La Navidad was the first European colony established in the New World during the Age of Discovery, although it was destroyed by the native Taíno people by the following year.

Even more disquieting was his fear that Pinzón might break for Spain in the fast-sailing Pinta to be the first to bring news of the discovery to the Catholic Monarchs and to "tell them lies" about the admiral's conduct of the expedition.

[5]: 119–120 Columbus decided to build a settlement farther east in present-day Dominican Republic and named it La Isabela after Queen Isabella I.

[5]: 121 After Columbus sailed away a second time, the site apparently was forgotten until a Haitian farmer led William Hodges to a location in 1977.

Hodges, an amateur archaeologist and American medical missionary, received permission from the Haitian government to excavate a tennis-court-size section of the marshland, and he and his helpers found some artifacts of La Navidad.