La Isabela’s foreign crops have failed by 1496 and the colonists are living on small amounts of rationed wheat, bacon, and dried beans.

The people have become hungry and desperate.

The colonists have failed to adapt their food sources and at least fifty percent of them have scurvy.

They begin to die of scurvy or acute diseases that kill quickly, such as influenza.

Bones from the colony show that the colonists were young and used to heavy labor.

They were generally healthy.

Most were under thirty and few were over forty-five.

However, twenty percent of them died within four years.

None of the bones found show signs of trauma.

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.