Monument of Ferdinand Magellan in
Punta Arenas in
Chile. The statue looks towards the Strait of Magellan.
Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, Portuguese pronunciation: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃ũ dɨ mɐɡɐˈʎɐ̃ĩʃ]; Spanish: Hernándo de Magallanes; 1480 – April 27, 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He was born around 1480 at Sabrosa, near Vila Real, in the province of Tras-os-Montes in Portugal. He obtained Spanish nationality in order to serve the Spanish Crown, so that he could try to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. He thereby became the first European to lead an expedition across the Pacific Ocean. This was also the first successful attempt to circumnavigate the Earth. Although he did not complete the entire voyage (he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines), Magellan had earlier traveled eastwards to the Spice Islands. So he became one of the first explorers to cross all of the meridians of the globe.
Magellan and his crew were the first Europeans to enter the Pacific from the eponymous Strait of Magellan, which he discovered. However it is clear they were not the first Europeans in the Philippines, parts of which were known to the Portuguese before their landing. Arab traders had established commerce within the archipelago centuries earlier. A number of geographic features and biological species have been named for Magellan, including the eponymous Magellanic Penguin, which Magellan was the first European to note.[1]
Of the 237 men who set out on five ships to circumnavigate the earth in 1519, only 18 completed the circumnavigation of the globe and managed to return to Spain in 1522.[2][3] They were led by the Basque navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, who took over command of the expedition after Magellan's death. Seventeen other men arrived later in Spain: twelve men captured by the Portuguese in Cape Verde some weeks earlier and between 1525 and 1527, and five survivors of the Trinidad.
Early life and first voyage
Magellan, because of his family's heritage, became a page to Queen Leonor at the royal court after the death of his parents during his tenth year. He was the son of Rui de Magalhães (son of Pedro Afonso de Magalhães and wife Quinta de Sousa) and wife Alda de Mesquita and brother of Duarte de Sousa, Diogo de Sousa and Isabel de Magalhães. He was married to Beatriz Barbosa and had two children: Rodrigo de Magalhães[4] and Carlos de Magalhães, both of whom died at a young age.
Magellan made his first known expedition at sea at the age of 25 in 1505, when he was sent to India to install Francisco de Almeida as the Portuguese viceroy. The voyage gave Magellan his first experience of battle when a local king, who had paid tribute to Vasco da Gama three years earlier, refused to pay tribute to Almeida, which resulted in the Battle of Diu in 1509. After taking leave without permission, Magellan fell out of favour with Almeida and was also accused of trading illegally with the Moors. Several of the accusations were subsequently proved and there were no further offers of employment after May 15, 1514. Later on in 1515, Magellan had an employment offer as a crew member on a Portuguese ship, but rejected this offer.
Spanish search of the Spice islands
The aim of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the West was to reach the coasts of the Spice Islands (or the Indies) and to establish commercial relations between Spain and the several Asian kingdoms. The Spanish soon realised after Columbus' voyages that the lands of the Americas were not a part of Asia, but a new continent. Once Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese arrived in India in 1498, it became urgent for Spain to find a new commercial route to Asia. The Treaty of Tordesillas reserved for Portugal the routes that went around Africa. The Spanish Crown then decided to send out exploration voyages in order to find a way to Asia by travelling westwards. Vasco Núñez de Balboa sailed the Pacific Ocean in 1513 and Juan Díaz de Solís died in Río de la Plata some years later trying to find a passage in South America.
When Magellan arrived at the Court of Spain, he presented King Charles V with a plan that would give the ships of the Crown of Castile full access to the lands of the Spice Islands, after that plan failed to gain approval from the Portuguese king, Manuel I.
Journey
On August 10, 1519, five ships under Magellan's command – Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria and Santiago – left Seville and travelled from the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda at the mouth of the river, where they remained more than five weeks.
Spanish authorities were wary of Magellan, who was originally Portuguese. They almost prevented the admiral from sailing, and switched his crew from mostly Portuguese men to mostly men of Spain. Nevertheless, Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on September 20. King Manuel I ordered a Portuguese naval detachment to pursue Magellan, but Magellan avoided them. After stopping at the Canary Islands, Magellan arrived at Cape Verde, where he set course for Cape St. Augustine in Brazil. On November 27 the expedition crossed the equator; on December 6 the crew sighted South America.
Magellan's ship
Victoria.
As Brazil was Portuguese territory, Magellan avoided it and on December 13 anchored near present-day Rio de Janeiro. There the crew was resupplied, but bad conditions caused them to delay. Afterwards, they continued to sail south along South America's east coast, looking for the strait that Magellan believed would lead to the Spice Islands. The fleet reached Río de la Plata on January 10, 1520.
On 30 March the crew established a settlement they called Puerto San Julian. On April 2 a mutiny involving two of the five ship captains broke out, but it was unsuccessful because most of the crew remained loyal. Juan Sebastián Elcano was one of those who were forgiven. Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian from Vicenza who paid to be on the Magellan voyage, related that Gaspar Quesada, the captain of Concepcion, was executed; Juan de Cartagena, the captain of San Antonio, and a priest named Padre Sanchez de la Reina were instead marooned on the coast. Another account states that Luis de Mendoza, the captain of Victoria, was executed along with Quesada.[5] Reportedly those killed were drawn and quartered and impaled on the coast; years later, their bones were found by Sir Francis Drake.[6][7]
The journey resumed. The Santiago was sent down the coast on a scouting expedition and was wrecked in a sudden storm. All of its crew survived and made it safely to shore. Two of them returned overland to inform Magellan of what had happened, and to bring rescue to their comrades. After this experience, Magellan decided to wait for a few weeks more before again resuming the voyage.
At 52°S latitude on October 21 the fleet reached Cape Virgenes and concluded they had found the passage, because the waters were brine and deep inland. Four ships began an arduous trip through the 373-mile (600 km) long passage that Magellan called the Estrecho (Canal) de Todos los Santos, ("All Saints' Channel"), because the fleet travelled through it on November 1 or All Saints' Day. The strait is now named the Strait of Magellan. Magellan first assigned Concepcion and San Antonio to explore the strait, but the latter, commanded by Gómez, deserted and returned to Spain on November 20. On November 28 the three remaining ships entered the South Pacific. Magellan named the waters the Mar Pacifico (Pacific Ocean) because of its apparent stillness.[5] Magellan was the first European to reach Tierra del Fuego just east of the Pacific side of the strait.
Death
Heading northwest, the crew reached the equator on February 13, 1521. On 6 March they reached the Marianas and Guam. Magellan called Guam the "Island of Sails" because they saw a lot of sailboats. They renamed it to "Ladrones Island" (Island of Thieves) because many of Trinidad's small boats were stolen there. On 16 March Magellan reached the island of Homonhon in the Philippines, with 150 crew left. Members of his expedition became the first Spaniards to reach the Philippine archipelago, but they were not the first Europeans.[8]
Magellan was able to communicate with the native tribes because his Malay interpreter, Enrique, could understand their languages. Enrique was indentured by Magellan in 1511 right after the colonization of 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. They traded gifts with Rajah Siaiu of Mazaua[9] who guided them to Cebu on April 7.
Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly towards Magellan and the Spaniards, both he and his queen Hara Amihan were baptized as Christians. Afterward, Rajah Humabon and his ally Datu Zula convinced Magellan to kill their enemy, Datu Lapu-Lapu, on Mactan. Magellan had wished to convert Datu Lapu-Lapu to Christianity, as he had Rajah Humabon, a proposal to which Datu Lapu-Lapu was dismissive. On the morning of April 27 1521, Magellan sailed to Mactan with an army of men. During the resulting Battle of Mactan against native forces led by Datu Lapu-Lapu, Magellan was shot by a poisonous arrow and later surrounded and finished off with spears and other weapons.
Pigafetta and Ginés de Mafra provided written documents of the events culminating in Magellan's death:
"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 people. 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... A native hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the native'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."[10]
Magellan provided in his will that Enrique, his interpreter, was to be freed upon his death. However, after the Battle of Mactan, the remaining ships' 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. Pigafetta had been jotting down words in the Visayan language, both Butuanon and Cebuano—which he started at Mazaua on Friday, 29 March and grew to a total of 145 words—and was apparently able to continue communications during the rest of the voyage. The Spaniards offered the natives merchandise in exchange for Magellan's body, but they were declined and so his body was never recovered.[11]
Circumnavigation and return
The casualties suffered in the Philippines left the expedition with too few men to sail all three of the remaining ships. Consequently, on May 2 they abandoned Concepción and burned the ship. The fleet, reduced to Trinidad and Victoria, fled westward to Palawan. They left that island on June 21 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 Pigafetta, an Italian from Vicenza, recorded the splendour of Rajah Siripada's court (gold, two pearls the size of hens' eggs, etc.). In addition, Brunei boasted tame elephants and armament of 62 cannons, more than 5 times the armament of Magellan's ships, and Brunei disdained 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 eyeglasses (both of which were not available or only just becoming available in Europe).
After reaching the Maluku Islands (the Spice Islands) on November 6, 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 westwards. However, as they left the Spice Islands, the Trinidad began to take 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, but the small Victoria was not large enough to accommodate all the surviving crew. As a result, Victoria with some of the crew sailed west for Spain. Several weeks later, Trinidad departed and attempted to return to Spain via the Pacific route. This attempt failed. Trinidad was captured by the Portuguese, and was eventually wrecked in a storm while at anchor under Portuguese control.
One of Magellan's ships circumnavigated the globe, finishing 16 months after the explorer's death.
Victoria set sail via the Indian Ocean route home on December 21, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano. By May 6 the Victoria rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations. Twenty crewmen died of starvation before Elcano put into Cape Verde, a Portuguese holding, where he abandoned 13 more crew on July 9 in fear of losing his cargo of 26 tons of spices (cloves and cinnamon).
On September 6 1522, Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage arrived in Spain aboard the last ship in the fleet, Victoria, almost exactly three years after they departed. Magellan had not intended to circumnavigate the world, only to find a secure way through which the Spanish ships could navigate to the Spice Islands; it was Elcano who, after Magellan's death, decided to push westward, thereby completing the first voyage around the entire Earth.
Maximilianus Transylvanus interviewed some of the surviving members of the expedition when they presented themselves to the Spanish court at Valladolid in the autumn 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 and was not wholly published until 1800. This was the Italian transcription by Carlo Amoretti of what we now call the Ambrosiana codex. The expedition eked out a small profit, but the crew was not paid full wages.[12]
Four crewmen of the original 55 on Trinidad finally returned to Spain in 1525, 51 of them had died in war or from disease. In total, approximately 232 Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English and German sailors died on the expedition around the world with Magellan.[13]
Legacy
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, including a "camel without humps", which was probably a guanaco, whose range extends to Tierra del Fuego, unlike the llama, vicuña or alpaca, whose ranges are confined to the Andes mountains. A black "goose" that had to be skinned instead of plucked was a penguin.
The full extent of the Earth was realized, since their voyage was 14,460 Spanish leagues (60,440 km or 37,560 mi).
The need for an International Date Line was established. Upon returning they found their date was a day behind, even though they had faithfully maintained the ship's log. They lost one day because they traveled west during their circumnavigation of the globe, opposite to Earth's daily rotation.[14] This caused great excitement at the time and a special delegation was sent to the Pope to explain the oddity to him.
The course that Magellan charted was followed by other navigators: Garcia Jofre de Loaisa, Andres de Urdaneta, Sir Francis Drake and the Manila Galleon.
Two of the closest galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds in the southern celestial hemisphere, were named for Magellan sometime after 1800. The Magellan probe, which mapped the planet Venus from 1990 to 1994, was named after Magellan.
18 men returned to Seville aboard Victoria in 1522:
| Name |
Rating |
| Juan Sebastián Elcano, from Getaria |
Master |
| Francisco Albo, from Rodas (in Tui, Galicia) |
Pilot |
| Miguel de Rodas (in Tui, Galicia) |
Pilot |
| Juan de Acurio, from Bermeo |
Pilot |
| Antonio Lombardo (Pigafetta), from Vicenza |
Supernumerary |
| Martín de Judicibus, from Genoa |
Chief Steward |
| Hernándo de Bustamante, from Alcántara |
Mariner |
| Nicholas the Greek, from Nafplion |
Mariner |
| Miguel Sánchez, from Rodas (in Tui, Galicia) |
Mariner |
| Antonio Hernández Colmenero, from Huelva |
Mariner |
| Francisco Rodrigues, Portuguese from Seville |
Mariner |
| Juan Rodríguez, from Huelva |
Mariner |
| Diego Carmena, from Baiona (Galicia) |
Mariner |
| Hans of Aachen, (Holy Roman Empire) |
Gunner |
| Juan de Arratia, from Bilbao |
Able Seaman |
| Vasco Gómez Gallego, from Baiona (Galicia) |
Able Seaman |
| Juan de Santandrés, from Cueto (Cantabria) |
Apprentice Seaman |
| Juan de Zubileta, from Barakaldo |
Page |
Survivors
When Victoria, the one surviving ship, returned to the harbor of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth, only 18 men out of the original 237 men were on board. Among the survivors there were two Italians, Antonio Pigafetta and Martino de Judicibus. Martino de Judicibus (Spanish: Martín de Judicibus) was a Genoese or Savonese[15] Chief Steward.[16] His history is preserved in the nominative registers at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain. The family name is referred to with the exact Latin patronymic, "de Judicibus". He was initially assigned to the caravel Concepción, one of five ships of the Spanish fleet of Magellan. Martino de Judicibus embarked on the expedition with the rank of captain.
See also
References and footnotes
- ^ Hogan 2008.
- ^ Swenson 2005.
- ^ Stanley 1874, pp. 39, 162.
- ^ de Noronha 1921.
- ^ a b Ferdinand Magellan, New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09526b.htm
- ^ Drake 1628.
- ^ Cliffe 1885.
- ^ Suárez 1999, p. 138.
- ^ Thought to be Limasawa, Southern Leyte, though this is disputed
- ^ The Death of Magellan, 1521, EyeWitness to History (2001). Retrieved 9 March 2006.
- ^ Pigafetta 1906.
- ^ Stefoff 1990, p. 127.
- ^ NNDB: Ferdinand Magellan, http://www.nndb.com/people/629/000092353/, retrieved 2006-11-19
- ^ Maps of the Magellan Strait and a brief history of Ferdinand Magellan, London, UK, http://www.themaphouse.com/specialistcat/magellan/magellan.html, retrieved March 10 2006 .
- ^ Documents related to the questioning performed by the Spanish authorities after the 18 survivors of the voyage returned to Seville in 1522 report that de Judicibus was born in Savona, Italy.
- ^ A. Pigafetta, «Il viaggio di Magellano intorno al mondo», review by James Alexander ROBERTSON, Cleveland USA, 1906, Ed. Arthur Clark
Further reading
Primary sources
Secondary sources
- Bergreen, Laurence (14 October 2003). Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. William Morrow. ISBN 9780066211732, ISBN 006093638X. Lay summary.
- Cliffe, Edward (1885). Hakluyt, Richard. ed. "The voyage of M. John Winter into the South sea by the Streight of Magellan, in consort with M. Francis Drake, begun in the yeere 1577". The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation (Edinburgh, Scotland: E. & G. Goldsmid).
- de Noronha, Dom José Manoel (1921). Imprensa da Universidade. ed (in Portuguese). Algumas Observações sobre a Naturalidade e a Família de Fernão de Magalhães. Coimbra: Bibloteca Geneaologica de Losboa. http://www.bgl.org.pt/livro.php?&id=1383&.
- Drake, Francis (1628). The World encompassed. London, England.
- Guillemard, Francis Henry Hill (1890). The life of Ferdinand Magellan, and the first circumnavigation of the globe, 1480-1521. G. Philip. http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofferdinandm00guil. Retrieved 2009-04-08.
- Hildebrand, Arthur Sturges (1924). Magellan. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. ISBN 9781417914135 (reprint).
- Joyner, Tim (1992). Magellan. Camden, Me.: International Marine Publishing. ISBN 9780070331280.
- Nunn, George E. (1932). The Columbus and Magellan Concepts of South American Geography.
- Parr, Charles M. (1953). So Noble a Captain: The Life and Times of Ferdinand Magellan. New York: Crowell. ISBN 0837185211, ISBN 0837185211.
- Parry, J. H. (1979). The Discovery of South America. New York: Taplinger.
- Parry, J. H. (1981). The Discovery of the Sea. Berkley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520042360.
- Parry, J. H. (1970). The Spanish Seaborne Empire. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0520071407.
- Pérez-Mallaína, Pablo E. (1998). Spain's Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century. trans. Carla Rahn Phillips. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801857461. Lay summary.
- Roditi, Edouard (1972). Magellan of the Pacific. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 0571089453.
- Schurz, William L. (May 1922). "The Spanish Lake". Hispanic American Historical Review 5 (2): 181–194.
- Stefoff, Rebecca (1990). Ferdinand Magellan and the Discovery of the World Ocean. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-1291-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=YEzOHAAACAAJ.
- Suárez, Thomas (1999). Early mapping of Southeast Asia. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 9789625934709. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZG7ZMAbv_jAC~postscript=..
- Thatcher, Oliver J. ed. (1907). "Vol. V: 9th to 16th Centuries". The Library of Original Sources. University Research Extension Co. pp. 41-57. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1519magellan.html. Retrieved 2009-04-08.
- Wilford, John Noble (2000). The Mapmakers. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0375708502. Lay summary.
Online sources
External links
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Magellan, Ferdinand |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
Magalhães, Fernão de (Portuguese); Magallanes, Fernando de (Spanish) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Sea explorer |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
Spring 1480 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Sabrosa, Portugal |
| DATE OF DEATH |
27 April 1521 |
| PLACE OF DEATH |
Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines |
