thumb|right|La Isabela church
La Isabela in Puerto Plata Province, Dominican Republic was the first stable Spanish settlement and town in the Americas established in late December 1493 to early January 1494. The site is 42 km west of the city of Puerto Plata, adjacent to the village of El Castillo. The area now forms a National Historic Park.
La Isabela was founded by Christopher Columbus during his second voyage, and named after Queen Isabella I of Castile. The settlement of La Navidad, established by Columbus one year earlier to the west of La Isabela in what is present day Haiti, was destroyed by the native Taíno people before he returned. La Isabela was abandoned by 1500.
La Isabela was struck by the first known epidemic to spread from Europe to the New World in 1493 and two of the earliest North Atlantic hurricanes observed by Europeans in 1494 and 1495.
Hunger and disease led to mutiny, and a group of settlers, led by Bernal de Pisa, attempted to capture and make off with several ships and go back to Spain. La Isabela barely survived until 1496 when Columbus decided to abandon it in favor of a new settlement founded in 1498 called Nueva Isabela, and soon renamed Santo Domingo.
History of the colony
After his first voyage to the New World, Columbus returned to Hispaniola with seventeen ships. Columbus' settlers built houses, storerooms, a Roman Catholic church, and a large house for Columbus. He brought more than a thousand men, including sailors, soldiers, carpenters, stonemasons, and other workers. Priests and nobles came as well. Although historical records mention neither women nor Africans, skeletal remains in graves found at least one European woman and indicated African origin for others, but whether the latter were sailors or slaves is as yet undetermined.
The first Mass was celebrated on 6 January 1494. The town included 200 thatch huts, a plaza, and Columbus' stone house and arsenal.
The Taíno were local natives living in the mountains near La Isabela. They lived on fish and staples such as pineapple, which they introduced to the Spaniards. The food that they provided was important to the Spaniards. Columbus said that there were no finer people in the world.
Within a year of Christopher Columbus' departure, "with their provisions running short and suffering and sickness growing, they became discontented with their present lot and despaired of the future." The alcalde mayor, Francisco Roldán, formed a secret faction, and "disdaining to be ruled by a foreigner," plotted to kill Christopher's brothers Bartholomew and Diego. First plotting to capture the town and fortress of Concepcion in the province of Cibao, Roldan eventually moved his rebels to Xaragua, where the land was fertile and the women were the "best-looking and best-natured in the country." When Christopher entered Santo Domingo on 30 August 1498, he found many of the people he had left behind two and a half years ago were dead, some 160 were sick, while many more had joined Roldan's rebellion. The two-year rebellion finally ended on 3 August 1499, when Christopher agreed to "restore Roldan to his office of perpetual alcalde mayor," allow 15 to return home to Spain, made grants of houses and land for those who stayed, and then "publicly proclaim that all that had happened was caused by false testimony of a few evil men."