It was on christmas eve day December 24th during Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas
that one of his ships the Santa Maria drifted onto a bank due to the fact that the helmsman
thinking the seas were calm enough, gave the control of the tiller to one of his young
subordinates.
This had proven to be a huge mistake as the boy managed the run the boat across some shallow
waters where it got permanently stuck and damaged.
This happened to occur off the coast of today’s northern Haiti and so the expedition decided
to to go ashore and seek help from the local Arawak people who where a subgroup of the
brother Taino people which inhabited the Caribbean.
They soon came in to contact with the ruler of the Marien Chiefdom, Guacanagari.
He wasn’t the only chief in Hispaniola as the island was divided in to 5 chiefdoms,
however he was the only one who mattered to the Europeans at the moment.
After talking to Guacanagari, as Columbus’s son recalls, the chief and the people were
extraordinarily nice.
More than happy to help out giving the Spaniards large canoes, storage houses and man power
to salvage and store whatever they could get from the immobile ship.
Afterwards Guacanagari along with multiple traders from the surrounding tribes meat with
Columbus himself.
During the conversation the traders enthusiastically traded all their gold for the Spaniards eagle
bells as they were fascinated with the sound they made.
After seeing the amount of gold that the local people possessed and the promise of Guacanagari
to get more from the Cibao mountains located in today's Dominican Republic, Columbus decided
that the imobel Santa Maria and it’s saved cargo be dismantled and use for construction
of a colony where he will leave the men which are most important in setting up such colony
i.e. carpenters, physicians, taylors etc. in total 36 men were left behind.
This colony which was named La Navidad was to wait for Columbus’s return all while
gathering information on the New World and trading with the local natives largely for
gold.
Before Columbus’s departure Guacanagari assured Columbus that if anything were to
happen to his men he will help out the Christian colony in any way he can.
Columbus thanked Guacanagari and also ordered his man that if anything ill faded where to
acure that they drop all their gold into the constructed wooden fortress’s well as to
be found by Columbus when he returns.
Now with the first ever European colony established in the New World columbus set sail back to
Europe.
A year later in 1493 Columbus returned from Spain to the town of La Navidad where upon
entering the town harbor found the entire colony burned down with no gold and no survivors.
Confused and horrified by the site Columbus ordered his men to check for bodies and look
in the fortress’s well for the missing gold.
There was no gold in the well but several dead bodies of the colonists were found in
a nearby field.
This however still did not explain what happened to the entire colony.
Then suddenly the brother of Guacanagari accompanied by several other natives appeared and wished
to speak to Columbus.
Upon hearing his story it all became clear.
After Columbus's departure the men of the La Navidad quickly started to mingle with
the local women living with 4 or 6 woman at once, Most of them also started to hord larger
and larger stashes of gold oftentimes bartering for gold behind each others backs.
Soon the competition between getting more women and more gold turn into frequent arguments
and It became so bad that some of the colonists started to kill each other.
With all this chaos and hostility in the colony some of the spaniards decided to leave for
the mountains where they heard the golden mines where located.
They most likely entered the neighboring chiefdom of Magua which angered the local ruler killing
all of the Spaniards that dared to come for his gold.
Outraged by the actions of the colonists the ruler organized a full on military attack
on La Navidad to get rid of the remaining Europeans.
When the attack came, La Navidad was defended by only 11 men with everyone else either dead
or fleeing with all their gold and wives to other tribes perhaps even on a different islands.
However the 11 Spaniards weren’t alone because Guacanagari honored his promise to Columbus
and with his men joined in the defence of the colony.
But they were still extremely outnumbered and after a some fearsome fighting the colony
just got overwhelmed by the sheer number of attackers.
All remaining europeans along with some of Guacanagari’s men were slaughtered and the
entire colony got set on fire.
Guacanagari himself managed to escape but was injured and that is why his brother came
to visit Columbus as Guacanagari was unable due to his injuries.
Columbus uphold by his men's actions later thanked Guacanagari personally for honoring
his promise after which the two exchange gifts and Columbus went on to try to settle other
areas of Hispaniola.
And so goes the disasters story of the First ever European colony in the New World.
(if we’re not counting the vikings)
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Actually no scratch that, this video was brought to you by coffee, lots coffee.
And tea, and also actually photoshop, computers, late nights, but whatever basically this video
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Actually again scratch all of what I said.
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What a hack of a deal..