Biography of Rodrigo de Bastidas | Sailor and conquistador.

(Seville, to 1465 - Santiago de Cuba, 1527) Sailor and Spanish conquistador. In 1500, associated with Juan de la Cosa, organized an expedition to the new world. He discovered the mouth of the Magdalena river and founded the port of Darien (Cartagena de Indias). In 1524, counting with the permission of the Emperor, he moved from Santo Domingo to Tierra Firme, where he founded the city of Santa Marta, where he was Governor. After the revolt of the settlers decided to return to Santo Domingo, but during his return trip, a tempest dragged him to the island of Cuba, where they perished.

Rodrigo de Bastidas was born in Seville to 1465, as stated in the lawsuit of 1509 Tapia have 32 or 33 years. Acting clerk in Triana, awoke his interest in Indian discoveries. June 4, 1500 capitulated with the Crown a trip of discovery and rescue. He is associated with about twenty people to meet the 377.547 maravedís that cost him the expedition. It chartered two ships and departed from Cádiz in late September 1501.

Accompanied by the cartographer Juan de la Cosa, Bastidas followed the route of the Columbian third voyage and arrived at the Venezuelan coast; He toured in the area already discovered by Alonso de Ojeda, Juan de la Cosa and Vespucci in 1499-1500, and then the peninsula of la Guajira to the Cabo de la Vela. From this point he continued westward and became the discoverer of the Colombian Atlantic coast with it. It passed by the Bay of Santa Marta, which saw for the first time, then by the mouths of the Magdalena river, the Bay of Cartagena, the mouth of the Sinú and the Gulf of Urabá. He continued along the Panamanian coast of Darién to a port which was called the toilet, not very far from where they founded Nombre de Dios.

At this point warned that the ships were about to wrecked because of the joke (a lamelibranquio mollusc drilling the timbers of oak of keels), which ordered put bow to the island of Hispaniola. It made landfall in Jamaica, where the ships were reviewed and continued toward his goal. A storm threw boats to the coast of the Spanish, near the Cape of the canonry. There was a month repairing ships and left again towards Santo Domingo, but winds dragged him to Xaragua, where wrecked. Its people divided into three groups that undertook the trip to Santo Domingo, where finally arrived with the remains of their boots walk.

Rodrigo de Bastidas returned to Spain in the fleet from Bobadilla. It sailed from Santo Domingo in 1502 and was lucky to escape from the storm that wiped out the fleet. He arrived in Cádiz in September of the same year. As a reward to his discoveries, he obtained Crown a rent on the fruits of Urabá and Cenu (Sinú).

In the history of the American colonization contained another dubious trip of bastides in 1507 to the Colombian territory with Juan de la Cosa. Much more is known about the expedition that began in 1524. On November 6 of that year, Bastidas capitulated the construction of a town and fortress in the Mainland. He was awarded a strip of eighty leagues of coast (from the Cabo de la Vela to the mouths of the Magdalena) that was to take fifty neighbors, some of them married.

The following year it chartered three ships that arrived in the Bay of Santa Marta, which had previously discovered. Immediately began the construction of the fortress which would be the basis of the city of Santa Marta, the first which was based in Colombia (previously will have thwarted two attempts of colonization in la Guajira, with Santa Cruz, and in Urabá, with San Sebastian).

Bastidas undertook the conquest of the territory of the Indians of Bonda and Bondigua, where it collected good gold booties, but had many difficulties with his men, who hated manual labor that imposed on them and the deprivations suffered. As a result of a conspiracy led by his lieutenant general, Pedro de Villafuerte, several men entered at night at home and tried to stab him; they did not kill him, but he was severely injured.

Bastidas decided to reset to Santo Domingo and left the colony in the hands of Rodrigo Álvarez Palomino. Not it reached its destination, however, as the ship that was went to Santiago de Cuba because of the winds. There he died in 1527. In Santa Marta, which continued to prosper, Alvarez Palomino lit tried to murder Bastidas and sent them to Santo Domingo, where they were executed.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas