What a fittingly pathetic end to Columbus’s cycle of voyages. Disgraced by Fonseca and his other rivals (who really shouldn’t be that envious), he can’t even land on his home away from home of Hispaniola anymore. Rather, he tries to get to the “mainland” but is consistently plagued with bad weather, rotten ships, starvation, exhaustion, gout(?), violent natives… the list goes on and on. Columbus tries to twist this into a kind of courageous survival/salvation story (with God’s voice even making a cameo appearance!). But one can only lie and manipulate the facts so much. The logical reader will of course see through Columbus’s clever(?) turns of phrase to see that his fourth voyage is not another heroic attempt at expanding Spanish sovereignty and Christian dominance, but rather just another failure embellished by propaganda and religious optimism.
Columbus could lie as much as he wanted about what he did while he was in the Indies. He was so isolated from the interconnected western world that it was extremely difficult for anybody back in Europe to tell truth from fiction. However, once he got to back to Spain lacking the materials he promised, his fate was sealed. He wanted to be the greatest mapmaker and explorer the world had ever seen. The person he wanted to be forever remembered as was a complete lie, an illusion. Did that work out for him? Not so much… I think the fact that Columbus Day has gone from a widely-celebrated patriotic celebration to a very controversial social issue is a perfect example of our disillusionment about Columbus’s lies, his alternative facts. He was quite the con man.
We get a lot of insight from Columbus himself in his last voyage because much of the narration is from a letter written by himself. He comes across as very desperate throughout the letter and tries to dramatize a lot of the events as a way to justify his failure. It also seems to be an attempt to remind his reader how dangerous and trying what he did was in a way to make himself appear heroic. Columbus’ last voyage did seem to be fitting, but I also couldn’t help but feel kind of bad for him in the end.
I definitely get where you’re coming from in this. Columbus was a very sad man that accomplished nothing on a very sad journey. However, I don’t agree with the above comment on feeling bad for Columbus because his journey did open up many consequences that were and still are felt even today. By this I mean how Columbus helped set the stage for the “noble savage” and later slave view of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean. Sure, mistreatment of native peoples also has roots in England with their treatment of Irish peoples, as well as other European countries who “discovered” new people, but Columbus helped pave the way for settlement in the Caribbean and exploitation of the population there, both in his lifetime and certainly afterwards. Imperialism is a tricky topic, and while one may feel for Columbus as a person, one must not forget about the legacy he helped create.