Môle-Saint-Nicolas (; or ) is a commune in the north-western coast of Haiti. It is the chief town of the Môle-Saint-Nicolas Arrondissement in the department of Nord-Ouest. History Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas landed at the site of what is now Môle-Saint-Nicolas on December 6, 1492. The town received its present name after France gained control of the western part of Hispaniola in 1697. Vestiges of colonial forts can be found in several locations: Batteries de Vallières, Fort Georges, Saint-Charles, La Poudrière, Le Fort Allemand, Les Ramparts. Ruine Poudrière is an old magazine built sometime in the 1750s. In 1764, after the Grand Dérangement had exiled thousands of Acadians from their northern homelands, there was an attempt by French authorities to settle them at Môle-Saint-Nicolas, to shore up France's most lucrative colony of Saint-Domingue and build a base that could be used by the French Navy. It was a disaster, thanks to disease and shortages of food; a visiting French official reported: "The greatest criminal would have preferred the Galleys to a torture session in this plague-stricken place." Within a year, a reported 420 of the 700 Acadian settlers were dead, and most of the survivors fled to Louisiana shortly thereafter. In the summer of 1889 Fredrick Douglass was appointed minister to Haiti by the Harrison administration. Instructions to Douglass included the encouragement of the acquisition of Môle-Saint-Nicolas for use as a U.S. naval coaling station for the American fleet. Douglass attempted to secure access to the site through a lease, presenting arguments emphasizing the mutual benefits to trade and the legitimization of Haitian sovereignty to the American public and administration. Any negotiations were scuttled by the intervention of the U.S. Navy (Secretary Blaine) and New York businessmen William P,. Clyde, who wished to establish monopoly steamship access to Haitian ports. Admiral Bancroft Gheradi was sent to "assist" in the negotiations and arrived in an American battleship in the harbor at Port au Prince, followed by additional warships arriving at other Haitian ports. Fiercely proud of their revolutionary heritage and national sovereignty, the Haitians were appalled by Gheradi's attitude and statements ("it was the destiny of the Môle to belong to the United States") and by Clyde's insistence that his company should have exclusive control of all Haitian commercial shipping.As a result the Haitians refused any control of the Môle or ports to the Americans. Douglass was attacked