Christopher Columbus’ Fourth Voyage, Death and His Wanderings After Death

Christopher Columbus’ Fourth Voyage, Death and His Wanderings After Death

From the Book:

From the Book
Colonial American History Stories – 1215 – 1664

Greetings, today I will talk about Christopher Columbus’ final voyage, his death and his wanderings after death.

His failed tenure as governor of Hispaniola led to a loss of confidence in him by the king and queen. He had also made many enemies. In spite of this, the monarchs authorized one more voyage for him, admonishing him to not visit Hispaniola.

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His small fleet included four ships and departed on May 9, 1502. His stepbrother Bartolomeo, Diego Mendez, and his 13-year-old son Fernando accompanied him. During the final leg of the voyage, he encountered a hurricane that was brewing, so he did stop at Hispaniola to warn the governor. The governor ignored his warning and sent a 28-ship fleet laden with treasure on its way. The ships did encounter the hurricane, which sank 24 of the 28 ships. Columbus had placed some of his possessions on one of the ships and this ship was one of the survivors.

Columbus continued exploring, encountering Santo Domingo and then going on to explore Central America. While there he encountered the Maya where he found some nuts that resembled almonds. These “almonds,” were the first exposure Europeans had of the cocoa nut. Columbus, however, did not learn what they were and only observed that the Maya held them in high esteem. He next visited Panama where natives informed him of a huge ocean that lay on the other side of the land mass. While there he built a fortress at the mouth of the Rio Belen.

During this phase of the voyage the ships wooden hulls had become infested with ship worms, which drilled holes in the hulls, making them un-seaworthy. He tried to sail back to Santo Domingo, however he had to beach the boats on Jamaica. They dismantled the ships to make shelters and sent some natives to paddle to Hispaniola to inform the authorities there that Columbus and his crew were shipwrecked. The governor did not treat Columbus’ plight with any urgency, taking over a year to send a rescue mission.

Uppn their rescue, Columbus and the surviving crewmen returned to Spain where Columbus found Queen Isabella on her death bed.

With his chief benefactor gone, Columbus would receive no more authorizations from the King. The king considered his dismissal of Columbus as governor as severing their contract and did not pay him the agreed upon 10% of the profits. He also refused to grant him any office of any kind. Columbus’ son Diego, had been appointed to a position on the Spanish court and managed to arrange for Columbus to live in some degree of comfort.

His health declined and he suffered from painful bouts of arthritis or gout and his eyesight was poor. Columbus died on November 7, 1505. His remains were interred at the Valladolid friary. From there they were moved to the to the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas in Seville in the Columbus family’s mausoleum. His son Diego’s will stipulated that both he and his father should be interred at the the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in Hispaniola. When Spain ceded that island to France, the bones were moved to Cuba. From there they were returned to Seville in Spain in 1898. However later on workers discovered some bones in Santo Domingo that indicated that they belonged to Columbus. DNA testing has proven that Spain has at least some of the bones, however it is possible that some that are in Santo Domingo are Columbus’ also, as the bones have been moved several times.

 That concludes the Christopher Columbus series of podcasts. I have not yet decided what the next topic will be, so tune in next week and find out. The articles in the book contain much more detail about the topics discussed. Additionally, there are other topics not included in the podcast. I encourage you to subscribe to both my web site, mossyfeetbooks.com and this You Tube channel.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast and thank you for listening.