Fourth Voyage of Christopher Columbus (1502–1504)

Background

Christopher Columbus returned to Nueva Isabela, on Rio Ozama in La Española, upon completing his third voyage in 1500. The admiral and governor, whose relationship with local vecinos had been long strained by then, soon found himself on remand in Cádiz, awaiting an audience before the Catholic Monarchs to answer for alleged offences against the Spanish crown. His defence proved good enough to earn him his freedom, but not a reinstatement as governor of La Española, in which office he had first been replaced by juez pesquisidor ('inquisitor') Francisco de Bobadilla, and who would soon be succeeded by Nicolás de Ovando in 1502.

Upon his release from jail on 17 December 1500, Columbus set about planning what he proposed would be "his most significant, most profitable expedition yet". The recent Portuguese discovery of an eastern sea lane to "the opulent East", by Vasco da Gama in 1497 to 1499, had steeled the admiral's resolve to find a shorter, more direct western route to the same (to Cathay, Cipangu and La Especiería in the Far East, and to the neighbouring East Indies). Consequently, on 26 February 1502, Columbus petitioned the crown for a capitulación to embark on a fourth voyage to the western half of the North Sea. Passage to the east, he figured, might lie farther west than anyone had prior sailed.

Voyage

The Columbian fleet set sail from Cádiz on 9 May 1502. After a brief detour to Arzila, on the Barbary Coast, which Ferdinand II had requested, the fleet called at El Hierro, in the Canary Islands, to revictual. They next stopped in Martinique, after a transatlantic crossing of 21 days, the fastest one of Columbus's career.

Once his crew were rested and his ships repaired, the admiral departed from the Lesser Antilles, setting course due west. Though his capitulación barred Columbus from landing in La Española during the opening leg of his voyage, towards the end of June, the explorer nonetheless dropped anchor just off the mouth of Río Ozama, intending to request an emergency exemption to the said stipulation, so as to shelter his fleet in the port of Nueva Isabela, fearing that a hurricane was brewing and would soon strike the Greater Antilles. Not convinced by said plea, governor de Ovando denied the admiral's request and required the ships to clear the harbour. Columbus's fears soon proved well-founded though, as a "massive hurricane" next landed on the Spanish settlement and island in early July, one which the Columbian fleet weathered reasonably well, having secured shelter in some nearby anchorage, possibly off Río Jaina, just a few miles west of Ozama.

On 15 July, once the storm had passed and any damage been repaired, Columbus set off downwind from La Española.

Mainland

The Columbian fleet sighted land on 30 July 1502, in what would later become the Bay of Honduras, and came upon an island which Columbus dubbed Isla de Pinos, later rechristened by the Spanish as Guanaxa. Shortly upon stopping here, an Amerindian canoe, richly laden in merchandise, approached their anchorage. Noting that the laden goods were "all of a quality superior to what they had seen before" in the New World, the Spaniards forced a trade, bartering the local merchant's ceramics, dyed cotton textiles, flint-edged swords and copper hatchets for "the usual baubles" from the Old World. This merchant canoe is thought to have hailed from some nearby port in the Maya Lowlands, leading some later historians and Mayanist scholars to identify the same as a Maya vessel, thereby making this chance encounter the first contact between the Maya civilisation and a non-Amerindian people.

After impressing the canoe's elderly skipper, Columbus weighed anchor and carried on southwards, reaching a small peninsula (named Punta Caxinas by the admiral) which abutted the bay of what would later be Truxillo. The ships were anchored in the lee of said cape, whereupon the Spanish explorers "made the first landing on the mainland of North America", this being the earliest instance any non-Amerindian people coming onto continental Middle America, and the first in the continent since Norse arrival.

Antilles

The Columbian fleet, reduced now to the Capitana and Santiago, both already in a sorry state, dropped anchor in Jardines de la Reina, just off Isla Juana, on 12 May 1503. That week proved especially disastrous for the leaky caravels, and taxing for the crew. With "ships pierced by borers worse than a honeycomb, the people spiritless and desperate", they carried on southeastwards to Jamaica, reaching Saint Ann's Bay, just off the modern town of the same name, on 25 June. Being now indisputably beyond repair, Columbus condemned both caravels and had them beached for break up, thus marooning himself and the remaining company of 116 men for what would prove to be a year-long odyssey.

Columbus set about securing a vessel to send to Nueva Isabela for their rescue. That July 1503, he enlisted his captains Méndez and Fieschi, twelve crewmates, and twenty Taino rowers to attempt the daring crossing of the Jamaica Channel aboard dugout canoes in two flotillas. In three days' time, both parties reached Navassa Island, where several rowers died or fell very ill of dehydration. Despite these odds, the survivors made the rest of the crossing to La Española in one day's time. Upon reaching Jaragua though, the captains were promptly apprehended and detained by governor de Ovando, and so did not reach the port capital until March 1504.

Aftermath

Columbus's hopes to the contrary, this expedition proved to be "the least profitable and most dangerous of all his voyages", the admiral having found no passage to the Far East, returned a meagre profit to the Spanish crown, lost many men and all four ships, and suffered a year's marooning in Jamaica. The post-voyage debriefing of the Catholic Monarchs was precluded by the death of Isabella I on 26 November 1504. Instead, Columbus presented the expedition's negative results only to Ferdinand II that December in Segovia, with the latter proving less than thrilled, as the explorer reportedly "received nothing" from said king.

Legacy

Five first-hand accounts of this voyage survive, namely those by Columbus himself, his son Ferdinand (on the Capitana), the Porras brothers (the Santiago), Pedro de Ledesma (the Vizcaíno), and Diego Méndez (on the Santiago). Sixteenth century second-hand accounts in crónicas de Indias include one by Bartolomé de las Casas, and another by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo. The itineraries described in these sources, however, do not perfectly concur, resulting in discrepancies within historical literature. For instance, historian Miles H. Davidson describes the Ferdinand and de las Casas accounts as both the most influential ones generally, and also so inaccurate or distorted as to make ascertaining fact from fiction "the most difficult task for the Columbus" scholar today. They further note that primary and secondary sources on this voyage disagree on "most of the dates" they provide, citing as an example the date of departure from Cádiz, which is "reported differently by all participants".

The 1492 Capitulaciones de Santa Fe had secured for Columbus and his heirs a number of privileges concerning lands discovered and formally possessed by him. As the admiral discovered and formally possessed continental lands during his fourth voyage, rather than merely insular ones, a dispute soon arose regarding the extent of mainland to which the Santa Fe privileges applied.

Itinerary

The following is an abbreviated timeline of the fourth voyage of Columbus, as detailed above.

The following table lists itineraries for the fourth voyage of Columbus, as described in five first and second-hand accounts of the trip. From left to right, the accounts covered below are those of the Porras brothers, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Columbus, de Ledesma, and de las Casas.