On Christmas eve 1492, Santa, Maria, the flag ship of Christopher Columbus, the ship's boy took the tiller from the helmsman. For 2 nights they have entertained and traded with the local Indians and the crew was exhausted.
The little lad at the tiller ran the ship onto a coral reef on the north coast of Haiti, near town as we know it today, Bord De Mer de Limonade. All attempts to free the ship failed. The planks opened and the Admiral left her to sail in the Nina. To salvage as much as he could, Columbus appealed for the help of the Indian chief. Their village was approximately 4 miles from the wreck. The Indians assisted with the unloading of supplies. They dismantled the timbers and boards. This was taken to their village in canoes. The chief gave Columbus 2 of his biggest and best houses. This small settlement was named for the infant child of Christmas - La Navidad and was established on 6 December 1492.
The men who were instructed to man this settlement, were a carpenter, caulker, gunner, Cooper, tailor, a physician and in total 39 men. This was supposedly the first Spanish settlement in the New World. The crewmen were told to trade with the Indians for much gold till Columbus returned. Before leaving he instructed them to build a fort and a moat to impress the Indians.
When Columbus returned after 11 months, he found the settlement burnt and all his crew dead. Why, how did this happen? We can only speculate that the men, surrounded by an abundance of fresh food and friendly Indian women, deciding for themselves the need for defenses. Nobody knows what happened next. Columbus then moved on to more hospitable areas and the settlement was forgotten for 500 years.
After much excavation and the discovery of European artifacts, the team of the Florida State Museum believes that they have found it! Their most exciting excavations thus far have been on a raised mound in a town En Bas Saline in Northern Haiti. They are convinced that this is the site of the fort of La Navidad. They found cinders of cristobalite which is a product of burned clay, that only forms in intense fires. These cinders most likely was from the chief's house.
Evidence was found that Columbus's men might have lived in the same area. Shards of European pottery from the same time period were found and bones of European animals.These items were discovered in an enormous pit. 7 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter, dug to the present water table. The pit had been filled with in with shells, bones, charcoal and artifacts.The hole could have been a well as theorized by Dr. Hodges, the archeologist who discovered the townsite. Wells have been unknown in the Indian culture. He suggested that it was the well of La Navidad, filled in by the Indians after the settlement's demise.
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With the most modern technological methods of testing at the time, they found without a doubt that the hole was filled in after 1492. Exciting!. Around the site literal tons of artifacts were found. The site is in the right place and of the right time. The native Indians became extinct after the arrival of Columbus, victims of social disruption and European disease.
It is thought that it is fitting that Columbus's quincentenary should be cause for finding their lost culture. I wonder how many places lie undiscovered, nations forgotten, people who lived like you and I. Much digging needs to be done to give the ancients an identity.
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Sources : Wikipedia, National Geographic, World book of knowledge. Pixabay, Google images.
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Sounds exciting, thanks.
Nice photos my friend!
A great story for a trip Thanks for the subject
Unfortunately, we have very little knowledge of history because countries memorize history according to what they want. and unfortunately they completely erased the traces of many ancient cultures and societies
Yeah, I wish I could've been been able to spend a little time in every age.
wow, fascinating post @ruthofisrael - hugely interested period of history.
I never new about it until stumbling upon it.
It is deeply disturbing how many native peoples in the New World died from Small Pox. A veritable Holocaust indeed!!
That is so.
I read a lot about Christopher Columbus. But your post showed me a lot about things that I didn't know. I was very interested to read your post. Thank you very much.
I'm glad that you enjoyed it. It was new knowledge to me too. I think that's the exciting part of steemit, learning so much.
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