1492-12-05: (Christopher Columbus Arrives at Ayiti and Claims the Island for Spain, the Moment That Begins the European Colonization of the Territory That Wo…

1492-12-05: (Christopher Columbus Arrives at Ayiti and Claims the Island for Spain, the Moment That Begins the European Colonization of the Territory That Would Become Haiti): On December 5, 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived at the island of Ayiti and claimed it for Spain, initiating the European colonization that would transform the island over the next three centuries. On Christmas Eve, his flagship the Santa Maria ran aground off the coast of present-day Cap-Haïtien. Columbus departed on January 2, 1493, leaving thirty-nine crew members behind in a newly built fort called La Navidad. When he returned on November 28, 1493, he found the fort burned and his men dead, killed by the indigenous Taíno people who had initially welcomed the Europeans. The pattern was set from the first encounter: European arrival, European claims of sovereignty over land that was not theirs, indigenous resistance, and European retaliation that would escalate into the complete destruction of the native population and its replacement by enslaved Africans.