Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [155]
Days later, Roldán wielded his newfound authority. He appointed a judge, Pedro de Riquelme, to sentence criminals, except for “capital offenders,” whom he would try personally. Meanwhile, Riquelme broke ground on a rebel fort in Bonao, but work came to a halt amid squabbles. Heartened by this minor victory, Columbus turned his attention to other segments of his fissured empire. Wishing to flee to the relative safety of Spain after his demoralizing spell in Hispaniola, he charged a captain and a company of men “to patrol and pacify” the island (in Ferdinand’s words), collect tributes from the Indians, and suppress revolts provoked by the rebels—all formidable tasks.
Confronting a storm or a reef, Columbus displayed an intuitive knack for tactics and an ability to learn from experience. But his behavior on land was quite different. No matter how many uprisings he faced on Hispaniola, he failed to adapt and to acquire the skills necessary for leadership, or even survival, in his own empire. He could command the seas, master the winds, and ride the tides, but he could not fathom his fellow man. He had spent his days studying waves, not people, and knew only the crosscurrents and promptings of his own heart. At that dangerous moment, he appeared stagnant, unwilling to recognize that yielding to the rebels’ demands emboldened rather than diminished his enemies.
Then, without warning, four ships appeared on the horizon.
On September 5, the flotilla dropped anchor “in the port that the Christians call ‘Brazil,’ (and the Indians Yaquimo),” Ferdinand explained, with a simple task: to obtain wood for their ships and fires, and to enslave Indians to perform the labor. It was the identity of their leader that alarmed Columbus: Alonso de Ojeda, the reckless aide who had cut off the ears of several Indians while pacifying a settlement in April 1494. And he had been sent by Columbus’s own patrons.
Ojeda’s sudden appearance signaled the end of Columbus’s monopoly on the Enterprise of the Indies. It meant that the Sovereigns and Bishop Fonseca were now commissioning his rivals to perform many of the same tasks Columbus had set out to accomplish. “Alonso de Ojeda was well loved by the bishop,” Las Casas explained, “and after the admiral’s account arrived with the chart, Alonso de Ojeda was inclined to go and discover more land by the route that the admiral had traveled, for once the thread is found and in the hand, it is an easy thing to reach the ball.” From Columbus’s chart, crafty Ojeda learned the basics of the first voyage, what islands the fleet had visited, and other information gleaned from the Indians. Vowing to find the mainland that had eluded Columbus, Ojeda located four ships in Seville, “where he was known as a brave and valiant man,” and obtained the means to outfit them.
Violating their contract with Columbus, Ferdinand and Isabella had given Ojeda supplies and instructions; they had appointed him captain and charged him to discover and recover gold and pearls, just as the Admiral of the Ocean Sea had been doing, and on similar terms, giving the fifth part to the king and queen. And, like Columbus, he was ordered to treat the people he encountered in a spirit of peace and friendship. Bolstering his effort, Ojeda induced Columbus’s prized cartographer, Juan de la Cosa, to join the expedition, as well as a respected pilot from Palos, Bartolomé Roldán. According to Las Casas, the Sovereigns hoped that Ojeda would carry out his duties with less strife than his hardheaded predecessor.
In 1499, Ojeda’s fleet sailed to the Guajira Peninsula, the northernmost part of the South American mainland. In Sinamaica Lagoon, located in today’s Zulia state, he encountered Indians dwelling in thatched huts on stilts—palafitos—above gently lapping water. According to legend, he and his men decided to call the region Little Venice, or “Venezuela,