Juan de la Cosa was the owner and captain of Columbus’ flagship the Santa Maria, but the relationship between the Italian explorer and his Spanish captain must have been of the complicated kind. As we wrote in part I of the story of de la Cosa, Columbus did not hold back when it came to making accusations that the experienced navigator himself had caused the sinking of his own ship, which was humiliating to de la Cosa. Columbus was not known for his “excessive use of silk gloves”. But de la Cosa also had his victories: He took part in far more expeditions to America than Columbus‘ three voyages . He accompanied some of the most important explorers of his time, brought European settlers to the “new” continent – and prepared one of the most famous maps in world history – which also contains an ever-so-small sweet revenge on Columbus.
License to discover
In the years following his first voyage to the American continent in 1492, Juan de la Cosa continued his explorations of the lands on the other side of the Atlantic. He sailed west with Columbus on all three of his westward voyages: in 1492, 1493 and 1498.
But, in 1499, de la Cosa set out on his fourth voyage to America with a different crew. This time as the navigator of an expedition led by Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci, two towering figures in the Spanish colonization of the American continent. Alonso de Ojeda was the man who gave Venezuela its name, he founded Santa Cruz and explored the northeastern coast of South America. Amerigo Vespucci named the continent in its entirety. On this voyage, the three were among the first Europeans to set foot on the South American mainland. They explored the coast from Río Esequibo in present-day Guyana on the east coast of South America and northwards to Trinidad.
There was an intense, many would say crazy, race that took place between elite European powers at this time – for land and natural resources elsewhere in the world. Great wealth beckoned. But you couldn’t just go looking for new lands; a royal license was needed. For example, Columbus had a monopoly on voyages of discovery to “India” for several years issued by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Licensees were often favored with a generous share of the proceeds, be it gold, other natural resources or even people. There was little objection among European rulers to giving away or taking something that had never belonged to them.
Juan de la Cosa was not promised a lucrative part of the “booty” on his first journeys across the ocean, but he must have had plans on how to increase his reputation and prosperity in the longer term. On his travels, he used his knowledge of navigation and cartography to obtain detailed information of both landscape and population. Following his return home in 1499, he sat down and drew what was to become Europe’s first world map with the “new” lands included. The map was simply called “Mappa Mundi”, or “world map.” In retrospect it is often called Juan de la Cosa’s map. You can see it on display at the Naval Museum in Madrid to this day.
The map is painted on parchment and measures 93 cm in height and is 183 cm long, i.e. quite a large format. A lot of work has gone into the colorful map, which is the first map by a European to show at least parts of the American continent. And good maps were highly valued at the time.
Maps and state secrets
As mentioned, there was an intense race between European states to find and conquer territory elsewhere in the world. Maps were important in many ways in such a context, and not just for navigational purposes. Precise maps were worth their weight in gold (or more) in the struggle to acquire and control resources in faraway locations.
In both Spain and Portugal, two early contenders in the colonization race, maps were treated as state secrets. The authorities of several other countries and kingdoms sent their spies to get a glimpse into the map collections of their competitors, a common practice throughout history it seems. Juan de la Cosa’s map was handed over to the royal couple Ferdinand and Isabella and formed, for a long time, the basis of the Spanish’s colonization of South America.
You may recall from part I of our coverage of Juan de la Cosa (Juan de la Cosa: spy, captain, adventurer and the man behind Europe’s first world map (part I)) that Columbus forced de la Cosa and his entire crew to swear that Cuba was not an island as de la Cosa meant, but a peninsula. However, on the “Mappa Mundi” de la Cosa drew Cuba as an island – completely contrary to Columbus’ opinion that Cuba was an Asian peninsula.
New America Travels, Imprisonment and Poison Arrows
In the years that followed, Juan de la Cosa went on several more expeditions to America on behalf of the Spanish rulers. Among other things, he joined Rodrigo de Bastidas in exploring and mapping large parts of the South American north coast and “discovered” the land area that is today Panama.
Incidentally, Rodrigo de Bastidas had traveled with Columbus and de la Cosa on their second trip across the Atlantic and had suggested to Ferdinand and Isabella that he could explore further areas. He made the offer even more enticing by saying he was willing to finance the trip himself in return for payment in the form of resources and values he thought he would find over there. The rulers of Spain allowed his journey and demanded a “modest” 25 percent of what he managed to acquire. These were arrangements suitable to feed the greed of men.
Also on the journey with Rodrigo de Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa was Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who was to become the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from the American continent. On their journey, they explored vast areas that today make up Panama and Colombia and at the same time found out that Spain’s fiercest competitor in South America, Portugal, had also found their way to the new continent. And, they had landed in areas Spain considered their own.
Juan de la Cosa was part of a delegation sent to Lisbon to protest. The mission ended with imprisonment. Supposedly, Queen Isabella herself had to personally intervene to get him released.
De la Cosa’s last journey to America began in 1509. With three ships and 200 settlers who wanted to start a new life in the recently discovered lands, de la Cosa sailed to Haiti where Alonso de Ojeda joined his group. The latter had a ship with another 100 colonists who wanted to settle in what is today Colombia.
When they arrived, they teamed up with Francisco Pizarro. The trip went to Urabá, an area that Ojeda had appropriated, but they were attacked by natives. And the natives had good reason to confront the Spaniards and other Europeans with hostility. Pizarro was known for his extreme brutality in South America. But, he was not the only one. Columbus was also quite violent in his interactions with the indigenous population. So much so that even Ferdinand and Isabella, who themselves were known for their less than gentle nature, had enough and imprisoned the explorer between his second and third voyages to the New World. But, we digress.
After a short skirmish, the Spanish group of settlers led by Pizarro, Columbus and de la Cosa, won the battle against the local tribe. Spurred on by their victory, the Europeans pursued the natives and pushed further inland where they found the tribe’s village. There they were attacked once more and this time the Spaniards where the ones who had to retreat. Juan de la Cosa was struck by an arrow laced with poison and died. Alonso de Ojeda was among those who escaped the battle and lived to tell about it.
The news reached Spain where the authorities awarded Juan’s widow and children a generous compensation for his services to the country over a number of years. The compensation says a lot about the attitude towards other countries and populations in contemporary Europe, and consisted of a large sum of money, 45,000 maravedí (the word maravedí comes from marabet or marabotin, a variety of the gold dinar struck in Iberia), and all the natives that Juan de la Cosa “owned” in the new areas.
Juan de la Cosa was an experienced navigator, intrepid explorer, adventurer, spy, mapmaker and opportunist. He is one of the many people we may not know much about in retrospect, but he played a central role when Spain became a major European and world power – for better or for worse.
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