Villa Isabela

**Villa Isabela** is a town in the Puerto Plata Province of the northwestern Dominican Republic. It lies 9 km (*6 mi.*) south of the site of **La Isabela**, where Christopher Columbus founded a settlement in **1493**.

## Villa Isabela

### Region

 Puerto Plata Province
Cibao N

### Distance to:

Puerto Plata:
55 km (*34 mi.*)
Santo Domingo:
228 km (*142 mi.*)

## About

**La Isabela** or **Villa Isabela** was the first city founded in the New World (America) by the Spanish, in 1494. Christopher Columbus chose the site replacing the Fort of La Navidad, on the north coast of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic province of Puerto Plata), and appointed a governing council to govern it, of which Antonio de Torres and Bernardo Boyl were among others. The city was a mixture of port, shipyard, customs and warehouse, through which all traffic was channeled between the island and Spain. From **1496**, its inhabitants began to emigrate to other parts of the island. By **1500** it had been completely abandoned. At present, its ruins constitute an archaeological park.

## History

During the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the West Indies (**1492**-**1493**) the Spaniards founded a first settlement, the so-called Fort of Fuerte Navidad, on the northwestern coast of the [Spanish island. It was a detachment of thirty-nine men under the command of Diego de Arana, while the rest of the expedition returned to the Iberian Peninsula.

The royals Isabel and Fernando de Castilla y Aragón (later known as the Catholic Monarchs) sent a few months later a great army to the Spanish, with 17 ships and about 1,500 soldiers, under the command of Christopher Columbus. Upon arriving on the island they found that the Fort La Navidad had been destroyed and their defenders dead. Columbus then chose to found a new population a few miles further east, in a small cove where a river, called Bajabonico by the Spaniards, flows. Construction began at the end of **December 1493** and the town was inaugurated on **January 6 , 1494** with the name of  *'Isabela'* , in honor of the queen. Its first mayor, appointed by Columbus and ratified by the kings, was Antonio de Torres.

La Isabela was composed of several main stone buildings and a majority of wooden huts. According to the chronicler Bartolomé de las Casas:

*"Admiral says here that (...) hobo there very good stone of stonework, and good soil for brick and tile (...) took great hurry (...) to then build house for the foundations and ammunition of the armed, and church and hospital, and for his abode [of Christopher Columbus] a strong house, as it could be done; and distributed lots, ordering its streets and square, and the principal people were reached, and mandates that each one make his house as the best I could, the public houses were made of stone, the others each made of wood and straw, and how could it be done."*

Bartolomé de las Casas, *History of the Indies* (ed. M. Ginesta, 1875, vol. 2, p.21)

La Isabela was struck by two of the first hurricanes observed by the Europeans in **1494** and **1495**. Hunger and disease decimated the inhabitants, among which there was also discontent over the scarce wealth found on the island and the autocratic policy of the Columbus family. On one occasion a group of settlers, led by Bernal Díaz de Pisa, tried to capture several ships to return to Spain.

La Isabela barely survived until **1496** when Columbus returned to Spain and his brother Bartholomew founded a new settlement in the south of the island: Santo Domingo. In La Isabela, there was then an uprising led by Francisco Roldan, who triumphed and in **1498** won many concessions from Columbus. On the other hand, the finding of gold in La Vega led most of the conquerors to emigrate there. By **1500**, La Isabela had been abandoned, occupied only by a residual population.

The first mass in America was concelebrated in La Isabela on **January 6, 1494**, at the solemnity of the Epiphany, by Father Bernardo Boyl and twelve other priests who arrived along with Christopher Columbus on his second trip. You can still see the ruins of this first church founded in the New World.

### Rediscovery

In the following centuries the town fell into oblivion until, on the occasion of the celebration of the IV Centenary of the Discovery of America in **1892**, several news about it and stories of trips to its ruins were published. In the middle of the 20th century (*1900s*), the first of a series of archaeological excavations began that have revealed information about the buildings and the inhabitants of the town. In parallel, the ruins suffered serious damage from treasure hunters and misguided interventions by public administrations.

### Contemporary

Today the ruins of La Isabela are an Archaeological Park very close to the **El Castillo/La Isabela Historical community**, municipality of Luperón, province of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

In the archaeological complex of La Isabela, four areas are distinguished:

1. "**El Castillo**", main nucleus.

2. "**Las Coles**", agricultural, livestock and artisanal area next to the mouth of the Bajabonico River.

3. An area of ​​quarries, where the stone for the buildings was extracted.

4. The port-shipyard.

The Castle was the main nucleus of the town. It was fortified with a stone wall. From it, the stone foundations of several buildings are preserved: the house of Christopher Columbus, the church with its cemetery, a royal warehouse or alhondiga, a "polvorín" and a tower of the wall. The best preserved remains are those of the house of Columbus, whose walls protrude about 60 cm (*24 in.*)from the ground.

There is no trace of the port-shipyard. It is believed that it could have been located on the beach at the foot of the alhondiga.

## Geography

Villa Isabela is located at 19.8149° N, 71.0602° W. According to the ONE, Villa Isabela has a land area of 212.60 square kilometers (82.09 square miles). This municipality is bordered on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by the town of Luperón, on the southeast by the Valverde towns of Esperanza and Laguna Salada, and on the southwest by the Monte Cristi town of Guayubín. It has four municipal districts, **Villa Isabela**, **Estero Hondo**, **La Jalba**, and **Gualete**.

## References

La Isabela [1]

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