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Rodrigo de Triana (born 1469 in Sevilla, Spain) was a Spanish sailor. Born as Juan Rodrigo Bermejo, Triana was the son of hidalgo and potter Vicente Bermejo and Sereni Betancour. His father may have been murdered during the Spanish Inquisition.

On October 12, 1492, while in the crow's nest of Christopher Columbus's ship La Pinta, he sighted land of the Americas.^[1] He was the first European since the Vikings known to have seen America.

According to the diary^{[citation needed]} of Luis de Torres, another sailor, Triana was a Jewish converso who joined "Columbus' voyage of discovery" in the hopes of finding "Jewish brethren," so he could "live [his] life in peace and in freedom." ^[2] After spotting America at approximately two o'clock in the morning, he is reported to have shouted "¡Tierra! ¡Tierra!"^[3] Columbus claims in his journal that he saw "light" at 10PM the previous day, "but it was so indistinct that he did not dare to affirm it was land."^[1]

Triana went without reward and credit for this find. According to Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, he moved to Africa and converted to Islam following his unrewarded discovery.

[edit] Trivia

500 years later in 1992 a racehorse named after him called Rodrigo de Triano won the 2,000 Guineas.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b} "Esta tierra vido primero un marinero que se dezía Rodrigo de Triana, puesto que el Almirante a las diez de la noche, estando en el castillo de popa, vido lumbre aunque fue cosa tan çerrada que no quiso affirmar que fuese tierra." -The Diary of Christopher Columbus.
2. ^ "That fateful day, the day of our expulsion from Spain, was Tisha b'Av on the Jewish calendar in the year 5252/1492. The day marked the tragedy of the destruction of both holy temples many centuries before, and now, one more tragic event was added to that mournful day. Three hundred thousand people, half the amount that were redeemed from Egyptian slavery, descended to the Mediterranean shore, searching for passage to a new land, to land where they could openly practice Judaism. I was among them. However, I was not a refugee; I had been commissioned to join Christopher Columbus's voyage of discovery. I agreed to accompany him because I hoped that if we found Jewish brethren, I would be able to live my life in peace and in freedom. Don Rodriguez, his uncle Don Gabriel Sanchez, Alonso de Loquir, Rodrigo de Triana, Chon Kabrera, Doctor Briena and Doctor Marco, all agreed with my reasoning and joined; but except for Rodrigo, they sailed on other ships. We were a large group of conversos, living in perpetual fear of the Inquisition, hoping that we would find a way out of the precarious situation we were in."
3. ^ Harry L. Golden and Martin Rywell. Jews in American History: Their Contribution to the United States of America. Charlotte, N.C.: H.L. Martin Co., 1950.