15. The 1504 Lunar Eclipse
Faced with starvation and the possibility that the enraged Arawaks might fall upon him and his marooned men and massacre them all, a desperate Columbus hit upon an ingenious plan. While perusing an almanac which contained astronomical charts covering solar and lunar eclipses from 1475 to 1506, he noticed that a total lunar eclipse was due shortly, on the night of February 29th, 1504. So Columbus arranged a meeting with the Arawaks’ chieftain and told him that the Christian God was angry with the natives for not feeding Columbus and his men.
He informed the Arawaks that his furious God would demonstrate His wrath three nights hence by turning the moon blood red, then blotting it out as a harbinger of the calamities He was about to unleash upon the natives. The Arawaks laughed it off, until the appointed night when Columbus’ prediction came true and the moon turned red, and then started disappearing. According to Columbus’ son, the terrified Arawak “with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions and beseeching the admiral to intercede with his god on their behalf“. They promised to cooperate if Columbus restored the moon back to the way it was.