Americas animals such as the horse and cattle, as well as inventions such as the wheel and the use of iron.

However, this process was also marked by conquest, the seizure of land, labour exploitation and slavery. Diseases brought from Europe, together with violence and harsh living conditions, caused a devastating decline in the indigenous population, especially in the Caribbean.

The consequences were profound and uneven, and indigenous peoples resisted, preserved their traditions and continued to be part of American history.

The Black Legend and a more balanced view

A narrative born of rivalry

For centuries, much of the image of the Spanish conquest was built outside Spain. The so-called “Black Legend” gained momentum in the 16th century, amid fierce political and religious rivalry with the Hispanic Monarchy. Meanwhile, the Spanish Tercios, its infantry, were fighting across half of Europe. The legend drew largely on texts written by Spaniards themselves, such as Friar Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, published in 1552). Translated into several languages and republished with engravings, as in Theodor de Bry’s Latin edition (1598), it served as a propaganda weapon against Spain in Protestant countries. The expression “Black Legend” predates 1914, but it was Julián Juderías who popularised it with his essay of that year.

Recognising its propagandistic origin does not mean denying the facts. The conquest was violent, and there were abuses, forced labour and slavery. The immense mortality suffered by the indigenous population, caused above all by epidemics against which it had no defences, was a demographic catastrophe. But the picture of a deliberate, systematic extermination does not fit what the documentation reveals about the government of the American territories.

Grammars and indigenous languages

One example is the interest in indigenous languages. After Nebrija’s Gramática castellana (1492), the first grammars of American languages were written very soon afterwards. In 1547, Friar Andrés de Olmos completed his Arte de la lengua mexicana, the oldest surviving grammar of Nahuatl. It circulated in manuscript and was not printed until 1875. Friar Maturino Gilberti’s grammar of Purépecha, regarded as the first printed grammar of an indigenous American language, came out in Mexico in 1558. In 1560, Friar Domingo de Santo Tomás published in Valladolid the first grammar of Quechua. Grammars of Zapotec (1578), Mixtec (1593) and other languages followed, up to Guaraní (1640). By way of comparison, the first grammar of English, by William Bullokar, dates from 1586.

In 1536, the College of Santa Cruz opened in Tlatelolco, where young men from the indigenous nobility studied Latin and rhetoric. There, Friar Bernardino de Sahagún compiled, with Nahua collaborators, the work we now know as the Florentine Codex, one of the main sources on the Mexica world.

Hospitals, universities and printing

Cities, hospitals and universities were also built. In Santo Domingo, Governor Nicolás de Ovando promoted from 1503 the Hospital of San Nicolás de Bari, traditionally cited as the first in the Americas. In Mexico, the Franciscan infirmary for indigenous people became the Royal Hospital of the Natives in 1553, under the patronage of the Crown. The University of Santo Tomás de Aquino, in Santo Domingo, received its founding papal bull in 1538. Mexico and Lima received their universities by royal decree in 1551. Teaching began in Mexico in 1553, almost a century before Harvard was founded (1636). The printing press reached Mexico in 1539 and the English colonies of North America around 1639. A power whose aim was to eliminate the population living under its authority would hardly build such institutions.

Laws, mixed marriages and indigenous elites

The legal and social framework had its own particularities. The Crown encouraged marriages between Spaniards and indigenous people from an early date (instruction to Ovando of 1503). In 1514 it declared that indigenous people were free to marry whomever they chose, although many colonists ignored that recommendation. Even so, colonial society became deeply mixed.

The Laws of Burgos (1512) and the New Laws (1542) tried to regulate the treatment of indigenous peoples and limit the encomienda system. In addition, the Valladolid controversy (1550-1551) pitted Las Casas against Ginés de Sepúlveda over the legitimacy of the conquest, an unusual debate for a colonial power of the time. There were specific councils and courts, such as the General Indian Court (1591-1592). The indigenous elites kept a recognised standing: the caciques held posts in the government of indigenous towns, and the descendants of Moctezuma received the title of Counts of Moctezuma in 1628. Over time, however, the Crown gradually curtailed the power of that nobility.

Contrasts with other colonisations

None of this means the system was just. Many laws were not obeyed, as the formula “obeyed but not enforced” expressed, forms of forced labour such as the mita persisted, and the caste system set clear hierarchies. But the difference from other colonial models is striking. In the British colonies of North America, the settlement of colonist families predominated, with little recognised mixed marriage. Its policy of treaties, displacement and reservations culminated, in the 19th century, in laws such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

Today, indigenous peoples make up a very small share of the population of the United States and Canada. In Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador, by contrast, they remain a demographic and cultural presence of the first order, and languages such as Quechua, Nahuatl or Guaraní are still alive.

After independence

Nor did independence, in general, improve their situation. The new republics, inspired by liberal civic equality, abolished special legal protection and a large part of indigenous communal lands. In addition, throughout the 19th century, military campaigns were launched against peoples who had remained outside colonial control, such as the “Conquest of the Desert” in Argentina or the occupation of Araucanía in Chile.

Neither a Black Legend nor a rosy legend

The Spanish presence in the Americas combined violence and exploitation with cultural mixing, evangelisation, institutions and a singular legal and moral concern for the treatment of indigenous peoples. Seeing it as a whole, and comparing it with other colonisations without oversimplifying, helps us understand better a process that cannot be reduced to a story of good and bad.

12 October 1492: discovery or encounter between two worlds?

The way 12 October is interpreted has changed over time. For centuries people spoke of the “discovery of America”, an expression that puts the European perspective at the centre of the story. Today, many historians prefer to look at the event from a broader perspective, one that takes into account all the societies involved and the consequences of colonisation.

Furthermore, Norse sailors had reached America centuries earlier, although it was Columbus’s expedition that opened an era of sustained transatlantic contact between Europe and the Americas.

12 October 1492 was a turning point in world history, not because it began the history of a continent, but because it transformed the relations between societies in different parts of the world. Understanding it requires recognising both the cultural exchanges and changes and the violence and inequalities that accompanied that process.

History, far from being a tale of absolute heroes and villains, invites us to understand the past in all its complexity.

Frequently asked questions about 12 October 1492

What happened on 12 October 1492?

Christopher Columbus’s expedition, which had set out from Palos de la Frontera on 3 August, reached Guanahani, a Caribbean island in what is now the Bahamas archipelago. Columbus named it San Salvador. It was the start of permanent contact between Europe and the Americas.

Why is 12 October celebrated?

In Spain, Law 18/1987 established 12 October as the National Day. In other countries the date goes by different names, such as the Día de la Hispanidad, the Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity in Argentina or the Day of Indigenous Resistance in Venezuela. These names reflect the different ways of interpreting that event.

Did Columbus discover America?

Not strictly speaking. The continent had been inhabited for thousands of years and Norse sailors had arrived centuries earlier. Columbus’s expedition opened an era of sustained transatlantic contact between Europe and the Americas.

Would you like to see what Spain was like in that era? Buy your ticket to the Museo L’Iber and travel through the history of Spain in miniature in our permanent collection.

Sources

Languages, colleges, hospitals and universities

• Friar Andrés de Olmos, Arte de la lengua mexicana (1547): Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl (UNAM) and Historiographia Linguistica.
• Maturino Gilberti, grammar of Purépecha (1558): Primeros Libros de las Américas.
• Domingo de Santo Tomás, grammar of Quechua (1560): Amelica and Memoria Chilena.
• Juan de Córdova, grammar of Zapotec (1578): Wikipedia.
• William Bullokar, Pamphlet for Grammar (1586): Lexicons of Early Modern English (University of Toronto).
• College of Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco (1536): Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl (UNAM).
• Hospital of San Nicolás de Bari, Santo Domingo: Hektoen International and El Día. Royal Hospital of the Natives, Mexico: UNAM, Institute for Historical Research.
• Universities of Mexico (1551) and Santo Domingo (1538): Estudios de Historia Novohispana (UNAM) and Wikipedia. Harvard (1636): Wikipedia.
• Printing press in Mexico (1539) and in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1639): Wikipedia and History of Information.

Laws, society and the Black Legend

• Laws of Burgos, New Laws and the Valladolid controversy: Edad de Oro (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid).
• Mixed marriages (instruction of 1503 and decree of 1514): Libertad Digital (popular source; it should be checked against Richard Konetzke, Colección de documentos para la historia de la formación social de Hispanoamérica).
• General Indian Court and indigenous councils: Diccionario panhispánico del español jurídico (RAE) and Revista Española de Antropología Americana. Counts of Moctezuma: Revista Española de Antropología Americana.
• The Black Legend: Redalyc and Magdalen College, Oxford.
• 19th century: Indian Removal Act, Conquest of the Desert and occupation of Araucanía (Memoria Chilena).
• National Day of Spain: Law 18/1987 (Congress of Deputies).

Images

• Images: “The Three Caravels” by Rafael Monleón (1885) and an engraving by Theodor de Bry (16th century), both in the public domain; Temple I at Tikal, photo by Adam Jones (CC BY-SA 2.0); the Florentine Codex and the map by Diego Ribero (1529), in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.