Columbus Reaches Caribbean

Date: October 12, 1492 • Location: Kabupaten Kepulauan Meranti, Indonesia

Believing he had reached the East Indies, Christopher Columbus made landfall on an island in the Caribbean, sparking a series of events that led to the European colonization of the Americas.

The East Indies is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies broadly referred to various lands in the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around the Indian Ocean by Portuguese explorers, soon after the Cape Route was discovered. In a narrow sense, the term was used to refer to the Malay Archipelago, which today comprises the Indonesian Archipelago, New Guinea, and the Philippine Archipelago. Historically, the term was used in the Age of Discovery to refer to the coasts of the landmasses comprising the Indian subcontinent and the Indochinese Peninsula along with the Malay Archipelago.