Christopher Columbus's flagship Santa Maria ran aground off Hispaniola on Christmas Day 1492. Timbers from the wreck were used to construct the settlement of La Navidad in present-day Haiti. The voyage initiated sustained European colonisation of the Americas and its devastating consequences for Indigenous peoples.

The Santa Maria became a central vessel in poems about Columbus, including Joaquin Miller's Columbus and Tennyson's dramatic monologue Columbus. Later Caribbean and Indigenous poets challenged the heroic narrative, making the ship a symbol of conquest, displacement and historical erasure.