Cayman Islands Women Pearl Wedding Fashion Jewelry 84

Cayman Islands Women Pearl Wedding Fashion Jewelry.

By Aamir Mannan.

Some historians question whether Columbus was really the first person to set eyes on the Cayman Islands; a full year prior to Columbus' journey, the three islands appeared on the 1502 Cantino map. Moreover, Queen Isabella of Spain authorised four other voyages to the New World in 1499. Aside from these facts, even if Columbus was the first European explorer to set foot in Cayman, at the time of his visit there were as many as a million Carib, Taino and Arawak Indians living in the adjacent coastal areas around the Islands. Archival research suggests that Cayman is a word of Carib-Indian origin (meaning crocodile). The Caribs and Taino were proficient mariners, and they were known to make ocean journeys in canoes up to 80ft in length. In Jamaica, thousands of Taino Indians were living just up wind and up current from Cayman, so it is probable that the Taino were among Cayman's initial visitors.

Early Cayman History - 1503 to 1670

Christopher Columbus is credited with discovering the Cayman Islands. The explorer was on his fourth voyage of discovery when his ships, the Santiago de Palos and the Capitana, sailed past Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. The date was the 10th of May 1503, and his son Ferdinand noted in his journal, "We were in sight of two small low islands filled with tortoises, as was the sea all about." However, Columbus named the islands Las Torgugas after the large number of sea turtles he saw. Columbus and his men didn't stop. Worm-eaten and leaking badly, their ships laboured on until they had to be beached and eventually abandoned in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.

In 1586, Sir Frances Drake and a fleet of 23 ships stopped in Grand Cayman for two days and recorded that the island was not inhabited but that there were numerous crocodiles, alligators, iguanas and turtles.

In 1655, Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables were sent from Britain by Oliver Cromwell to take Hispaniola from the Spanish. The so-called "Western Design" failed, as the English did not capture the Spanish stronghold; however, they did manage to seize Jamaica. Shortly afterwards, Cayman became a possession of the United Kingdom following the signing of the Treaty of Madrid in 1670.