|
La Isabela history - learn what once happend
The area around La Isabela Bay offered favorable conditions for building a settlement. A river of crystal clear water flowed into the bay. There was an elevated outcrop to build on. Forests provided plenty of wood and a rocky cliff supplied the stone they needed to build with. And, not far a way was the promise of gold in the mountains of the Cibao. For the 1,200 men who had just spent 100 days crammed into 17 ships, suffering the stench and the perpetual motion of the sea -- this was Paradise! With great enthusiasm they set to the task of building the first settlement of the New World, their ships peacefully anchored just offshore. Built first were the house for the Viceroy cum Admiral of All The Seas, a church, a warehouse and smaller houses for the nobles. On January 6, 1494, the settlers celebrated Mass for the very first time in the New World. In March, Columbus set off with a group of soldiers over the mountains into the Cibao valley to find the gold that everyone dreamed of. The unfamiliar tropical climate and vegetation made it a strenuous trek. To add insult to injury, gold was nowhere to be found. So Columbus left a group of 56 soldiers to continue the search under the command of one, Pedro Margarit, in a quickly erected fort named San Tomas, not far from todays town of Janico, near Santiago. Returning to La Isabela, Columbus sailed out to explore the South coast of Cuba. While he was away, things got sticky in La Isabela. The nobles were discontented with the Indians, who seemed unable to live up to their expectations. Communication was a problem, supplies were short, and the tropical climate was causing unfamiliar fevers and disease. In their growing frustration, the nobles began to perceive the natives as wild and pagan subhumans. Three months after leaving La Isabela, Columbus returned to chaos and revolt. A fire had destroyed many of the recently finished houses and a terrible storm had sunk two ships in the bay, the Mariagalante and the Gallega. Columbus quickly restores order by sending several of the troublemakers to the gallows and appointing his brother Bartolomo as mayor. After building a furnace to bake bricks and tiles, a wall was erected around the settlement. Alas, La Isabela seemed destined to be a settlement where the fastest growing subdivision was the cemetery; tropical fevers, goldrush fever and constant quarreling between each other and with the natives all prevented La Isabela from flourishing. Most of the inhabitants remaining in La Isabela moved west to a place they named Puerto Real, not far from La Navidad. Here they received a cordial welcome from Taino Chief Guacanagarix and his tribe, the same Indians who helped when the Santa Maria ran aground. Today, Puerto Real exists only as a historical dig. Abandoned less than ten years after being settled, the history of La Isabela remains brief. In the centuries that followed, it was used as a hideout for buccaneers, pirates and smugglers.
|
|
La Isabela Vacations site
Our company is running one of the largest pc and mobile travel website networks, covering top hotel, vacation package, airline ticket, beach, cruise, all inclusive and honeymoon destinations worldwide.
We will also run a travel blog portal which centralises the blogs posted by our visitors on all of our websites and which represents one of the world's best travel information resources, totally build by people such as yourself.
In the link section, you can check more links to our travel website network as well as to other third party specialized websites as lastminute.com or orbitz.com which we suggest you to visit if are you planning a trip to La Isabela Dominican Republic.
|
