Ojeda is not a particularly famous among his peers because he didn't conquer any empire nor went in any crazy quest, but he is considered by many to be the original prototype of the conquistador, as well as a real life Dashing Hispanic. Back in his own time, he was already considered somewhat like The Ace, being incredibly skilled with the weapons, magnificently charming, a devout Catholic, a ladies man who settled down with a indigenous woman for the obligatory mestizaje, and a diplomat generous to his allies but ruthless with his enemies. Even Bartolomé de las Casas, who hated conquistadors and wrote plenty of propaganda against them, was forced to admit Ojeda was an outstanding fellow. Ojeda was also known excellent duelist, reputedly so good and merciful that he won hundreds of duels, all while aiming to wound and not to kill and without ever being hurt in turn.
He was born in an Impoverished Patrician family from Cuenca. He was a relative of another Alonso de Ojeda, a churchman who founded The Spanish Inquisition along with Tomás de Torquemada, but our Alonso prefered the way of the sword rather than the ways of God, becoming a page for the The Catholic Monarchs. He distinguished himself in the conquest of the last Muslim stronghold of Granada, and when Columbus came from his first travel to enlist people for the second, Ojeda was assigned to him. He had his first battles in Hispaniola against hostile Caribe tribes led by the chieftain Caonabo, whom Ojeda cunningly captured by pretending to surrender to him, putting gold cuffs on him as a supposed gift, and parading him on his horse before then riding away. Other tribes rallied against them, but Ojeda and his native ally Guacanagarix obtained a spectacular victory against them in Jáquimo, where Ojeda's cavalry skills gained him the nickname given above. The alliance with friendly natives was not casual, as Ojeda was keen on always making local friends, which he deemed necessary to find out what he called secretos de la tierra.
Ojeda returned to Spain, where the Catholic Monarchs gave him the mission to return and check out whether Columbus was lying or not about the New World's potential, as by this point it was all too clear the Genoese was a veritable prick. His subsequent expedition, in which he traveled with Juan de la Cosa (a famed cartographer, author of the first European world map) and Amerigo Vespucci, explored many islands and peninsulas all around Venezuela and Brazil before visiting Columbus, who was angry at other expeditions stealing the spotlight. Ojeda returned with few riches, but many prisoners, which he could sell as slaves because at the time a Loophole Abuse allowed to enslave indigenous of areas not conquered yet. However, in a point more palatable to the modern reader, he also returned married to another native, this being Guaricha or Palaaira Jinnuu, baptized Isabel, the daughter of Venezuelan chieftain Guaraba. This was a Perfectly Arranged Marriage, as they fell madly in love and never separated again; Ojeda presented her in the Spanish court with all grandeur, while Isabel served as his translator and advisor in the style of La Malinche, and together they had three mestizo children.
Ojeda and Isabel returned in yet another expedition to Venezuela, where they founded the first Spanish city in mainland, Santa Cruz. Luck abandoned them, though, as new arrivals frustrated with the lack of Gold Cities started disobeying Ojeda, attacking the natives and causing trouble, and two of his sponsors blamed Ojeda and had him arrested. He spent two years in prison and was short of money when he got out, so even when he was given permission to conquer some new land, he had to make it with a small fleet, leaving Isabel at home until pacifying things, while a rival of his, Diego de Nicuesa, went on a much bigger one. Following this, new laws forced Ojeda to present the local indigenous with a requerimiento, a pompous declaration that they could either surrender to Spain or being conquered, which understandably caused the natives to get angry and attack him. The battle saw all of Ojeda's men but one killed in action, among them Juan de la Cosa, to the point that Nicuesa actually took pity on him and came to rescue him.
The next city founded by Ojeda, San Sebastián de Urabá, didn't thrive either, and a promised relief expedition never seemed to arrive, and as if this was not enough, in their way home he and Isabel ended up captured by a pirate, possibly the first Pirate of the Caribbean in history, and had to endure a hurricane, a shipwreck, and a grueling travel on foot until he could be rescued. He finally contacted the guy who was supposed to relief San Sebastián and sent him along with Vasco Núñez de Balboa.
This phase of his life seemed to kill Ojeda's love for adventures. He basically gave up, renounced to his license to conquer, and stayed in Santo Domingo with Isabel and their children, whom he sent to be raised in Spain with the little money he had left. The Jáquimo Centaur died some years later, sick and probably dragging what we would identify today as a clinical depression, only months after he had been witnessed on the street cutting down a whole gang of thugs that tried to mug him. Isabel was so crushed by his death that she took her own life over his grave, located by his own request on a part of a monastery where all visitors could step on it as penitence for his sins.
In fiction
Live-Action TV- He's portrayed by Raúl Tejón in Isabel.
- Roberto Bonaccini plays him in Conquistadores: Adventum.
- He's played by Hovik Keuchkerian in the 1491-1492 sequences of Assassin's Creed, where he appears as Tomás de Torquemada's brutish henchman.
