1530 (Ethnohistory): The primary historical source for Columbus’s first voyage is a transcription of his original journal created by Bartolomé de las Casas.

1530 (Ethnohistory): The primary historical source for Columbus’s first voyage is a transcription of his original journal created by Bartolomé de las Casas. This document consists of seventy-six large paper folios written in a small, cursive shorthand, containing forty to fifty lines per page. While the original journal was lost, this transcription remains the most critical text for reconstructing day-by-day encounters between Europeans and indigenous groups. Modern scholars use exact translations of this “diario” to analyze indigenous reactions and geographical descriptions of the Bahamas and Greater Antilles.