who explored waters of cuba the bahamas and hispaniola
Christopher Columbus
title: History of the Bahamas text: October 1492 Columbus reached an island in the Bahamas and claimed it for Spain, an event long regarded by Europeans as the 'discovery' of America. This island was called "Guanahani" by the Lucayan, and San Salvador by the Spanish. The identity of the first American landfall by Columbus remains controversial, but many authors accept Samuel E. Morison's identification of Columbus' San Salvador as what was later called Watling (or Watling's) Island. Its name has been officially changed to San Salvador. Columbus visited several other islands in the Bahamas before sailing to present-day Cuba and afterwards to Hispaniola. The Bahamas held title: Andros, Bahamas text: have been approximately 40,000 Lucayan-Taínos when the Spanish arrived in the region. Spain claimed the Bahamas after Columbus' discovery of the islands—his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere was on the Bahamian island of San Salvador. The Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, for whom the Americas are named, came on a Spanish charter and spent four months exploring the Bahamas in 1499–1500. He mapped a portion of the eastern shore of Andros Island. Ponce de Leon sailed by Andros on his journey from Cuba to Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth in 1513. The Spanish valued the Lucayans for title: Sebastián de Ocampo text: Sebastián de Ocampo Sebastián de Ocampo was a Spanish navigator and explorer. He is believed to have been the first navigator to have circumnavigated the island of Cuba in 1508. Under the authority of the Governor of Hispaniola, Ocampo sailed along the northern coast of the island through the Old Bahama Channel and around the western point, Cape San Antonio. The voyage took eight months, and was against the Gulf Stream. Europeans had already frequented Cuba by the time Ocampo embarked on his journey, but his circumnavigation confirmed that the area was indeed surrounded by water, and not a peninsula title: The Bahamas text: southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 11th century, having migrated there from South America. They came to be known as the Lucayan people. An estimated 30,000 Lucayan inhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in 1492. Columbus's first landfall in the New World was on an island he named San Salvador (known to the Lucayan as "Guanahani"). Some researchers believe this site to be present-day San Salvador Island (formerly known as Watling's Island), situated in the southeastern Bahamas. An alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made title: Spanish diaspora text: island. Christopher Columbus, on his first voyage to the Americas, sailed south from what is now the Bahamas to explore the northeast coast of Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola. Columbus discovered the island believing it to be a peninsula of the Asian mainland. In 1511, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar set out with three ships and an army of 300 men from Santo Domingo to form the first Spanish settlement in Cuba, with orders from Spain to conquer the island. Most heritage comes from Canarians, Asturians, Galicians and Castilians. The native white population are nearly all descendants of the