The next sequel will depict Columbus’s demise over the years 1498 through 1502, including his struggle to settle the rebellion against his rule of “Española” led by Francisco Roldán and Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand’s decision to remove him as the island’s governor. My recent trips to the Dominican Republic and Spain took me to sites Columbus passed during this downfall.
As related in Columbus and Caonabó, Roldan’s rebellion began after Columbus returned to Spain in 1496, and when Columbus’s brother Bartolomé thwarted it, Roldán and his rebels sought haven with Chief Behecchio and Anacaona in Xaraguá.
Back in Española in 1498, Columbus negotiated the rebellion’s end for a year, and when Roldán refused to meet him in Santo Domingo, in August 1499 Columbus sailed west to the modern Ocoa Bay, Dominican Republic (south of Azua), close to but outside Xaraguá’s then eastern boundary (i.e., in neutral territory). The first photo is of the bay, where the two men met aboard ship and, by September, agreed a resolution of the rebellion favorable to Roldán.
Isabella and Ferdinand’s courtier Francisco de Bobadilla arrived in Santo Domingo in August 1500 and arrested and jailed Columbus. Santo Domingo then was located on the east side of the Ozama River, and the town’s first church was at the site of the still existing Capilla de Nuestra Señora del Rosario (constructed between 1540–1544). Some archaeologists believe the ruins on the bluff upstream from the church include the dungeon in which Columbus was held before transfer to the ships returning him to Spain. If so, Chief Guarionex likely also would have been held there briefly in 1502.
The second photo is looking east across the Ozama to the Capilla, the third is looking downstream the Ozama to the bluff and the Capilla, and the fourth is of the ruins on the bluff. There was a rustling sound while I was inspecting the ruins, and I had an eerie sense I was being watched; after a few minutes, I looked over my shoulder and discovered by whom—the fifth photo (no, not the dungeon’s ghosts).
The engraving is a sixteenth century portrayal of Bobadilla’s arrest of Columbus (Theodor de Bry, 1594, courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library).
The final photo is of the location of Isabella’s throne in her palace in the Alhambra fortress in Granada, Spain, where she exercised her authority. It’s likely at this spot that she and Fernando informed Columbus—in December 1500—of their decision that he would no longer serve as Española’s governor.
