San Salvador Island, previously Watling's Island, is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

and

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

The Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of ...

, famed for being the probable location of

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

's first landing of the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

on 12 October 1492 during his first voyage. This historical importance, the island's tropical beaches, and its proximity to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

have made tourism central to the local economy. The island has a population of 824 (2022) and is under the administration of Gilbert C. Kemp. Its largest settlement and seat of local government is

Cockburn Town Cockburn Town ( ) is the capital of the Turks and Caicos Islands, spreading across most of Grand Turk Island. It was founded in 1681 by salt collectors. Geography Cockburn Town is located on the largest island in the Turks Islands archipelago ...

Names

''Watling's Island'' was named for George or

John Watling John, or George, Watling (died 1681) was a 17th-century England, English buccaneer.Esquemeling, John. ''The Buccaneers of America''. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1893, pp. 388-413. It was said that he would never plunder on the Sabbath in Christiani ...

, an

Englishman The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common ancestry, history, and culture. The English identity began with the Anglo-Saxons, when they we ...

who settled it in the 17th century. The name was used officially from the 1680s until 1926. It is still used unofficially in discussions of the actual location of Columbus's first landfall. ''San Salvador'' derives from the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

("Island of the Holy Savior"), bestowed by

in honor of

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

in thanks for his fleet's safe arrival. in what he thought was

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

. Columbus recorded the natives' name for the place as ''Guanaham'', now considered to be a mistranscription of

Taíno The Taíno are the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, Indigenous peoples of the Greater Antilles and surrounding islands. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of what is now The ...

, meaning "Small Land in the Upper Waters".

Geography

San Salvador Island sits on its own isolated

carbonate platform A carbonate platform is a Sedimentary rock, sedimentary body which possesses topographic relief, and is composed of Autochthon (geology), autochthonic calcareous deposits. Platform growth is mediated by Sessility (zoology), sessile organisms whose ...

surrounded by a narrow shelf that reaches a depth of up to . Past the shelf, the slope becomes almost vertical and depth quickly increases to . San Salvador Island experiences a semidiurnal tide, with two high tides and two low tides per day. Water temperature in San Salvador can range from depending on the location and time of year. Salinity and dissolved oxygen are consistent throughout the island and throughout the year (35 ppt and 6.0% respectively). Most of San Salvador Island is surrounded by

fringing reef A fringing reef is one of the three main types of coral reef. It is distinguished from the other main types, barrier reefs and atolls, in that it has either an entirely shallow backreef zone (lagoon) or none at all. If a fringing reef grows direc ...

s. In many areas, such as Fernandez Bay, the shore is rocky and populated by reef urchins (''Echinometra viridis''). Moving away from shore, the bottom slopes gradually and may have several patch reefs surrounded by a sandy bottom. These patch reefs are home to hundreds of fish, invertebrates, and algae. The depth continues to increase to about at the farthest edge of the shelf, which can be from shore. Wind and wave action in San Salvador is influenced by the

Antilles Current The Antilles Current is a highly variable surface ocean current of warm water that flows northwesterly, past the island chain that separates the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The current results from the flow of the Atlantic North Equato ...

. The Antilles Current originates south of the Bahamas,

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

, and Cuba and moves northward where it merges with the

Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the United States, then veers east near 36°N latitude (North Carolin ...

. This current cools the waters around San Salvador in the summer and warms the water around the island in the winter. This keeps the water temperature relatively mild and consistent throughout the year. The coasts of San Salvador are very different from each other. The west coast of San Salvador faces the rest of

the Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of ...

and the

Great Bahama Bank The Bahama Banks are the submerged carbonate platforms located in the archipelago of The Bahamas within the Lucayan Archipelago. The term is usually applied in referring to either the Great Bahama Bank around Andros Island, or the Little Bah ...

. Most of these islands are sheltered from significant winds and wave action, making the water generally calmer with greater visibility. In contrast, the eastern coast of San Salvador is

windward In geography and seamanship, windward () and leeward () are directions relative to the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e., towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point ...

and completely exposed to the rest of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

and is not protected by any other geological formations. As a result, wave action is much stronger and visibility is lower. Evidence of currents from the Atlantic Ocean can be found on the east coast in the form of trash and debris on the beaches. During

Hurricane Joaquin Hurricane Joaquin ( ; ) was a powerful tropical cyclone that devastated several districts of The Bahamas and caused damage in the Turks and Caicos Islands, parts of the Greater Antilles, and Bermuda. It was also the strongest Atlantic hurricane ...

in October 2015, cargo steamer ''El Faro'' went down approximately 50 miles east of San Salvador. Several weeks later, pieces of the containers that had been swept away by the current were reported on the beaches of San Salvador.

History

Columbus's arrival

's voyages west were sponsored by

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

in the hopes that he would reach

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in Eastern world, the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainl ...

, circumventing both Turkish and Portuguese control of the eastern and southern routes of the lucrative

spice trade The spice trade involved historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices, such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, star anise, clove, and turmeric, were known and used in antiquity and traded in t ...

. Letters from Columbus to the Spanish monarchs IsabellaI of Castile and FerdinandII of

Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...

record that the first island sighted during his first voyage was known to its Lucayan inhabitants as Guanahaní and that he renamed it San Salvador in thanks to

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

. Arriving on 12 October 1492, he described the Lucayans as "sweet and gentle", "naked as they were born", possessed of "neither iron, nor steel, nor arms, nor... competent to use them",. "timid to a surprising degree", andcombined with the other islands he visitedwould enable to him to deliver to Spain "

slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

, as many of these idolators as their Highnesses shall command to be shipped". Earlier in the same letter, Columbus had explained that the Lucayans were ''not'' idolators butas

chattel slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

had largely disappeared from Europe during the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history between and ; it was preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended according to historiographical convention ...

and

Early Renaissance Renaissance art (1350 – 1620) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurr ...

its revival under

Nicholas V Pope Nicholas V (; ; 15 November 1397 – 24 March 1455), born Tommaso Parentucelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 March 1447 until his death in March 1455. Pope Eugene IV made him a cardinal in 1446 afte ...

's 1452 and similar

bulls Bulls may refer to: *The plural of bull, an adult male bovine * Bulls, New Zealand, a small town in the Rangitikei District Sports *Bucking bull, used in the sport of bull riding *Bulls (rugby union), a South African rugby union franchise operated ...

were dependent on the idolatrous status of the enslaved. Columbus himself seized several Guanahamians by force to use as translators and ambassadors,. despite forcing his crew to stop cheating them in exchanges of random trash for items of great worth,. including one who received 12 g of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

for a used leather strap. Despite their general intelligence, the Guanahamian slaves considered him sent from the heavens and secured him welcome at every island he visited. The location of this first island visited by Columbus is disputed. In the 19th century, it was usually thought to be Cat Island but arguments from

Juan Bautista Muñoz Juan Bautista Muñoz ( Museros, 12 June 1745 – Madrid, 19 July 1799) was an 18th-century Spanish philosopher and historian. He wrote a major history of Spain and Spanish America, using Spanish archival resources, and was the driving force beh ...

; Captain Alexander B. Becher, a hydrographer in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

; Rear Adm. Joseph B. Murdock of the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

;

Richard Henry Major Richard Henry Major (October 3, 1818 – June 25, 1891) was a geographer and map librarian who curated the map collection of the British Museum from 1844 until his retirement in 1880. Biography Major was born in Shoreditch in 1818 to Richard Ma ...

, map custodian of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

; the geographer

Clements Markham Sir Clements Robert Markham (20 July 1830 – 30 January 1916) was an English geographer, explorer and writer. He was secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) between 1863 and 1888, and later served as the Society's president fo ...

; the naval historian Samuel E. Morison; and the

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

priest Chrysostom Schreiner eventually led to the island's 1926 renaming. Fr. Schreiner relocated to San Salvador, where his tomb is still preserved.Act 27 of the Year 1926: Cat Island and San Salvador or Watlings Island Names Act

Government of the Bahamas A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

. More recently, the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, natural sc ...

, Keith Pickering, and others have argued for alternative locations, including

Samana Cay Samana Cay is a now uninhabited island in the Bahamas believed by some researchers to have been the location of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Americas on October 12, 1492. It is an islet in the eastern Bahamas, northeast of Ackli ...

Later history

The island now called San Salvador was settled in the 17th century by the English

buccaneer Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors, and pirates particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 u ...

George or

. Britain formally colonized the Bahamas in the early 18th century. During the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

's Mobile Construction Battalion 7 constructed a long-range navigation (

LORAN LORAN (Long Range Navigation) was a hyperbolic navigation, hyperbolic radio navigation system developed in the United States during World War II. It was similar to the UK's Gee (navigation), Gee system but operated at lower frequencies in order ...

) station on Grahams Harbor at the north end of the island from 1957 to 1959. After the LORAN station was decommissioned, it became the Bahamian Field Station and then the Gerace Research Center.. More than 1,000 students and researchers work from the station every year as a base of operations for studying tropical

marine geology Marine geology or geological oceanography is the study of the history and structure of the ocean floor. It involves geophysical, Geochemistry, geochemical, Sedimentology, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

, and

archeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeolo ...

. San Salvador has required extensive rebuilding following

Hurricane Lili Hurricane Lili was the second costliest, deadliest, and most intense hurricane of the 2002 Atlantic hurricane season, only surpassed by Hurricane Isidore, which affected the same areas around a week before Lili. Lili was the twelfth named storm ...

in 1996,

Hurricane Floyd Hurricane Floyd was a very powerful and large tropical cyclone which struck the Bahamas and the East Coast of the United States. It was the sixth list of named tropical cyclones, named storm, fourth hurricane, and third major hurricane in the 1 ...

in 1999,Curran, H. A., Delano, P., White, B., and Barrett, M., 2001, "Coastal Effects of Hurricane Floyd on San Salvador Island, Bahamas," In ''Proceedings of the 10th Symposium on the Geology of The Bahamas'', 2001. Greenstein, B. J., and Carney, C. K.(eds.) and

in 2015. Floyd in particular caused considerable

beach erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward r ...

Tourism

Tourism is the island's main industry, thanks to its historical importance, many sandy beaches, and proximity to the United States. It is served by San Salvador International Airport. Columbus Isle, a

Club Med Club Med SAS, commonly known as Club Med and previously known as Club Méditerranée SA, is a French travel and tourism operator headquartered in Paris, specializing in all-inclusive holidays. Founded in 1950, the company has been primarily ow ...

resort, is located just north of the main settlement at Cockburn Town. The island is home to many shallow-water

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

s, where snorkellers can observe hundreds of fish species without the use of

scuba Scuba, originally SCUBA, often expanded to scuba set, is any self contained underwater breathing apparatus, a source of breathing gas used for underwater diving which is carried by the diver. Scuba may also refer to: * Scuba diving, swimming unde ...

equipment. The

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Cockburn Town

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

Reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral, or similar relatively stable material lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic (non-living) processes such as deposition (geol ...

is near the main town and resort. Fossilized staghorn coral () and elkhorn coral () are present near the crest of the fossil reef and other corals such as , , and are scattered in the periphery. San Salvador is also known for the quick dropoff of the submerged platform of the island, allowing for numerous deep dive sites. The western coast has many wall reefs with steep drop offs, while the northern coast has many shallow barrier reefs, particularly surrounding the large shallow

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

of Grahams Harbor. There are three endemic fish species found only in the inland hypersaline lakes on this island. The scale-eating pupfish (Cyprinodon desquamator), the molluscivore pupfish (Cyprinodon brontotheroides), and the widemouth pupfish (Cyprinodon sp. widemouth) are all endemic to this island (Martin and Wainwright 2011, 2013, Richards et al. 2021). The Dixon Hill

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

is located on the island south of Dixon Hill Settlement on the east side of the island. It is approximately tall and was constructed in 1887 by the Imperial Lighthouse Service. There are also several monuments, ruins, and shipwrecks in the area.

Government

The seat of local government is

, with a population of 271 (2010).. The current administrator is Gilbert C. Kemp.

Gallery

File:SanSalvador from lighthouse1.JPG, A view of North Point, Rice Bay, and Dixon Hill Settlement, facing north from the lighthouse in 1998. File:Grahams Harbour 1.JPG, A view of Grahams Harbor facing west from North Point in 1998. The water tower at left is located at the Gerace Research Centre, but no longer stands. File:Seagrass Grahams Harbour.jpg,

Seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine (ocean), marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four Family (biology), families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and ...

(''

Thalassia testudinum ''Thalassia testudinum'', commonly known as turtlegrass, is a species of Marine (ocean), marine seagrass in the family Hydrocharitaceae. It forms meadows in shallow sandy or muddy locations in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Turtle gras ...

'') bed with several

echinoid Sea urchins or urchins () are echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species live on the seabed, inhabiting all oceans and depth zones from the intertidal zone to deep seas of . They typically have a globular body covered by a spiny p ...

s (''

Tripneustes ventricosus ''Tripneustes ventricosus'', commonly called the West Indian sea egg or white sea urchin, is a species of sea urchin. It is common in the Caribbean Sea, the Bahamas and Florida and may be found at depths of less than . Description The Test (biol ...

''), Grahams Harbor, 1999 File:Gaulin Reef San Salvador.jpg,

Elkhorn coral Elkhorn coral (''Acropora palmata'') is an important reef-building coral in the Caribbean. The species has a complex structure with many branches which resemble that of elk antlers; hence, the common name. The branching structure creates habit ...

(''Acropora palmata'') on the crest of Gaulin Reef in 1999

References

Citations

Bibliography

* . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * .

External links

High resolution map of the islandMulti-media exploration of San Salvador's people, plants, sea life, culture and research project topics
Bahamas-Research
Marine life around San Salvador island
photo gallery * {{Authority control Islands of the Bahamas Districts of the Bahamas