Samana Cay

{{Refimprove|date=April 2009}}

{{Infobox islands

| name = Samana Cay

| image_name = Samana Cay-Landsat-Flickr-6554929285 4697d81655 b.jpg

| image_caption = Landsat Image of Samana Cay and White Cay, Bahamas

| island_type = Cay

| location = Atlantic Ocean

| map = Bahamas

| map_caption = The location of Samana Cay within the Bahamas

| area_sqmi =

| coordinates = {{coord|23|05|N|73|45|W|region:BS_type:isle|display=title,inline}}

| archipelago = Lucayan Archipelago

| country = Bahamas

| population =

| population_as_of =

| timezone1 = EST

| utc_offset1 = -5

| timezone1_DST = EDT

| utc_offset1_DST = -4

| iso_code = BS-CK

}}

Samana Cay is a now uninhabited island in the Bahamas believed by some researchers to have been the location of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Americas on October 12, 1492.{{Cite book|title = Life of Christopher Columbus|url = https://archive.org/details/lifechristopher00markgoog|last = Markham|first = Clements Robert|publisher = G. Philip & Son|year = 1892|location = London|pages = [https://archive.org/details/lifechristopher00markgoog/page/n131 97]}}

It is an islet in the eastern Bahamas, {{convert|22|mi|km}} northeast of Acklins Island. About {{convert|10|mi|km}} long and up to {{convert|2|mi|km|0}} wide with an area of about {{convert|17.37|sqmi|km2|0|adj=ri0}} it is bound by reefs. The verdant cay has long been uninhabited, but figurines, pottery shards, and other artifacts discovered there in the mid-1980s have been ascribed to Lucayan Indians, who lived on the cay around the time of Columbus's voyages.

The indigenous people of the island on which Columbus first landed called it "Guanahani." Samana Cay was first proposed to be Guanahani by Gustavus Fox in 1882,{{cite book|last1=Fox|first1=Gustavus V.|title="An Attempt to solve the Problem of the First Landing Place of Columbus in the New World", "Report of the Superintendent of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey". Appendix No. 18|date=June 1880|publisher=Government Printing office|location=Washington, DC}} but the predominant theory gives the honour to San Salvador Island.William D. Phillips Jr., 'Columbus, Christopher', in David Buisseret (ed.), The Oxford Companion to World Exploration, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, online edition 2012). However, in 1986, Joseph Judge of National Geographic Magazine made different calculations based on extracts from Columbus's logs and argued for Samana Cay as the location, but his methodology has also been criticised.For a brief discussion of the controversy, see William D. Phillips, Jr., and Carla Rahn Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 155–5.

Samana was a name of apparent Lucayan origin (meaning "small middle forested land"){{Cite journal |last=Ahrens |first=Wolfgang P. |date=2015 |title=Naming the Bahamas Islands: History and Folk Etymology |url=https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/oc/article/view/14910 |journal=Onomastica Canadiana |language=en |volume=94 |issue=2 |pages=101 |issn=2816-7015}} used by the Spanish to designate one of the islands in the Bahamas. Granberry and Vesceliuus identify that island as the present-day Samana Cay.Julian Granberry and Gary S. Vescelius. (2004) Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles. The University of Alabama Press. {{ISBN|0-8173-5123-X}} p. 83

Samana Cay had a permanent population during the first half of the 20th century, and the ruins of the settlement are visible on the south side of the island, near the western end. The island is now uninhabited, but residents of nearby Acklins Island visit occasionally to collect cascarilla bark, which grows in abundance on the island.