Fourth voyage.

Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz, Spain, on May 11, 1502, with the ships Capitana, Gallega, Vizcaína and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the Moors. On June 15, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on June 29, but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus' ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus' ships survived with only minor damage, while twenty-nine of the thirty ships in the governor's fleet were lost to the July 1st storm. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.

After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on July 30. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. On August 14, he landed on the American mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on October 16.

On December 5, 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,

For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky; I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.^[23]

In Panama, Columbus learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. After much exploration, in January 1503 he established a garrison at the mouth of the Rio Belen. On April 6 one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked, and the other ships were damaged. Columbus left for Hispaniola on April 16, heading north. On May 10 he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them "Las Tortugas" after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on June 25, 1503, they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.

Columbus's lunar eclipse

For a year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Mendez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. That island's governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully intimidated the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse for February 29, 1504, using the Ephemeris of the German astronomer Regiomontanus.^[24] Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on June 29, 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on November 7.

Governorship and arrest

During Columbus' stint as governor and viceroy, disgruntled Spaniards, who chafed at being governed by an Italian, had claimed that he had ruled his domain tyrannically^{[citation needed]}. Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted; his body was wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern.

The Court appointed Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava; however, his authority stretched far beyond what Columbus had requested. Bobadilla was given total control as governor from 1500 until his death in 1502. Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away, Bobadilla was immediately peppered with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomé, and Diego. Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian, states: "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."^[25][26]

As a result of these testimonies and without being allowed a word in his own defense, Columbus upon his return, had manacles placed on his arms and chains on his feet and was cast into prison to await return to Spain. He was 53 years old.

On October 1, 1500, Columbus and his two brothers, likewise in chains, were sent back to Spain. Once in Cádiz, a grieving Columbus wrote to a friend at court:

It is now seventeen years since I came to serve these princes with the Enterprise of the Indies. They made me pass eight of them in discussion, and at the end rejected it as a thing of jest. Nevertheless I persisted therein... Over there I have placed under their sovereignty more land than there is in Africa and Europe, and more than 1,700 islands... In seven years I, by the divine will, made that conquest. At a time when I was entitled to expect rewards and retirement, I was incontinently arrested and sent home loaded with chains... The accusation was brought out of malice on the basis of charges made by civilians who had revolted and wished to take possession on the land.... I beg your graces, with the zeal of faithful Christians in whom their Highnesses have confidence, to read all my papers, and to consider how I, who came from so far to serve these princes... now at the end of my days have been despoiled of my honor and my property without cause, wherein is neither justice nor mercy.^[27]

According to testimony of 23 witnesses during his trial, Columbus regularly used barbaric acts of torture to govern Hispaniola. ^[22]

Columbus and his brothers lingered in jail for six weeks before the busy King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long thereafter, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to their presence at the Alhambra palace in Granada. There the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and their wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus' fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Christopher Columbus's role as governor. From that point forward, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.

Later life

A statue of the Santa Maria, Columbus' flagship in his first voyage. The statue is at the House of Columbus in Valladolid, Spain, the city where Columbus died.

While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious in his later years. He claimed to hear divine voices, lobbied for a new crusade to capture Jerusalem, often wore Franciscan habit, and described his explorations to the "paradise" as part of God's plan which would soon result in the Last Judgment and the end of the world.^{[citation needed]}

In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10% of all profits made in the new lands, pursuant to earlier agreements. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by these contracts, and his demands were rejected. After his death his family later sued for part of the profits from trade with America in the pliegos colombinos.

Columbus's tomb in Seville Cathedral. It is borne by four statues of kings representing the Kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarre.

On May 20, 1506, at about the age of 55, Columbus died in Valladolid, fairly wealthy from the gold his men had accumulated in Hispaniola. When he died he was still convinced that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia. According to a study, published in February 2007, by Antonio Rodriguez Cuartero, Department of Internal Medicine of the University of Granada, he died of a heart attack caused by Reiter's Syndrome (also called reactive arthritis). According to his personal diaries and notes by contemporaries, the symptoms of this illness (burning pain during urination, pain and swelling of the knees, and conjunctivitis of the eyes) were clearly visible in his last three years.^[28]

His remains were first buried in Valladolid and then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain), by the will of his son Diego, who had been governor of Hispaniola. Then in 1542, his remains were transferred to Santo Domingo, in eastern Hispaniola. In 1795, the French took over Hispaniola, and his remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish-American War in 1898, his remains were moved back to the Cathedral of Seville in Spain^[29], where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque. However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing fragments of bone and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877.

To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics were moved to Havana and that the remains of Columbus were left buried in the cathedral of Santo Domingo, DNA samples were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003). The results are not definitively conclusive. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus.^[30] DNA extraction proved difficult; only a few limited fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. However, such as they are, these do appear to match corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, giving support to the idea that the two had the same mother and that the body therefore may be that of Columbus.^[31][32] The authorities in Santo Domingo have not allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus's body. The location of the Dominican remains is in the "Columbus Lighthouse" or Faro A Colon which is in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Legacy

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Bronze statue at Central Park, New York City by Jerónimo Suñol, 1894.

Bronze statue at Wooster Square in New Haven, Connecticut

Replicas of the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria sailed from Spain to the Chicago Columbian Exposition.

Amerigo Vespucci's travel journals, published 1502-4, convinced Martin Waldseemüller that the discovered place was not India, as Columbus always believed, but a new continent, and in 1507, a year after Columbus' death, Waldseemüller published a world map calling the new continent America from Vespucci's Latinized name "Americus".

Historically, the British had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of John Cabot as a pioneering explorer. But, for the emerging United States, Cabot made a poor national hero. Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. America itself was sometimes referred to as Columbia.^[33] The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word Columbia spread rapidly after the American Revolution. During the last two decades of the 18th century the name "Columbia" was given to the federal capital District of Columbia, South Carolina's new capital city, Columbia, South Carolina, the Columbia River, and numerous other places. Attempts to rename the United States "Columbia" failed, but Columbia became a female national personification of America, similar to the male Uncle Sam.^{[citation needed]} Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the Republic of Colombia, a precursor of the modern nation of Colombia.

A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, Celebration of Columbus' legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 when the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas occurred. Monuments to Columbus like the Columbian Exposition in Chicago were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him. Numerous cities, towns, counties, and streets have been named after him, including the capital cities of two U.S. states (Columbus, Ohio and Columbia, South Carolina).

Sometimes thought of erroneously as the discoverer^{[citation needed]} of the New World (he was preceded by Irish^{[citation needed]}, Vikings, and perhaps even English^{[citation needed]} and Chinese^{[citation needed]}), he is regarded more accurately as the person who brought it into the forefront of Western attention. "Columbus' claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."^[34] Equally false is the notion that he was first to envision a rounded earth. This was known in ancient times, though largely forgotten in the Middle Ages. By Columbus's day, educated men were in agreement as to its spherical shape, even if many or most people believed otherwise. More contentious was the size of the earth, and whether it was possible in practical terms to cross such a vast body of water: the longest any ship (European or otherwise) had gone without making landfall did not much exceed 30 days when Columbus embarked on his first audacious voyage.

In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to a site near State College, Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public. At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair which the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.

Columbus Circle in New York City. Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo's central monument was dedicated in 1892, 400 years after Columbus arrived in America.

Culpability is sometimes placed on contemporary governments and their citizens for the hardship suffered by Native Americans during the time of Christopher Columbus. Columbus myths and celebrations are generally a positive affair, making less room for this concept in history books. Christopher Columbus was strongly criticised[1] in a song by Jamaican artiste Burning Spear titled 'A Damn Blasted Liar.' The controversial song opened a strong opinionated debate across much of the Caribbean region on the effects that Christopher Columbus and his leadership had on the region's native peoples.[2]

The Spanish colonization of the Americas, and the subsequent effects on the native peoples, were dramatized in the 1992 feature film 1492: Conquest of Paradise to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his landing in the Americas. *In 2003, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez urged Native American Latin Americans to not celebrate the Columbus Day holiday. Chavez blamed Columbus for leading the way in the mass genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish.^[35]

Physical appearance

Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found. There is a portrait painted by Alejo Fernández, between 1505 and 1536, titled Virgen de los Navegantes in the Royal Alcazar in Seville. At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed, most did not match contemporary descriptions.^[36] These writings describe him as having reddish hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes,^[37] as well as being a lighter skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red.

In keeping with descriptions of Columbus having had auburn hair or (later) white hair, textbooks use the Sebastiano del Piombo painting (which in its normal-sized resolution shows Columbus's hair as auburn) so often that it has become the iconic image of Columbus accepted by popular culture.

In popular culture

Colombus is a significant historical figure and has been depicted in fiction and in popular films and television.

In 1991, author Salman Rushdie published a fictional representation of Columbus in The New Yorker, "Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship, Santa Fe, January, 1492," (The New Yorker, June 17, 1991, p. 32). In Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996) science fiction novelist Orson Scott Card focuses on Columbus' life and activities, but the novel's action also deals with a group of scientists from the future who travel back to the 15th century with the goal of changing the pattern of European contact with the Americas. British author Stephen Baxter includes Columbus' quest for royal sponsorship as a crucial historical event in his 2007 science fiction novel Navigator (ISBN 978-0-441-01559-7), the third entry in the author's Time's Tapestry Series.

Columbus has also been portrayed in cinema and television, including mini-series, films and cartoons. Most notably he was portrayed by Gérard Depardieu in 1992 film by Ridley Scott 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Scott presented Columbus as an idealist as opposed to the view that he was ruthless and responsible for the misfortune of Native Americans. As in many of Scott's movies, the character is presented as having some ideas that weren't current at his time.

Other more recent productions include TV mini-series Christopher Columbus (1985) with Gabriel Byrne as Colombus, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, a 1992 biopic film by Alexander Salkind, Christopher Columbus, a 1949 film starring Fredric March as Columbus, and comedy Carry On Columbus (1992).

Notes

References

• Cohen, J.M. (1969) The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Being His Own Log-Book, Letters and Dispatches with Connecting Narrative Drawn from the Life of the Admiral by His Son Hernando Colon and Others. London UK: Penguin Classics.
• Cook, Sherburn and Woodrow Borah (1971) Essays in Population History, Volume I. Berkeley CA: University of California Press
• Crosby, A. W. (1987) The Columbian Voyages: the Columbian Exchange, and their Historians. Washington, DC: American Historical Association.
• Friedman, Thomas (2005) The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
• Hart, Michael H. (1992) The 100. Seacaucus NJ: Carol Publishing Group.
• Keen, Benjamin (1978) The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his Son Ferdinand, Westport CT: Greenwood Press.
• Lowen, James. "Lies My Teacher Told Me".
• Nelson, Diane M. (1999) A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.
• Morison, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1942.
• Morison, Samuel Eliot, Christopher Columbus, Mariner, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1955.
• Phillips, W. D. and C. R. Phillips (1992) The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Turner, Jack (2004) Spice: The History of a Temptation. New York: Random House.
• Wilford, John Noble (1991) The Mysterious History of Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Rosa, Manuel DaSilva (2006) O Mistério Colombo Revelado. Lisbon: Ésquilo.
• Fuson, Robert H. (1992) The Log of Christopher Columbus. Camden, Maine: International Marine Publishing

See also

• 1492: Conquest of Paradise, a 1992 biopic film by Ridley Scott
• Origin theories of Christopher Columbus
• Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, a 1992 biopic film by Alexander Salkind
• Christopher Columbus, a 1949 film starring Fredric March as Columbus
• List of Viceroys of New Spain
• Viceroyalty of New Spain
• Bartolomeo Columbus
• Columbus Day
• Colombia, South American country named in honor of Christopher Columbus
• Fernando Colón
• Guanahani (a discussion of candidates for site of first landing)
• Knights of Columbus
• List of places named for Christopher Columbus
• Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli
• Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
• Rafael Perestrello
• Spanish colonization of the Americas

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Christopher Columbus

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Christopher Columbus

• The Letter of Columbus to Luis de Sant Angel Announcing His Discovery
• Podcasts and audio about Columbus
• Columbus Navigation
• Images of Christopher Columbus and His Voyages Selections from the Collections of the Library of Congress.
• Works by Christopher Columbus at Project Gutenberg
• The Eclipse That Saved Columbus Science News 7 October 2006
• Christopher Columbus and the Indians By Howard Zinn, from A People's History of the United States
• Christopher Columbus 1911 Britannica article

IMDB

• Animated Hero Classics: Christopher Columbus (1991) at the Internet Movie Database
• 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) at the Internet Movie Database