the Indian Ocean. In effect, Columbus was looking for the Strait of Malaaca (which is really near Singapore) in Central America.During this voyage, Columbus saw an approaching storm and asked to anchor at Hispaniola, where his request was declined. He found refuge for his four ships in an estuary until the hurricane had passed. As his exploration continued, he traveled to Honduras and then to Panama. The natives in Panama told him that there was another ocean just a few days away and Columbus believed he had found his strait. Finally, Columbus built a garrison in western Panama as the headquarters for his exploration. He took three ships out of the river, leaving one with the garrison and the next day, the river had lowered so much that the fourth ship was trapped in the river by a sandbar. At this moment, a tribe of Indians attacked the garrison. The Spanish abandoned the fort and the ship and sailed for home.However, one of the ships had to also be abandoned because it was no longer sea worthy, and then, off the coast of Cuba, they were hit by another storm. The last two ships were lost and Columbus was marooned in Jamaica for a year before returning home to Spain where he died two years later.As is evident by this true tale of Columbus voyages, Columbus never reached America, as we know it. He reached Central America, and in fact the closest he ever came to North America was Puerto Rico. And as any schoolchild knows, Columbus never found his westward passage to Asia. In 1506, he murmured, Into thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit and passed away.Perhaps the greatest injustice of all is that the land the Great Navigator discovered was never given his name. Another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, sailed to the Indies on two occasions and wrote back to Europe with stories of the New World. In 1507, when a group of geographers were working on a new atlas, the word America was written across the newly discovered lands. By the time they reali...
