Sebastian de Ocampo Biography

Sebastián de Ocampo was a Spanish explorer and navigator that is best known for this discoveries during the 16th century

in the time best known as the Age of Discovery.

Under the order of the governor of Hispaniola, in 1508 Ocampo embarked on the journey that will make him famous. Before

his journey everyone assumed that the land that laid west of the island of Hispaniola called Cuba was a part of Indian continent, and several maps

portrayed this land with much larger landmass (even the maps created by Christopher Columbus, and others after him]. Ocampo proved them wrong when he

managed to circumnavigate it and thus he confirmed that Cuba is indeed an island.

He is also the first European that have entered the waters if Gulf of

Mexico.

Exact date of his birth and death is not known although it is suspected that he died of old age.