Pinzón brothers

Pinzón brothers

Statue of the Pinzón brothers in Palos de la Frontera
Names:	Martín Alonso Pinzón Francisco Martín Pinzón Vicente Yáñez Pinzón
Origin:	Palos de la Frontera, Huelva, Spain
Occupation:	Sailors, explorers, fishermen
Era:	15th–16th century

The Pinzón brothers were Spanish sailors, explorers and fishermen, natives of Palos de la Frontera, Huelva, Spain. Martín Alonso, Francisco Martín and Vicente Yañez, participated in Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World (generally considered to constitute the discovery of the Americas by Europeans) and in other voyages of discovery and exploration in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

The brothers were sailors of great prestige along the coast of Huelva, and thanks to their many commercial voyages and voyages along the coast, they were famous and well off, respected along the entire coast. The strategic position offered by the historic Atlantic port of Palos, from which expeditions had set forth to the African coasts as well as to the war against Portugal, for which most of the armadas set forth from this town, organized, on many occasions, by this family.

Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez, captains of the caravels La Pinta and La Niña, respectively on Columbus's first voyage, are the best known of the brothers, but the third brother, the lesser-known Francisco Martín, was aboard the Pinta as its master.

It was thanks to Martín Alonso that the seamen of the Tinto-Odiel were motivated to participate in Columbus's undertaking. He also supported the project economically, supplying money from his personal fortune.

Francisco, master of the Pinta, appears to have participated in Columbus's third and fourth voyages of discovery as well as in the first, but because his name was a common one, the facts of his life cannot be easily sorted out from those of contemporaries with the same name.