In the autumn of 1492, a small fleet of three ships crossed the Atlantic Ocean, carried along by the north equatorial current and the trade winds. They were looking for a direct route to China and Japan, where they hoped to trade for silks, porcelain, and other exotic goods that until then had been carried by caravan along the ancient Silk Road. They sought a new route that avoided the Near East and Constantinople, because that city (by then called Istanbul) was now under the control of the Ottoman Empire (Wilson 1999).

These explorers made landfall in the Bahamas and spent a little time there interacting with the people they met. Eventually they concluded that more populous and potentially richer trading areas lay to the south. They had read accounts of east Asia by Marco Polo and others, but the people they met in the Bahamas did not really match their expectations. Certainly they didn't have the large cities and golden palaces described by Marco Polo, but maps of the day showed dozens of islands around Cipangu or Japan, so the explorers reasoned that they were still on the peripheries of the famous kingdoms (Martin Behaim's maps and globes were among the best until 1492; see Ravenstein 1908; Wilson 1999:33–40). They set off to the south, stopping at several islands to take possession of them, trade, and take on fresh water. In this way they made their way down the archipelago, still searching for cities.