CUBA RESEARCH

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 92, 20 April 1935, Page 10

CUBA RESEARCH

Site of Columbus’s First Settlement

ON HAITIAN COAST Returning from a month’s research in Cuba, Haiti and Sant-o Domingo, Maurice Ries of Tulane University reported to the department of middle American research his belief that ho had located the spot on the Haitian coast where Christopher Columbus built his first settlement in the New World and the place where the explorer’s flagship, the Santa Mari", was wrecked Christmas Eve, 14C2. Mr Ries, who wjis accompanied by his wife, said in his preliminary report to the university department, which he serves, that his findings revealed La Navidad, the fortified settlement erected by Columbus after loss of the ship, was on top of a steep hill, Mont St. Michel, on a coastal plain bordering the Cape Haitien harbour. “Mont St. Michel is near the present native fishing village of Petit Anse,” ho stated. “The harbour, its reefs, . currents, tides, winds, contours, shore ‘ and other preseut geographic conditions agree perfectly with the material in the Columbus log and with accounts of the discoverer’s contemporaries. “With Robert Pettigrew, a former commander in the United States Navy and naval engineering expert, who is

now manager of a large sisal plantation at Fort Liborty, Haiti, I made an exhaustive study of the harbour and tides and, I believe, fixed tho place where tho Santa Maria must have struck as well as tho place where the fortification was built near by. “Although we can not prove our discovery by physical remains, tho proof must come from logic, deductions from the Columbus account and a comparison of the known historical material with physical conditions.”