The Voyages of Columbus

There were a total of four voyages Columbus took, and died on the fourth voyage.

The First Voyage (1492-1493)

    The first voyage began on August 3rd, 1492 and all three ships departed from Palos, Spain (which is near Huelva).  The first stop Columbus made was at the Spanish possessions of the Canary Islands.  He was stuck there for a total of four weeks because of the winds being funky winds and he needed to do some repairs on his ships.  He then left the island of Gomera on September 6, 1492, but those funkalicious winds again held him up until September 8th.  The first sighting of the New world was by Rodrigo de Triana, somewhere in the Bahamas.  After that, they went to Cuba (long story) on October 28th.  North of Cuba on November 22nd, Alonso Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, decided to go off on his own to find an island called "Babeque," while The Santa Maria and the Nina trudged onward for the New World, which they finally arrived at Hispaniola on December 5th.  The Santa Maria grounded on a reef on Christmas Eve and later sunk.  But, Columbus was resourceful and used the remains of that ship to build a fort called La Navidad.  He had to leave 40 men behind at La Navidad because the Nina couldn't hold that many men.  And so he departed from La Navidad on January 2, 1493, leaving the 40 men behind to wait for his return on his second voyage.  As he left, he bumped into the Pinta on Jan. 6, and although angered, he was happy to have another ship to accompany him on his voyage back to Spain.  The two ships departed from Hispaniola from Samana Bay on January 16th, and were later separated from a raging storm and both of them thought that the other one died.  Columbus arrived in Lisbon on March 4 and made it back to his home port of Palos on March 15, 1493.  The Pinta stumbled its way into Palos a few hours after The Nina so Pinzon did not receive the expected recognition because everyone was busy congratulating Columbus on his arrival.  Ironically enough, Pinzon died a few days after his arrival at Palos.  Talk about a sore loser!

Brief Timeline:

The Second Voyage (1493-1496)

    The second voyage began in September 1493 and departed from Cadiz.  This voyage, unlike the first voyage, was going to be a colonization voyage, was accompanied by seventeen ships, bringing European livestock to the Americans for the first time.  The fleet left from an island in the Canary Islands called Hierro on October 13, 1493.  He kept a direction of west souththwest from Hierro, so as to run into Hispaniola.  At dawn on November 3rd, Columbus sighted Dominica and shortly after that sighting, he sighted the island of Guadeloupe.  On November 22, he finally arrives at Hispaniola.  He sailed off to his fortress Navidad on November 28th to find that the fort had been burned and that the men had been killed.  The men had argued over women and gold and most of them had gone inland and kidnapped a local tribe's women.  The men of the tribe responded with violence, arson, and killing.  With a heavy heart (cough cough), Columbus sailed eastward along the coast of Hispaniola, and on December 8th, he anchored his ships and founded a town called La Isabela, named after Queen Isabela of Spain.  He chilled there for several months, mostly that time was spent colonizing the colony and exploring the interior of the island Hispaniola.  On April 24th, 1494,  off from Isabela with three ships to find China, which he was very sure was nearby.  He ran into Cuba on April 30th (and ate the entire population), and left Cuba after learned that there was an island to the south that was rich in gold.  He left Cuba on May 3rd, and arrived on Jamaica on May 5th.  Bored with Jamaica, he returned to Cuba on May 13th.  After a lot of searching, Columbus gave up the quest on June 13th and, because he could not tell the Queen he had failed again, forced every crewmen to sign a document that stated that Cuba was so big, it had to be the mainland.  Columbus finally returned to Hispaniola on August 20th, 1494.  By the end of September, Columbus got really sick and the crew cancelled any more explorations and returned back to Isabela.  Columbus set sail for Spain on March 10th, 1496, and on June 8th, they sighted Portugal and thus ended the second voyage. 

 Brief Timeline:

The Third Voyage (1498-1500)

     Columbus leaves form Sanlucar Spain on May 30th 1498 along with six ships of his amigos.  After making brief stops at Porto Santo and Madeira, they all arrived at Gomera in the Canary Islands on June 19th.  Now there was a fork in the proverbial road where the fleet split in half; three ships went to Hispaniola with supplies and the other three set off to find any other lands that lie south of the known islands in the Indies.   On the fourth of July, Columbus departed from the Cape Verde Islands.  Because of those funkalicious winds that boogied their way back in their the ship's sails, they ended up at Trinidad on July 31st.  Columbus, being an extremely religious person, named the Island after the Holy Trinity.  After going a little bit south of Trinidad, they sighted the continent of South America, the first Europeans to do so.  Between August 4th and August 12th, Columbus explored Paria, located between South America and Trinidad.  In the morning on August 13th, they set off from Paria to Hispaniola and arrived back on Hispaniola on August 19th, 1498.  When he arrived at Santo Domingo, there was a revolt against his rule there (or lack thereof).  He finally came to a peace agreement, under the worst terms.  Because of the whole lack of gold and treasure coming from the New world, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand appointed Francisco de Bobadilla as royal commissioner, a position that held higher power than Columbus did.  Bobadilla decided to pay a visit to Columbus  and in October 1500, Columbus was brought back to Spain in shackles, thus ending his third failed attempt to find the New World.

Brief Timeline:

The Fourth Voyage (1502-1504)

    On May 11th, 1502, Columbus left from the port of Cadiz with an amazing fleet of four ships. And then 4 years and nine days later, he died.  But after he left the port at Cadiz, he arrived at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola on June 29th, 1502, and demanded that he be able to stay there to seek shelter from the storm, and acted as if it was an abomination that he even had to ask.  The storm itself ends up destroying the ships of his that were carrying treasure.  He then arrived @ Honduras and then returned back to Western Panama in early 1503.  He is then attacked by Indians (or Native Americans.  The only reason he called them Indians was because he thought he was in the East Indies) and he then decided it was time to go and that he had worn out his welcome.  Taking the hint, Columbus took his three remaining ships and headed back to Spain in mid 1503.  Again, another storm destroys two more of his ships, then beaches the other ship because it is damaged.  HE is then marooned on an island until he is rescued in 1504, and later on MAy 20th, 1506, Columbus died at Valladolid Spain. 

Brief Timeline  

Sources:

==> http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/cctl.htm
==> http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v1.htm
==> http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm
==> http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v3.htm
==> http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v4.htm