Juan de la Cosa and Hispaniola

 

Although we can only make out a few of the words on Juan de la Cosa's map of Hispaniola, we were recently examining it again. We can just make out Isabela, Vega real and Cabo de San Miguel (Cabo Tiburón). Santo Domingo is possibly legible, too. Another site with clearer views of the place names on the map is still quite difficult to read. Unfortunately, the map doesn't use any indigenous toponyms although other islands in the Caribbean are portrayed with their indigenous names (Puerto Rico and Cuba, for instance). Some of the Lucayan islands also appear with their local names, too. Intriguingly, some of the names in that part of Juan de la Cosa's map are also regions of Hispaniola known under indigenous names. Baoruco, or Bahoruco, for instance, is in Hispaniola but the map seems to place it among the Lucayan islands north of the Tortuga region. One also can spot a place in the Lucayan archipelago called Haiti, which seems to be mistakenly applied to this region. But in his defense, Juan de la Cosa's map was finished about 8 years after the initial landing of Columbus in this region.