When we come to Columbus himself, the accuracy of whose accounts has so recently been questioned, we find a Negro, Pedro Alonso Niño, as the pilot of one of the famous three vessels. As explained earlier, in 1496 Niño sailed to Santo Domingo and he was also with Columbus on his third voyage. With two men, Cristóbal de la Guerra, who served as pilot, and Luís de la Guerra, a Spanish merchant, in 1499 he planned what proved to be the first successful commercial voyage to the New World.

Obviously one cannot overlook the transatlantic slave routes however unsavory the topic may be in current times. On our website we are simply focusing upon the importance of the Canary Islands as a geographical departure point for most of the initial sailing to the Americas then later as a supply route. It therefore cannot be overlooked that many thousands of African Americans may have ancestral ties to these voyages and may find it of significant interest to trace these disagreeable but nonetheless historic realities. The fact remains that Tenerife and the Canary Islands were, for over three centuries, the major shipping hub to the Americas, Caribbean and current day USA.