1492, December 5–6: (The Imposition of Colonial Names and Cartography): Christopher Columbus first identified the north coast of Ayiti from the Santa Maria o…

1492, December 5–6: (The Imposition of Colonial Names and Cartography): Christopher Columbus first identified the north coast of Ayiti from the Santa Maria on December 5, 1492, characterizing it as a “very great island”. On December 6, 1492, he entered a lonely harbor he named Puerto de San Nicolão to honor the feast of St. Nicholas. These early European names, such as San Nicolas and Tortuga, were transcribed onto parchment with “neat and firm” strokes that survive in Madrid’s library of the Dukes of Alba today. This act of naming began the systematic erasure of indigenous designations like Quisqueya, Bohio, and Babeque. The mapping served as a preliminary tool for a master-slave dynamic that would soon define the island’s future.