La Navidad
La Navidad
The wreck of the Santa Maria
The Santa Maria was Columbus`s flagshipon his first voyage to the West Indies. On the morning of December 25, 1492, the Santa Maria was wrecked as it lay at anchor. While all the crew slept after a night of revelry with the Tainos, the ship settled so gently on a coral reef that none of its sleeping crew was awakened. Although the Spaniards and Indians tried to save her, they soon turned their efforts to saving her cargo. It was unloaded and left on the beach. Columbus recorded that nothing was stolen.
The building of La Navidad
At a place now called Caracol Bay in present-day Haiti, Christopher Columbus decided to build a colony out of the timbers from the wrecked ship and called it Navidad(Christmas Town) because it was around Christmas time and forty men were left behind because the Pinta was stolen by Martin Pinzon to look for gold and the remaining ship, the Nina coludn`t carry all the explorers. Bartolomeo Columbus, Christopher Columbus`s brother was left in charge of the colony. Guacaganari and his fellow Indians helped the colony in any means. The first permanent link had been forged between America and Europe.On January 4, 1493, Columbus left for Spain.
Later Years
When Columbus came back form Spain during his second voyage, on November 27, 1493 he arrived to see a bustling village but their were nothing left and when he landed, he 11 corpses of his men on the beach and only one Spaniard was alive and that was Bartolomeo Columbus. He warned them not to interfere with the Arawaks, but probably they disregarded this and aroused the anger of them. The Arawaks retaliated and destroyed the Spanish settlement. Columbus decided to build a settlement farther east and named it Isabella after the Queen.
Rediscovery
After Columbus sailed away a second time, the site apparently was forgotten until a Haitian farmer led Dr.William Hodges to it in 1977. Hodges, an amateur archaeologist and American medical missionary, received permission from the Haitian government to excavate a tennis-court-size section of the marshland, but he needed more help to excavate.