"Friday, October 12. Under the guidance and protection of the Lord, the outstanding, wise, brave, and decisive Expedition Commander, with three ships of the Kingdom, discovered and claimed possession of San Salvador Island... On the island, we discovered a tribal village, and made our first contact and trade with the tribespeople there..."
"The tribes on these islands are very friendly, and their dispositions are extremely gentle. When they saw our great ships, they were not frightened or afraid. Instead, they came forward with food and water to welcome us, praying, greeting, and singing on the shore... Every one of them is tall, all under thirty years old, with well-proportioned bodies and fine-looking features. They seem very poor, without clothing from head to toe, as if they had just come from their mothers' wombs, and even the women are the same... Their skin is neither black nor white, very much like those yellow-skinned natives on the Canary Islands. However, the latitude here is indeed not much different from that of the Canary Islands, so it is understandable..."
"The Lord bears witness! The tribes here are not only peaceful and friendly, kind and warm, but also very intelligent! Though our languages do not connect, they understand our meaning very easily. They gestured and sang, expressing welcome to us, and brought out their gifts to exchange for our goods... And all we need do is take out some small colored glass beads, small bells made of iron, red sailor caps, even broken pottery shards... and they will go wild with joy, almost bringing over everything they have and letting us choose as we please!..."
"They have a very ample supply of food, several fruits never seen before, parrots with bright feathers, and some cotton-thread bundles of different sizes... In the first day's trade,