Hispaniola’s troubles kept mounting. There were constant outbreaks of violence among the dissatisfied Spaniards, and at one point even the Indians had taken up arms again. And while Columbus and his brothers struggled to keep control of the situation, the complaints began to flood the Court of Spain. Royal action was becoming only a matter of time.
Finally, in August 1500, while both Christopher and his brother Bartholomeo were away from the settlement, a new Spanish fleet arrived at Santo Domingo. This expedition was commanded by Francisco de Bobadillo, the commissioner who had been sent out to dispense the royal justice as requested by the Viceroy of the Indies. More ominous, however, Bobadillo also carried a document which identified him as the new Governor of the Indies, and a letter from Ferdinand and Isabella, addressed to Don Cristobal Colon, Our Admiral of the Ocean: “We have sent the Comendador Francisco de Bobadillo, the bearer of this letter, to say certain things to you in Our behalf. We desire you to place your full trust in him and pay him all respects, and to act accordingly.” The axe had fallen at last.
It is doubtful that Bobadillo had set out for Hispaniola with an open mind towards the Colon brothers’ problems, but the sights that met him at Santo Domingo must have closed it for certain. Seven Spanish corpses were strung up on gallows, and Diego Colon, who had been left in charge of the settlement, remarked casually that five more were about to join them. When Bobadillo demanded the release of these condemned men, Diego refused to comply without the Admiral’s orders and was immediately placed under arrest himself. The new Governor of the Indies then commandeered Columbus’ quarters, impounded all his possessions, and when the Admiral finally arrived at the settlement, he was put under arrest as well. Bartholomeo, meanwhile, was still somewhere in the interior of the island with a large force; when he heard of the events at Santo Domingo, he threatened to march on the settlement and free his brother, but Columbus sent him orders to obey the new governor who was obviously acting on royal instructions. When Bartholomeo entered Santo Domingo peacefully, he too was immediately arrested and chained up with his brothers.
For the next six weeks, Francisco de Bobadillo busied himself with compiling a huge file of complaints against the Colon brothers. Early in October 1550, he finally put his prisoners aboard two ships and sent them off to stand trial in Spain. The captain of the ships would gladly “have knocked off the Admiral’s irons,” but Columbus “would not permit it, saying that they had been put on him by royal authority and only the Sovereigns could order them struck off.” When the ships arrived at Cadiz, Ferdinand and Isabella were said to have expressed great shock at the news that their Admiral had been sent home in chains; but, significantly enough, it took another six weeks before the Colon brothers were finally released.
Shortly before Christmas, Columbus and his brothers were granted an audience before the Spanish Sovereigns. Christopher fell to his knees and cried and asked for another chance; Bartholomeo presumably fell on his knees as well, but he was not intimidated, not even by royalty. He openly declared that they had been poorly treated and been deprived of their rights and rewards for services rendered. The Admiral, however, “went to kiss the hands of the King and Queen and, weeping, gave his excuses as best as he could . . .” The Sovereigns again spoke to him in a friendly and reassuring manner, promising that justice would be done, although there were no promises of his restoring his rank and privileges.
Columbus, on the other hand, seems to have expected that everything would now be straightened out, and that he would soon be able to return to the Indies with all his former authority intact. But as month after month passed without any word from the royal court, as reports of new discoveries began to mount, of Spanish and Portuguese explorations to the north and south of the same continent the Admiral had discovered, all his requests and petitions to the crown were met with evasive answers. He spent weeks in compiling his agreements and letters with the Sovereigns, hoping for a complete restoration of his rights and privileges, but it all proved futile; in fact, as the coasts of the Americas were gradually opened up by explorations, his chances continued to dwindle. His original agreements with the Spanish rulers had covered only a few trading posts on isolated islands; now that an entire continent was beginning to appear in the middle of the ocean, it was hardly reasonable to assume that the Sovereigns would extend the same vast powers over all this territory to a man who had proven unable to control even a single island.
In September 1501, Columbus received the worst news yet. Instead of being returned to Hispaniola with full powers, he was now formally and permanently replaced as governor by Don Nicolas Ovando, who at the same time was made Chief Justice of the Indies. For Christopher Columbus remained the now meaningless titles of Viceroy and Admiral, though he was granted the right to appoint an agent who would recover his property at Hispaniola and look after his interests there. And five months later, a bitterly disappointed Columbus watched as Don Ovando’s magnificent fleet of thirty ships carried 2,500 soldiers, sailors and colonists to the islands of the Indies which until recently had represented his entire life’s work.
Columbus was now nearly 50 years old, by the standards of the day a relatively old man. Yet when he asked the Sovereigns for permission to fit out another voyage to the Indies, it was quickly granted. It was granted so quickly, in fact, that one can literally picture the Sovereigns sighing with relief at the prospect of being rid of this troublesome old man. The entire expedition was actually organized in little more than three weeks, with Columbus repeatedly being urged to “set off with speed . . . since the present season is very good for navigation.” The Admiral himself was no doubt aware that late April was anything but a perfect time for trans-Atlantic sailings.
But on May 9, 1502, began the fourth and last voyage of Christopher Columbus to America. Four ships – La Capitana, the Bermuda, La Gallego, and the Viscayno – carried 142 seamen, “gentlemen, shipboys, and idlers.” Two of these idlers were Francisco and Diego de Porras, whose sister was the mistress of a royal minister, and whom Columbus had been forced to accept on board this expedition. Francisco de Porras, in fact, had been appointed by the Sovereigns to safeguard all valuables obtained on this voyage. Also on board the ships were Bartholomeo Colon, Columbus’ fourteen-year old son Ferdinand, and Pedro de Torres, the only man known to have participated in all four of the Admiral’s voyages.