A whopping 530 years ago, the great Genovese Admiral Christopher Columbus performed the feat of crossing the Atlantic -the mythical Ocean Sea- at the command of three fragile vessels and "discovering", according to the Eurocentric vision in force for long centuries, the lands that later would be called America.
He began to take possession of these, in the belief he had arrived by a new route to Asia and was very close to the long-awaited Cipango (today Japan). Calmly first and with blood and fire, later, in the name of the Crown of Castille and Aragon, financier of his expedition.
His first contact with the natives of those lands took place on the island of Guanahaní, today Wattling Island, in the Bahamas, on the famous October 12, 1492, after a hazardous and turbulent journey, with threats of mutiny on board after he set sail from the port of Palos on August 3 of that year.
The issue was that Columbus, convinced like few others in his time that the Earth was round, was far from imagining that the Atlantic was so extensive and that a continental mass unknown to Europeans was located in the middle of it.
That firm land would prevent the expected encounter with the Far East and the discovery of the commercial route that Spain had an urgent need to find. Returning to the placid Guanahaní, of naive and generous inhabitants to the incredible extent according to Columbus's own descriptions, after contacting them they continued their trip and on October 27 they anchored their ships at a point on the north coast of Cuba, which some place to the north of the current central province of Camagüey and others a little further east, in the legendary Bariay.
The brave and skillful sailor was so impressed by the beauty of the wild scenery around him that he wrote in his logbook the famous expression: "This is the most fertile (beautiful) land that human eyes have ever seen." A phrase that Cubans have kept fondly throughout time.
Columbus, when taking possession of Cuba (aboriginal word) named it Juan, in honor of Prince Juan, first-born of the kings. The famous navigator, with the years gone by, was not aware of where he had arrived and what his destiny would be. But that is another story…
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