The Pinzón brothers – Martín Alonso, Francisco Martín and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón – were Spanish sailors, pirates, explorers, and fishermen who participated in Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World and other voyages of discovery and exploration in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Natives of Palos de la Frontera, Huelva, Spain, Online on Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Cited in:
A document in the Archivo de Simancas in the Registro general del Sello, dated March 1505, gives the terms of the inheritance of the estate of the Pinzón brothers' mother. This document is the source for the parents of the brothers being Martín Alonso Pinzón (father) and Mayor Vicente (mother), who left them some houses in the Barrero neighborhood of Palos, indicating that the family had been in Palos for at least one generation before the brothers.Cited in:
Dentro del proceso de apelación de la sentencia de Dueñas -pleito iniciado por Diego Colón y que continuó Luis Colón- en probanza realizada en 1532 por Juan Martín Pinzón, hijo de Martín Alonso Pinzón, la primera pregunta del interrogatorio dice lo siguiente:
Within the appeal trial against of the Dueñas lawsuit filed by Columbus's son Diego Colón continued by Diego's son Luis Colón in testimony made in 1532 by John Martin Pinzon, son of Martin Alonso Pinzon, the first question reads:
To all of this. the response was affirmative. The testimony is reproduced in: Cited in:
the brothers worked as sailors from an early age and became well-known for their many commercial voyages and piracy along the coast of Huelva. The strategic position offered by the historic Atlantic port of Palos made it a natural embarkation point from which expeditions set forth to the African coastde Palencia, Alfonso. Década III, libro 26, capítulo 6. as well as to the war against Portugal, which on many occasions were organized by the Pinzón family.
The eldest of the three brothers, Martín Alonso, and the youngest, Vicente Yáñez, served as captains of the caravels La Pinta and La Niña, respectively, on Columbus's first voyage from 1492 to 1493. The third brother, the lesser-known Francisco Martín, was aboard the Pinta as its master.
It was thanks to Martín Alonso that the seamen of the Tinto-Odiel were motivated to participate in Columbus's undertaking. He also supported the project economically, supplying money from his personal fortune. On the website of the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Francisco, master of the Pinta, appears to have participated in Columbus's third and fourth voyages of discovery as well as the first, but because his name was a common one, the facts of his life cannot be easily sorted out from those of contemporaries with the same name. Vicente Yáñez, besides participating in Columbus's first voyage, made several voyages to the Americas on his own account after Columbus's monopoly on transatlantic trade ended and is generally credited with the discovery of Brazil.
Although they sometimes quarreled with Columbus, on several occasions the Pinzón brothers were instrumental in preventing mutiny against him, particularly during the first voyage. On 6 October, Martín intervened in a dispute between Columbus and the crew by proposing an altered course (which Columbus eventually accepted) and thus calmed simmering unrest. A few days later, on the night of 9 October 1492, the brothers were forced to intercede once again, and this time they proposed the compromise that if no land was sighted during the next three days, the expedition would return to Spain.José Manuel Azcona Pastor, Possible paradises: Basque emigration to Latin America, University of Nevada Press, 2004, pg. 14, On the morning of the 12th, land (there has long been debate about the exact location; see Guanahani) was in fact sighted by Juan Rodriguez Bermejo (also known as Rodrigo de Triana).
The port of Palos at the end of the 15th century The Pinzón brothers lived in the era of the greatest splendor of the port town of Palos de la Frontera, participating in the majority of the activities undertaken by that port.
The historic port of Palos was a river port, protected from winds and from pirate attacks, both major hazards to the ports of the time. It was located on the lower portion of the Río Tinto known then as the Canal de Palos, about from its mouth at the Atlantic and its confluence with the Odiel. The port probably grew simultaneously with the town, first as an anchorage for small vessels engaged almost exclusively in fishing on the beaches and estuaries and occasional commercial transactions to supply the small population.
For many, the expression port of Palos brings to mind the present-day port with its old wharf, the muelle de la Calzadilla from which the Plus Ultra flying boat departed in 1926 to cross the Atlantic. This is not the 15th century port. The municipal ordinances of the era (Ordenanzas Municipales de Palos (1484–1521)), focused mainly on regulating the town's maritime activities never use the terms puerto (port) or muelle (wharf). The caravels of Palos "arrived at the riverbank" ("aportaban a la ribera"), where they discharged their goods and auctioned their fish. That is to say, the activities of the port were not conducted in any single place, but along the length of the bank of the Río Tinto, because of the large number of ships and relatively high volume of merchandise they had to handle.
Progressively, the river became Palos's principal means of connection to the outside world and the port the axis of its relation to the surrounding towns. This maritime orientation modified the shape of the town, previously a conical area centered around the church and castle. The Calle de la Ribera ("Riverbank Street") connecting the town center to the port became the town's principal artery, and the port the authentic heart of the local economy.
On the eve of Columbus's first voyage, the entire riverbank between the present-day wharfs near the center of Palos and away at La Rábida Monastery was an active port. The caravels anchored in the center of the river, where the depth was sufficient for their drafts, and paid for the rights to anchor there. From the caravels, boats and dinghies loaded or unloaded the goods "tying up to the shore" ("amarrando en la ribera").Julio Izquierdo Labrado. Palos de la Frontera en el Antiguo Régimen (1380-1830). Huelva, 1986. The port had a population density similar to that to the town proper, from what we can deduce from the Ordenanza Municipal, which prohibited weapons on the riverbank because the people there were as tightly packed as in the town proper (the expression used is "tan aparejadas como en la Villa": aparejadas is nautical Spanish for something that has been furnished or supplied).González Gómez, Antonio. «Las Ordenanzas Municipales de Palos de la Frontera (1484-1521).» Historia. Instituciones. Documentos. Número 3. University of Sevilla, 1976. Beginning in the first third of the 15th century, the port of Palos experienced continual economic growth, obtaining an importance well beyond the local area and achieving even international dimensions, as is testified by the frequent presence of English, Breton, Flemish, and Italian ships.
Following in the wake of the Portuguese, the ships of Palos traveled to the Canary Islands and Guinea, with their rich fisheries and the commercial possibility of trade in gold, spices, and slaves. In the second half of the 15th century, Palos reaches a population of three thousand. The alota of Palos, a type of customs warehouse, paid the largest tribute of any such facility to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, its primacy being such that it fishermen were recruited from other towns along the coast and two residents of Palos. Juan Venegas and Pedro Alonso Cansino, were placed in charge of giving licenses to fish in the Afro-Atlantic waters from Cabo Bojador to the Río de Oro, which they leased from the Catholic Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand.Archivo General de Simancas, Registro General del Sello, 1491-VIII, fol. 78
The Pinzón family of Palos The Pinzón family were one of the leading families of 14th-century Palos. The family may have come originally from the Kingdom of Aragón, but arrived in Andalusia either from la Montaña (now Cantabria) or from Asturias.Cited in: According to some historians, this surname could have been a corruption of Espinzas or Pinzas ("tweezers"). Others say that the true family name was Martín, a widespread name with a long tradition in the area, the name of their grandfather, a sailor and diver in Palos, who was dubbed Pinzón when he went blind; that, combined with his hobby of singing gave him the nickname Pinzón, the Spanish word for chaffinch, because owners of chaffinches sometimes blinded them, supposedly making them sing more beautifully. His son, also a sailor named Martín Pinzón, was the father of the three Pinzón brothers. Their mother was named Mayor Vicente,Archivo General de Simancas, Registro General del Sello, March 1505. Cited in: so the three were full brothers and bore the surnames Pinzón and VicenteOften, their middle names—Alonso, Yáñez, and Martín, which they would have taken from their godfathers at their baptism—have been confused with surnames leading to the misconception that they were half-brothers. (see Spanish naming customs).
Martín Alonso Pinzón
Martín Alonso Pinzón (c. 1441 – c. 31 March 1493) was the oldest of the brothers, and captain of the Pinta on Columbus's first voyage.
It appears that at quite a young age he shipped out on a locally based caravel as a grumete (cabin boy). His home, now the Casa Museo de Martín Alonso Pinzón, was on the old royal road to the Monastery of La Rábida. Martín's family contracted a marriage with a resident of the locality named María Álvarez. They had five children: two sons—Arias Pérez and Juan Pinzón, who participated in several expeditions to the Americas—and three daughters—Mayor, Catalina, and Leonor. Leonor, the youngest, suffered frequent attacks of what was then called "gota coral" and would now be called epilepsy.
His nautical experience and his leadership remained patent in the 1508–1536 lawsuits known as the pleitos colombinos, where the witnesses indicated him as the leader of the comarca (a region comparable to a shire). He was also famous for his battles against the Portuguese in the War of the Castilian Succession.Testimony in the pleitos colombinos: Cited in: It is probable that even while in Portugal before coming to Spain, Columbus was aware of Martín Alonso, because he was known for his participation in the war, as well as for his incursions into the Canary Islands and Guinea.
He was captain of the Pinta on Columbus's first voyage and supplied half a million ("medio cuento") maravedís in coin toward the cost of the voyage. Thanks to his prestige as a shipowner and expert sailor and his fame throughout the Tinto-Odiel region, he was able to enlist the crew required for Columbus's first voyage.