Juan de la Cosa

Juan de la Cosa (1460?-1510), Spanish navigator and cartographer, born at Santoña. As master of the Santa Maria, Cosa accompanied Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to America in 1492-93 and was with him on his second voyage in 1493. In 1499 he participated in an expedition under the Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda to explore the north coast of South America. The following year Cosa made a large map of the world, probably the first prepared after the discovery of America and the first to include the new continent. This map was forgotten until its discovery in the 19th century by the German traveler and naturalist Freiherr Alexander von Humboldt in a private library in Paris; the map is now in Madrid. Cosa accompanied Ojeda in 1510 on an expedition that attempted to land at the site of Cartagena (now in Colombia). The entire party, except for Ojeda and one other man, was massacred by hostile Native Americans.