By some curious chance this little pamphlet has come to be classed as
Americana. Bishop Kenneth's Catalogue may have been the source of this
error, leading collectors to believe that the item was a true relation
of an actual voyage, and possibly touching upon some phase of American
history or geography. The rarity of the pamphlet would not permit such a
belief to be readily corrected. The existence also of two Isles of Pines
in American waters may have aided the belief.
One of these islands is off the southwestern end of Cuba. On his second
voyage, Columbus had sailed along the south coast of Cuba, and June
13,1494, reached an island, which he named Evangelista. Here he
encountered such difficulties among the shoals that he determined to
retrace his course to the eastward. But for that experience, he might
have reached the mainland of America on that voyage. The conquest of the
island of Cuba by Diego Velasquez in 1511 led to its exploration; but
geographers could only slowly appreciate what the islands really meant,
for they were as much misled by the reports of navigators as Columbus
had been by his prejudice in favor of Cathay.
Toscanelli's map of the Atlantic Ocean (1474) gives many islands between
Cape Verde and the "coast of spices," of which "Cippangu" is the largest
and most important.{1}
1 This map, as reconstructed from Martin Behaim's globe, is
in Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1893.
On Juan de laCosa's sea chart, 1500, Cuba is fairly drawn, with the sea
to the south dotted with islands without names. In a few years the mist
surrounding [27]the new world had so far been dispelled as to disclose a
quite accurate detail of the larger West Indian islands{1} and to offer
a continent to the west, one that placed Cipangu still far too much
to the east of the coast of Asia.{2} An island of some size off the
southwest of Cuba seems to have been intended at first for Jamaica, but
certainly as early as 1536 that island had passed to its true position
on the maps, and the island to the west is without a name. Nor can it
be confused with Yucatan, which for forty years was often drawn as an
island. On the so-called Wolfenbuttel-Spanish map of 1525-30 occurs the
name "J. de Pinos," probably the first occurrence of the name upon any
map in the sixteenth century. Two other maps of that time--Colon's and
Ribero's, dated respectively 1527 and 1529--call it "Y de Pinos," and on
the globe of Ulpius, to which the year 1542 is assigned, "de Pinos"
is clearly marked. Bellero's map, 1550, has an island "de pinolas."
Naturally, map-makers were slow to adopt new names, and in the numerous
editions of Ptolemy the label St Iago was retained almost to the end of
the century.{3} On the Agnese map there are two islands, one named "S.
Tiago," the other "pinos," which introduced a new confusion, though he
was not followed by most geographers until Wytfliet, 1597, gave both
names to the same island--"S. Iago siue Y de Pinas"--in which he is
followed by Hondius, 1633.{4} Ortelius, 1579, [28]adopts "I Pinnorum,"
while Linschoten, 1598, has "Pinas," and Herrera, 1601, "Pinos."