Santa María (ship) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

La Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción (Spanish for The Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception), was the largest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

in his first voyage. Her master and owner was Juan de la Cosa

Juan de la Cosa

Juan de la Cosa was a Spanish cartographer, conquistador and explorer. He made the earliest extant European world map to incorporate the territories of the Americas that were discovered in the 15th century, sailed first 3 voyages with Christopher Columbus, and was the owner/captain of the Santa...

History

The Santa María was probably a small carrack

Carrack

A carrack or nau was a three- or four-masted sailing ship developed in 15th century Western Europe for use in the Atlantic Ocean. It had a high rounded stern with large aftcastle, forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. It was first used by the Portuguese , and later by the Spanish, to explore and...

, about 70 feet long, used as the flagship

Flagship

A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

for the expedition. The other ships of the Columbus expedition were the smaller caravel

Caravel

A caravel is a small, highly maneuverable sailing ship developed in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The lateen sails gave her speed and the capacity for sailing to windward...

-type ships Santa Clara, remembered as La Niña
Niña
La Niña was one of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage towards the Indies in 1492. The real name of the Niña was Santa Clara. The name Niña was probably a pun on the name of her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer...

("The Girl"), and La Pinta ("The Painted One"). All these ships were second-hand (if not third or more) and were never meant for exploration. The Niña, Pinta, and the Santa María were not the largest ships in Europe at the time. They were smaller trade ships surpassed in size by ships like the Great Michael, built in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

in 1511 with a length of 73.2 m (240 ft), and a crew of 300 sailors, 120 gunners, and up to 1,000 soldiers. The Peter von Danzig
Peter von Danzig (ship)
Peter von Danzig was a 15th century ship of the Hanseatic League. It was the first large vessel in the Baltic Sea featuring carvel planking.- Career :...

of the Hanseatic League

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

was built in 1462 and was 51 m (167.3 ft) long. Another large ship, the English carrack Grace Dieu
Grace Dieu (ship)
Grace Dieu was launched in 1418 as the flagship of Henry V of England and was one of the largest ships of her time. She sailed on only one voyage, and spent most of her life laid up in the River Hamble, where in 1439 she was struck by a bolt of lightning and burnt.-Construction:She was built to a...

, was built during the period 1420–1439, was 66.4 m (218 ft) long, and weighed between 1,400 tons and 2,750 tons. The reason size is mentioned is that Columbus' three ships were built to sail the Mediterranean sea, not the open ocean. This says a great deal about the courage of Columbus and his crew.
The Santa María was originally named La Gallega ("The Galician"), because she was built in Pontevedra

Pontevedra

Pontevedra is a city in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. It is the capital of both the comarca and province of Pontevedra, in Galicia . It is also the capital of its own municipality which is, in fact, often considered as an extension of the actual city...

, Galicia, in Spain's north-west. It seems the ship was known to her sailors as Marigalante, Spanish for "Gallant Maria". Bartolomé de Las Casas

Bartolomé de Las Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians"...

never used La Gallega, Marigalante or Santa María in his writings, preferring to use la Capitana or La Nao.

The Santa María had a single deck and three masts

Mast (sailing)

The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall, vertical, or near vertical, spar, or arrangement of spars, which supports the sails. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship...

. She was the slowest of Columbus's vessels but performed well in the Atlantic crossing. She ran aground off the present-day site of Cap-Haïtien

Cap-Haïtien

Cap-Haïtien is a city of about 190,000 people on the north coast of Haiti and capital of the Department of Nord...

, Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

on December 25, 1492, and was lost. Realizing that the ship was beyond repair, Columbus ordered his men to strip the timbers from the ship. The timbers from the ship were later used to build Môle Saint-Nicolas

Môle Saint-Nicolas

Môle-Saint-Nicolas is a town in the Republic of Haiti. It is the chief town of the Môle-Saint-Nicolas Arrondissement in the department of Nord-Ouest...

, which was originally called La Navidad
La Navidad
La Navidad was a settlement that Christopher Columbus and his men established in present day Haiti in 1492 from the remains of the Spanish ship, the Santa María...

(Christmas) because the wreck occurred on Christmas Day.

The anchor of the Santa María now resides in the Musée du Panthéon National Haitien (MUPANAH), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Crew

Columbus's crew on the first voyage was not composed of criminals as is widely believed. Many were experienced seamen from the port town of Palos

Palos

Palos may refer to:Places*Palos de la Frontera, a municipality in Spain*Cape Palos, cape on the Mediterranean coast of Spain*Palos Township, Cook County, Illinois*Palos Heights, Illinois*Paloş , a village in Caţa Commune, Braşov County, RomaniaEvents...

and the surrounding countryside and coastal area of Galicia. It is true, however, that the Spanish sovereigns offered amnesty

Amnesty

Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

to convicts who signed up for the voyage, but only four men took up the offer: one who had killed a man in a fight, and three friends of his who had then helped him escape from jail.

There were some crew members from Andalusia

Andalusia

Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

, as the voyage was
financed by a syndicate of seven noble Genovese

Genovese

Genovese is an Italian surname meaning, properly, someone from Genoa, but more often , a clever person, a generalization particularly in Southern Italy of people from Genoa....

bankers resident
in Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

(the group was linked to Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. The Americas are generally believed to have derived their name from the feminized Latin version of his first name.-Expeditions:...

and funds
belonging to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de Medici). Hence all the
accounting and recording of the voyage was kept in Seville. This
also applies to the second voyage, even though the syndicate had by
then been disbanded. This fact partly debunks the romantic story that
the Queen of Spain had used a necklace that she had received
from her husband the King, as collateral for a loan.

Of Columbus's four voyages, only the crew of the first voyage
is completely known. In many cases, there are no surname

Surname

A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...

s; the men's places of origin are indicated to differentiate crewmen
with the same given name

Given name

A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...

First crew

Christopher Colombus, Captain
Juan de la Cosa
Juan de la Cosa
Juan de la Cosa was a Spanish cartographer, conquistador and explorer. He made the earliest extant European world map to incorporate the territories of the Americas that were discovered in the 15th century, sailed first 3 voyages with Christopher Columbus, and was the owner/captain of the Santa...

, maestre (Santoña
Santoña
Santoña is a town in the eastern coast of the autonomous community of Cantabria, on the north coast of Spain. It is situated by the bay of the same name. It is 45 km from the capital Santander. Santoña is divided into two zones, an urban plain, and a mountainous area, with Mount Buciero at its...

).
Sancho Ruiz, piloto.
Alonso Pérez Roldán, piloto.
Maestre Alonso, físico, de Moguer.
Maestre Diego, contramaestre.
Rodrigo Sánchez de Segovia, veedor.
Pedro Gutiérrez, repostero de estradas del Rey.
Rodrigo de Escobedo, Scrivener
Scrivener
A scrivener was traditionally a person who could read and write. This usually indicated secretarial and administrative duties such as dictation and keeping business, judicial, and history records for kings, nobles, temples, and cities...
Diego de Arana, Master-at-arms
Master-at-arms
A master-at-arms may be a naval rating responsible for discipline and law enforcement, an army officer responsible for physical training, or a member of the crew of a merchant ship responsible for security and law enforcement.-Royal Navy:The master-at-arms is a ship's senior rating, comparable in...

, (Córdoba
Córdoba, Spain
-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...

)
Diego Lorenzo, Master-at-arms
Master-at-arms
A master-at-arms may be a naval rating responsible for discipline and law enforcement, an army officer responsible for physical training, or a member of the crew of a merchant ship responsible for security and law enforcement.-Royal Navy:The master-at-arms is a ship's senior rating, comparable in...
Luis de Torres, Interpreter
Domingo de Lequeitio.
Lope, calafate.
Jacome el Rico, (Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

)
Pedro Terreros, maestresala.
Rodrigo de Jerez, (Ayamonte
Ayamonte
Ayamonte is a town and municipality located in the province of Huelva, Spain. According to the 2005 census, the city has a population of 18,001 inhabitants.-Location and history:...

)
Ruiz García, (Santoña
Santoña
Santoña is a town in the eastern coast of the autonomous community of Cantabria, on the north coast of Spain. It is situated by the bay of the same name. It is 45 km from the capital Santander. Santoña is divided into two zones, an urban plain, and a mountainous area, with Mount Buciero at its...

)
Rodrigo de Escóbar
Francisco de Huelva
Rui Fernández (Huelva
Huelva
Huelva is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous region of Andalusia. It is located along the Gulf of Cadiz coast, at the confluence of the Odiel and Tinto rivers. According to the 2010 census, the city has a population of 149,410 inhabitants. The...

)
Pedro de Soria
Pedro de Bilbao, (Larrabezua).
Pedro de Villa, del Puerto.
Diego de Salcedo, criado de Colón.

Replicas

Interest in reconstructing the Santa María started in the 1890s for the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage. The 1892 reconstruction depicted the ship as a nao

Carrack

. A subsequent replica built in the 20th century (pictured above) depicts the Santa María as a caravel

Caravel

. The caravel did not have the high forward structure of the nao. Apparently Columbus himself referred to the Santa María as both a nao and a caravel in his own journal. The 1992 reconstruction of the Santa María is also as a nao, which is the most commonly accepted type of ship.
Anchored in Deep Sea Adventure Lake, West Edmonton Mall's Santa María ship is also a replica of the Santa María. Built at False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the ship was hand-carved, hand-painted and transported in flatbed trucks across the Rocky Mountains to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

History

Crew

First crew

Replicas

See also