Alonso de Ojeda - Second Voyage To Venezuela

Second Voyage To Venezuela

Ojeda decided to make another journey and he received a new commission from the Catholic Monarchs on 8 June 1501. He was appointed Governor of Coquibacoa behind the back of Christopher Columbus. This appointment gave him the right to found a colony in this area, although he was advised not to visit Paria. On this occasion he formed a partnership with the Andalusian merchants Juan de Vergara and García de Campos, who were able to charter four caravels: the Santa María de la Antigua, the Santa María de la Grenada, the Magdalena, and the Santa Ana.

Ojeda set sail from Spain in January 1502 and he followed the same route as his first voyage. On this occasion he kept his distance from the Gulf of Paria and made landfall on Margarita Island He sailed along the coast of Venezuela from Curiana to the Paraguaná Peninsula. On 3 May 1502 he founded a colony on the Guajira Peninsula, at Bahia Honda. The colony was called Santa Cruz and it was the first Spanish settlement on Colombian territory and therefore the first on the American mainland.

However, the colony did not last for more than three months, as the new arrivals started attacking the indigenous villages in the area, causing constant conflict with them. In addition to this there were personal difficulties between Ojeda and his men. At this point Vergara and Campos took Ojeda prisoner and abandoned the settlement with the small amount of plunder that had been captured. Ojeda was put in prison in Hispaniola in May 1502, where he was held until 1504. He was released following an appeal made by Archbishop Rodríguez de Fonseca, although he had to pay a costly indemnity, which left him with little money.

The second voyage was therefore a failure as he had not discovered any new areas and he had not received much of a share of the plunder obtained by Vergara and Camps. In addition the Santa Cruz colony was abandoned and the Governorship of Coquibacoa was abolished.