that Christopher Columbus first made contact with the New World at a site he named San Salvador, an island of present-day Bahamas. Though initially an accidental encounter, this was the beginning of the systemic European contact with and colonization of the Caribbean and the Americas, an encounter that continues to have boundless impact on all world nations. During his lifetime as well as in the five centuries since that time, Columbus has both been revered as a hero and indicted as a villain for