chapter 5._

AMERICA: A. D. 1498-1505. The Third and Fourth Voyages of Columbus.

Discovery of Trinidad, the northern coast of S. America, the shores of Central America and Panama.

When Columbus reached Spain in June, 1496, "Ferdinand and Isabella received him kindly, gave him new honors and promised him other outfits. Enthusiasm, however, had died out and delays took place. The reports of the returning ships did not correspond with the pictures of Marco Polo, and the new-found world was thought to be a very poor India after all. Most people were of this mind; though Columbus was not disheartened, and the public treasury was readily opened for a third voyage. Coronel sailed early in 1498 with two ships, and Columbus followed with six, embarking at San Lucas on the 30th of May. He now discovered Trinidad (July 31), which he named either from its three peaks, or from the Holy Trinity; struck the northern coast of South America, and skirted what was later known as the Pearl coast, going as far as the Island of Margarita. He wondered at the roaring fresh waters which the Oronoco pours into the Gulf of Pearls, as he called it, and he half believed that its exuberant tide came from the terrestrial paradise. He touched the southern coast of Hayti on the 30th of August. Here already his colonists had established a fortified post, and founded the town of Santo Domingo. His brother Bartholomew had ruled energetically during the Admiral's absence, but he had not prevented a revolt, which was headed by Roldan. Columbus on his arrival found the insurgents still defiant, but he was able after a while to reconcile them, and he even succeeded in attaching Roldan warmly to his interests. {55} Columbus' absence from Spain, however, left his good name without sponsors; and to satisfy detractors, a new commissioner was sent over with enlarged powers, even with authority to supersede Columbus in general command, if necessary. This emissary was Francisco de Bobadilla, who arrived at Santo Domingo with two caravels on the 23d of August, 1500, finding Diego in command, his brother, the Admiral, being absent. An issue was at once made. Diego refused to accede to the commissioner's orders till Columbus returned to judge the case himself; so Bobadilla assumed charge of the crown property violently, took possession of the Admiral's house, and when Columbus returned, he with his brother was arrested and put in irons. In this condition the prisoners were placed on shipboard, and sailed for Spain. The captain of the ship offered to remove the manacles: but Columbus would not permit it, being determined to land in Spain bound as he was; and so he did. The effect of his degradation was to his advantage; sovereigns and people were shocked at the sight; and Ferdinand and Isabella hastened to make amends by receiving him with renewed favor. It was soon apparent that everything reasonable would be granted him by the monarchs, and that he could have all he might wish short of receiving a new lease of power in the islands, which the sovereigns were determined to see pacified at least before Columbus should again assume government of them. The Admiral had not forgotten his vow to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidel; but the monarchs did not accede to his wish to undertake it. Disappointed in this, he proposed a new voyage; and getting the royal countenance for this scheme, he was supplied with four vessels of from fifty to seventy tons each. … He sailed from Cadiz, May 9, 1502, accompanied by his brother Bartholomew and his son Fernando. The vessels reached San Domingo June 29. Bobadilla, whose rule of a year and a half had been an unhappy one, had given place to Nicholas de Ovando; and the fleet which brought the new governor—with Maldonado, Las Casas and others—now lay in the harbor waiting to receive Bobadilla for the return voyage. Columbus had been instructed to avoid Hispaniola; but now that one of his vessels leaked, and he needed to make repairs, he sent a boat ashore, asking permission to enter the harbor. He was refused, though a storm was impending. He sheltered his vessels as best he could, and rode out the gale. The fleet which had on board Bobadilla and Roldan, with their ill-gotten gains, was wrecked, and these enemies of Columbus were drowned. The Admiral found a small harbor where he could make his repairs; and then, July 14, sailed westward to find, as he supposed, the richer portions of India. … A landing was made on the coast of Honduras, August 14. Three days later the explorers landed again fifteen leagues farther east, and took possession of the country for Spain. Still east they went; and, in gratitude for safety after a long storm, they named a cape which they rounded, Gracias à Dios—a name still preserved at the point where the coast of Honduras begins to trend southward. Columbus was now lying ill on his bed, placed on deck, and was half the time in revery. Still the vessels coasted south," along and beyond the shores of Costa Rica; then turned with the bend of the coast to the northeast, until they reached Porto Bello, as we call it, where they found houses and orchards, and passed on "to the farthest spot of Bastidas' exploring, who had, in 1501, sailed westward along the northern coast of South America." There turning back, Columbus attempted to found a colony at Veragua, on the Costa Rica coast, where signs of gold were tempting. But the gold proved scanty, the natives hostile, and, the Admiral, withdrawing his colony, sailed away. "He abandoned one worm-eaten caravel at Porto Bello, and, reaching Jamaica, beached two others. A year of disappointment, grief, and want followed. Columbus clung to his wrecked vessels. His crew alternately mutinied at his side, and roved about the island. Ovando, at Hispaniola, heard of his straits, but only tardily and scantily relieved him. The discontented were finally humbled; and some ships, despatched by the Admiral's agent in Santo Domingo, at last reached him and brought him and his companions to that place, where Ovando received him with ostentatious kindness, lodging him in his house till Columbus departed for Spain, Sept. 12, 1504." Arriving in Spain in November, disheartened, broken with disease, neglected, it was not until the following May that he had strength enough to go to the court at Segovia, and then only to be coldly received by King Ferdinand—Isabella being dead. "While still hope was deferred, the infirmities of age and a life of hardships brought Columbus to his end; and on Ascension Day, the 20th of May, 1506, he died, with his son Diego and a few devoted friends by his bedside."

_J. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, chapter 2 and 4._

_W. Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, book 10-18 (volume 2)._

AMERICA: A. D. 1499-1500. The Voyages and Discoveries of Ojeda and Pinzon. The Second Voyage of Amerigo Vespucci.

One of the most daring and resolute of the adventurers who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage (in 1493) was Alonzo de Ojeda. Ojeda quarrelled with the Admiral and returned to Spain in 1498. Soon afterwards, "he was provided by the Bishop Fonseca, Columbus' enemy, with a fragment of the map which the Admiral had sent to Ferdinand and Isabella, showing the discoveries which he had made in his last voyage. With this assistance Ojeda set sail for South America, accompanied by the pilot, Juan de la Cosá, who had accompanied Columbus in his first great voyage in 1492, and of whom Columbus complained that, 'being a clever man, he went about saying that he knew more than he did,' and also by Amerigo Vespucci. They set sail on the 20th of May, 1499, with four vessels, and after a passage of 27 days came in sight of the continent, 200 leagues east of the Oronoco. At the end of June, they landed on the shores of Surinam, in six degrees of north latitude, and proceeding west saw the mouths of the Essequibo and Oronoco. Passing the Boca del Drago of Trinidad, they coasted westward till they reached the Capo de la Vela in Granada. It was in this voyage that was discovered the Gulf to which Ojeda gave the name of Venezuela, or Little Venice, on account of the cabins built on piles over the water, a mode of life which brought to his mind the water-city of the Adriatic. {56} From the American coast Ojeda went to the Caribbee Islands, and on the 5th of September reached Yaguimo, in Hispaniola, where he raised a revolt against the authority of Columbus. His plans, however, were frustrated by Roldan and Escobar, the delegates of Columbus, and he was compelled to withdraw from the island. On the 5th of February, 1500, he returned, carrying with him to Cadiz an extraordinary number of slaves, from which he realized an enormous sum of money. At the beginning of December, 1499, the same year in which Ojeda set sail on his last voyage, another companion of Columbus, in his first voyage, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, sailed from Palos, was the first to cross the line on the American side of the Atlantic. and on the 20th of January, 1500, discovered Cape St. Augustine, to which he gave the name of Cabo Santa Maria de la Consolacion, whence returning northward he followed the westerly trending coast, and so discovered the mouth of the Amazon, which he named Paricura. Within a month after his departure from Palos, he was followed from the same port and on the same route by Diego de Lepe, who was the first to discover, at the mouth of the Oronoco, by means of a closed vessel, which only opened when it reached the bottom of the water, that, at a depth of eight fathoms and a half, the two lowest fathoms were salt water, but all above was fresh. Lepe also made the observation that beyond Cape St. Augustine, which he doubled, as well as Pinzon, the coast of Brazil trended south-west."

_R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry of Portugal,