As every schoolchild knows, the Santa María was, along with the Niña and Pinta, Christopher Columbus’ ship for the expedition which led to the European rediscovery of the Americas in 1492. For the next two months after the initial Discovery she continued to serve as the flagship as Columbus explored the New World, but Santa María was destined never again to return to Spain. Late in the evening of Christmas Eve, 1492, as the ship stood in calm seas off Haiti and most of the crew slept, the negligent steersman decided to put the helm in the hands of the ship’s boy so he too could nap.
Santa María’s inglorious end soon came as she ran up on a reef at Cap‑Haïtien, and the surf slowly pulled her seams apart. Her men were rescued by the Niña (in the background in this painting), and enough of her stores and timbers were salvaged to build a small fort ashore, but the ship herself was no more.
A couple of years ago I built up Pyro’s venerable
Santa María kit. Although it came out well enough, I had originally intended to place the model in a diorama setting...
After doing a little more historical research, it became evident to me that the real story of Santa María’s end was somewhat different from the official version.
The world, as we now recognize, and as sensible Europeans at the time knew very well, is flat. Nevertheless, there were then (as now) a small but vocal group of reality-deniers promoting the ludicrous notion that the Earth was actually
round – like a ball! Christopher Columbus was among the loudest of these nutters, and his antics so amused Queen Isabella of Castille that she eventually agreed to lend the expendable foreigner three second-hand ships just to see where his dopey ideas might take him.
Much to everyone’s surprise, the tiny fleet actually blundered into previously unknown (and, it turns out, clothing optional) lands. After they returned to Spain with such cool stuff as gold, tobacco, coca leaf, tomatoes, pineapples, the hammock (all well received) and syphilis (less popular), the Queen realized that her favorite loon had actually turned out to be a pretty good investment. Awkwardly, though, Columbus had returned without his flagship.
Apparently, having heard about a magical island called California, he had sent the Santa María and Pinta to check it out. Staying ashore himself to cavort with the natives, he was not aboard when the flagship ventured a little too close to the Edge of the World (California has always been on the Edge)...
– and over the Edge Santa María went!
Fortunately the Pinta had wisely held back and so, picking up Niña and the Admiral, they made their way back to Spain. Embarrassed by the loss of his flagship and unwilling to acknowledge proof of the Flat Earth (Round-Earthers being notoriously unimpressed by actual evidence), Columbus concocted the story of the ship being steered onto reefs by a naughty boy. Now the Queen didn’t buy this absurd tale for a minute, but she also knew a good thing when she saw one... and realizing that news of ships falling off the Edge of the Earth would be bad for business, she went along with it.
And so, until this very day, few people know the true story of the fate of the Santa María.
