On the morning of August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus along with the Niña (Santa Clara), the Pinta, & the Santa María departed a port in Palos, Spain to find a western route to Asia. As history would have it, they landed in the Bahamas in October of 1492.
The Santa María (La Gallega) was the flagship of Columbus, but it was wrecked off the coast of present-day Haiti during the return voyage. Wood from the shipwrecked vessel was used to construct a fort there called La Navidad (The Nativity) because the incident occurred on Christmas Eve. This tragic loss of the expedition’s largest vessel forced Columbus to leave 39 men behind in the newly built structure, establishing the very first, albeit short-lived, European settlement in the Americas. When Columbus returned the following year, he found the fort burned to the ground and all his men gone, a stark testament to the swift breakdown of relations with the local Taíno population.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
