agreed to fund Columbus’s fourth and final voy-
age. Remembering Marco Polo’s account of voy-
aging westward through the South China Sea
and still convinced that Cuba was part of China,
Columbus intended to find a strait he incor-
rectly assumed would lead him from the
Caribbean into the Indian Ocean.
He set sail from Cadiz on May 11, 1502,
with four ships, accompanied by his 13-year-
old son and future biographer, Ferdinand. The
fleet crossed the Atlantic swiftly, discovering
the island of Martinique on the way. To avoid
any political problems, the Spanish sovereigns
had ordered Columbus not to land at Hispan-
iola. Using the excuse that a storm was
approaching, Columbus sailed into the harbor
of Santo Domingo, where the new governor,
Nicolás Ovando, refused him permission to
land. Columbus sailed on to a harbor just west
of the colony and briefly sheltered there from
the storm he had predicted.
After reaching Cuba by way of Jamaica,
Columbus sailed westward, searching for the
strait he was certain would lead him to the
Orient. Other explorers, including mariners
who had served with Columbus earlier, had by
now traversed the coast of South America
between the Orinoco River and Panama, but
the rest of the Gulf of Mexico lay unexplored
and open to the theory that such a connecting
channel to India existed.
Instead of finding China, Columbus
found himself off the coast of Honduras.
After a month of struggling against contrary
winds, Columbus was able to turn south
along the coasts of the future countries of
Nicaragua and Costa Rica. By autumn 1502
the increasingly ill admiral realized that he
would not find a route to China. He concen-
trated on bartering for gold with the Native
peoples and searching for a suitable site to
establish a trading outpost. In January 1503
he picked a location near the mouth of the
Río Belén in rugged northwestern Panama.
By spring, however, relations with the area’s
Guaymi inhabitants had deteriorated so
badly that Columbus’s party was attacked as
he was preparing to send three of his four
ships to Spain. The Spaniards sustained
casualties and were forced to abandon one of
their ships in the river before sailing for
home on April 16. “I departed,” Columbus
wrote, “in the name of the Holy Trinity, on
Easter night, with ships rotten, worn out, and
eaten into holes.”
None of the three ships made it to Spain.
One was abandoned at the harbor of Puerto
Bello in central Panama. The other two sailed
to the present-day border separating Panama
and Colombia beforeheading north, trying
to reach Hispaniola. The badly leaking ves-
sels got as far as Jamaica, where Columbus
ordered them run aground on the beaches at
St. Ann’s Bay, on the northern coast.
The ships were too seriously damaged to
be repaired, so Columbus ordered a canoe
commanded byDiego Méndez to make the
108-mile trip to Hispaniola for help. Méndez
reached Hispaniola, but Governor Ovando
was so disinclined to help Columbus that no
rescue ship was sent to Jamaica for a year.
Most of the dispirited survivors then
remained in Hispaniola to try their luck as
colonists, while Columbus continued on to
Spain, arriving in November 1504.
Columbus had discovered neither the
sought-after strait to China nor had he
returned with anything of material worth. By
now, years of stress and illness had taken their
toll on him. On November 26, 1504, Queen
Isabella died. She had frequently been Colum-
bus’s benefactor. King Ferdinand, while sym-
pathetic to the ailing admiral’s condition,
continually refused Columbus’s requests that
his original contracts be honored and that he
be reappointed governor of the Indies. StillThe Four Voyages of Columbus B 37