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Pedro Alonso Niño

Spanish explorer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ978906 ↗
Source-derived summary

Pedro Alonso Niño (c. 1455 – c. 1505) was known in his time as Peralonso Niño, he was a Spanish navigator and discoverer. He piloted the Santa María during Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, and accompanied him on his second voyage in 1493.

Biography

Niño was born in Moguer, Spain. His father was Alfon Perez Niño, a Spanish sailor. Pedro Alonso Niño was married twice, to Juana Muñiz and Leonor de Boria, and sired four children, namely Juan Niño, Francisco Niño, Isabel Quintero and Leonor Fernández. He was nicknamed "El negro" for his involvement in the African slave trade.

He explored the west coast of Africa in his early years and many other places. Niño guided Columbus and navigated the Atlantic Ocean as he piloted the Santa María during Christopher Columbus's expedition of 1492, and accompanied him during his third voyage that saw the discovery of Trinidad and the mouths of the Orinoco River.

Editorial summary

“Pedro Alonso Niño” enters the record as spanish explorer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pedro, Alonso and Niño can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1455, 1505, 1492, 1493—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1468-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Pedro, Alonso and Niño.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Pedro Alonso Niño” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Pedro, Alonso and Niño provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q978906. VIAF identifies the subject as 63626809. The Library of Congress control number is no98075552. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1455, 1505, 1492 and 1493.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Pedro Alonso Niño”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Pedro Alonso Niño primary sources, Pedro Alonso Niño archive and Pedro research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Pedro Alonso Niño” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.