Ojeda, Alonso de

Ojeda, Alonso de (c. 1466-c. 1515), Spanish navigator, explorer, and conquistador. Born in Cuenca, he entered the service of the Duke of Medinaceli and became a protegé of Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca. It was with the latter’s intervention that Ojeda was granted permission to travel with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493.

On Guadeloupe, Columbus assigned Ojeda to lead the search for Diego Márquez, who, along with others, had advanced deep into the island and failed to return to the fleet. Then, on Hispaniola, Columbus entrusted Ojeda with defeating Caonabo, the Arawak chieftain who ruled the island’s central Cibao valley and was one of the most stalwart opponents to the Spanish. Ojeda entered Caonabo’s territory, gained his confidence, and tricked him into giving himself up. Ojeda also fought in the battle of the Vega Real, against a large Arawak army (later estimated at an exaggerated 100,000 men by the friar historian Bartolomé de las Casas).

On returning to Spain, Ojeda was instrumental in bringing about the change in policy by which Ferdinand and Isabella made a series of contracts (known as capitulaciones) with explorers other than Columbus, who had previously held a monopoly on such voyages. Ojeda was the pioneer of what were subsequently known as the Minor, or Andalucian, Voyages. On May 18, 1499, he set sail from the port of Santa María, together with Juan de la Cosa and Amerigo Vespucci, on a journey that followed the route of Columbus’s third voyage: via Trinidad, Margarita Island, and Curaçao, finally reaching the Coquibacoa (now Guajira) Peninsula on the Gulf of Venezuela. There is evidence that they may have encountered members of the final expedition of John Cabot at this point; if so, it seems likely that the English sailors were killed in the confrontation, and the charts of their North American discoveries taken. Ojeda’s expedition returned to Cádiz a year later.

In an agreement signed on June 8, 1501, Ferdinand and Isabella granted Ojeda permission to return to the same area. Now titled Governor of Coquibacoa, Ojeda, together with Juan de Vergara, and García de Campos, set off in a fleet of four ships, sailing past the Cape Verde Islands, Margarita Island, the Venezuelan coast, and finally reaching the Paraguana Peninsula; they did not therefore make any progress further westward than on their previous expedition. The cruelty of Ojeda’s treatment of the native peoples and Portuguese whom he encountered during the voyage led to his imprisonment until 1504, when he was released with the help of Bishop Fonseca.

In 1508, Ojeda was named Governor of Urabá, and the following year he led another expedition of conquest, landing with a force of some 300 men near the site of present-day Cartagena. Juan de la Cosa died during an attack against the Native Americans, and Ojeda was badly injured. Defeated and disheartened, Ojeda returned to Santo Domingo, where he died around 1515.