Encyclopedia
Ferdinand Magellan was a
Portuguese maritime explorer who, at the service of
Spain, led the first successful attempt to sail around the entire
Earth. He did not complete his final, westward voyage; he was killed during the
Battle of Mactan in the
Philippines. He did, however, die farther west than the
Spice Islands of
Indonesia, which he had visited from the west on earlier voyages, making him one of the first individuals to cross all the
meridians of the globe. He became the first person to lead an expedition sailing westward from Europe to Asia and to cross the Pacific Ocean.
Of the 237
or 270 crew members who set out with Magellan to circumnavigate the globe, only 18.
Death
Heading northwest, the crew reached the equator on February 13, 1521. On March 6, they reached the Marianas and on March 16, the island of Homonhon in the
Philippines, with 150 crewmen left. Magellan was able to communicate with the native peoples because his
Malay interpreter could understand their language. They traded gifts with Rajah Kolambu of
Limasawa, who guided them to Cebu, on April 7. Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly to them, and even agreed to accept Christianity.
The initial peace with the Philippine natives proved misleading. Magellan was killed in the
Battle of Mactan against indigenous forces led by
Lapu-Lapu on April 27, 1521.
Antonio Pigafetta, a wealthy tourist who paid to be on the Magellan voyage, provided the only extant eyewitness account of the events culminating in Magellan's death, as follows:
- When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly... Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off.
Circumnavigation and return
Magellan had provided in his will that his
Malay interpreter was to be freed upon his death. His interpreter, who was baptized as Enrique in Malacca in 1511, had been captured by
Sumatran slavers from his home islands. Thus Enrique became the first man to circumnavigate the globe . Enrique was
indentured by Magellan during his earlier voyages to Malacca, and was at his side during the battles in Africa, during Magellan's disgrace at the King's court in Portugal, and during Magellan's successful raising of a fleet. However, after Mactan, the remaining ship's masters refused to free Enrique. Enrique escaped his indenture on May 1, with the aid of Rajah Humabon, amid the deaths of almost 30 crewmen. However, Antonio Pigafetta had been making notes about the language, and was apparently able to continue communications during the rest of the voyage.
The casualties suffered in the Philippines left the expedition with too few men to sail the three remaining ships. Accordingly, on May 2, 1521, they abandoned
Concepción, burning the ship to make sure it could not be used against them. The fleet, now reduced to
Trinidad and
Victoria, fled westward to
Palawan. They left that island on June 21, 1521, and were guided to
Brunei,
Borneo by Moro pilots, who could navigate the shallow seas. They anchored off the Brunei breakwater for 35 days, where the Venetian Pigafetta mentions the splendor of Rajah Siripada's court . In addition, Brunei boasted tame
elephants and armament of 62 cannon, more than 5 times the armament of Magellan's ships. Brunei disdained the
cloves which were to prove more valuable than gold, upon the return to Spain. Pigafetta mentions some of the technology of the court, such as
porcelain , and
spectacles .
After reaching the Maluku Islands November 6, 1521, 115 crew were left. They managed to trade with the Sultan of Tidore, a rival of the Sultan of
Ternate, who was the ally of the Portuguese.
The two remaining ships, laden with valuable spices, attempted to return to Spain by sailing west. As they left the Moluccas, however,
Trinidad was found to be taking on water. The crew tried to discover and repair the leak, but failed. They concluded that
Trinidad would need to spend considerable time being overhauled. The small
Victoria was not large enough to accommodate all the surviving crewmembers. As a result,
Victoria with some of the crew sailed west for Spain. Several weeks later,
Trinidad left the Moluccas to attempt to return to Spain via the Pacific route. This attempt failed; the ship was captured by the Portuguese, and was eventually wrecked in a storm while at anchor under Portuguese control.
The
Victoria set sail via the
Indian Ocean route home on December 21, 1521. By May 6, 1522, the
Victoria, commanded by
Juan Sebastián Elcano, rounded the
Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations. Twenty crewmen died of starvation before Elcano put in to the Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese holding, where he abandoned 13 more crewmen on July 9 in fear of losing his cargo of 26 tons of spices .
On September 6, 1522, Juan Sebastián Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage and the last ship of the fleet,
Victoria, arrived in Spain, almost exactly three years after leaving. The expedition actually eked out a small profit, but the crew were not paid their full wages.
Maximilianus Transylvanus interviewed the surviving members of the expedition when they presented themselves to the Spanish court at
Valladolid in the fall of 1522, and wrote the first account of the voyage, which was published in 1523. The account written by Pigafetta did not appear until 1525, in and was not wholly published until the late eighteenth century.
Four crewmen of the original fifty-five on the
Trinidad finally returned to Spain in 1525. Fifty-one of them had died in war or from a disease.
Discoveries
Magellan's expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe and the first to navigate the strait in South America connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Magellan's crew observed several animals that were entirely new to European science. These included the "
camel without humps", which could have been the
llama, guanaco,
vicuña, or
alpaca. A black "
goose" which had to be skinned instead of plucked was the
penguin.
Two of the closest
galaxies, the
Magellanic Clouds, were discovered by crew members in the
Southern Hemisphere. The full extent of the
Earth was also realized, since their voyage was 14,460 leagues .
Finally, the need for an
International date line was established. Upon their return they observed a mismatch of one day between their calendars and those who did not travel, even though they faithfully maintained their ship's log. However, they did not have clocks accurate enough to observe the variation in the length of the day during the journey. This phenomenon caused great excitement at the time, to the extent that a special delegation was sent to the Pope to explain this oddity to him.
Trivia
18 men returned to Seville aboard Victoria in 1522
| Name | Rating |
|---|
| Juan Sebastian Elcano, from Getaria | Master |
| Francisco Albo, from Axio | Pilot |
| Miguel de Rodas | Pilot |
| Juan de Acurio, from Bermeo | Pilot |
| Antonio Lombardo , from Vicenza | Supernumerary |
| Martín de Judicibus, from Genoa | Chief Steward |
| Hernándo de Bustamante, from Alcántara | Mariner |
| Nicholas the Greek, from Naples | Mariner |
| Miguel Sánchez, from Rhodes | Mariner |
| Antonio Hernández Colmenero, from Huelva | Mariner |
| Francisco Rodrigues, Portuguese from Seville | Mariner |
| Juan Rodríguez, from Huelva | Mariner |
| Diego Carmena | Mariner |
| Hans of Aachen | Gunner |
| Juan de Arratia, from Bilbao | Able Seaman |
| Vasco Gómez Gallego, from Bayona | Able Seaman |
| Juan de Santandrés, from Cueto | Apprentice Seaman |
| Juan de Zubileta, from Barakaldo | Page |
*Ferdinand Magellan was the first
European to reach
Tierra del Fuego on
South America's southern tip.
- He was also the first European to land in the Philippines and meet its native people.
- He had professional scientists on the trip to help determine the species of some of the animals he found on his voyage.
- About 232 Spanish, Portuguese, French, English and Greek sailors died on the expedition around the world with Magellan.
- The King and Queen of Spain supported him on his voyage.
References
Footnotes
General
- Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, HarperCollins Publishers, 2003, hardcover 480 pages, ISBN 0-06-621173-5
Further reading
- W.D.Brownlee, The First Ships around the World, Lerner Publications Co., Minneapolis ISBN 0-8225-1204-1
- Richard Humble, The Voyage of Magellan, Franklin Watts, ISBN 0-531-10638-1
- Laurence Bergreen, "Over the Edge of the World", Perennial HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., New York ISBN 0-06-621173-5
See also
External links
- , from Cebu Living.
- from History House.
- Lists of crew members:
