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Who2 Biography:

Ferdinand Magellan

, Explorer / Navigator
Ferdinand Magellan
Source

  • Born: c. 1480
  • Birthplace: Villa Real, Portugal
  • Died: 27 April 1521 (killed in battle)
  • Best Known As: The first guy to circumnavigate the Earth

Portuguese name: Fernao de Magalhaes

Magellan was born in Portugal, but it was under the Spanish flag that he sailed in 1519 with the intention of reaching the Spice Islands by sailing west around South America. After much hardship he succeeded in reaching and then sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Soon thereafter he was killed while trying to subdue the natives on what is now the island of Mactan in the Philippines. After still more hardships, one of his original five ships, Victoria, eventually made it back to Spain. Though Magellan didn't complete the entire circumnavigation, as the expedition's leader he is usually credited with being the first man to circle the globe.

 
 

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Biography: Ferdinand Magellan

While in the service of Spain, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) led the first European voyage of discovery to circumnavigate the globe.

Ferdinand Magellan was born in Oporto of noble parentage. Having served as a page to the Queen, Magellan entered the Portuguese service in the East in 1505. He went to East Africa and later was at the battle of Diu, in which the Portuguese destroyed Egyptian naval hegemony in the Arabian Sea. He went twice to Malacca, the Malayan spice port, participating in its conquest by the Portuguese. He may also have gone on an exploratory mission to the Molucca Islands (Spice Islands), the original source of some of the most valuable spices.

In 1513 Magellan was wounded in one of the many frustrating battles against the Moors in North Africa. But all of his services brought him little favor from the Crown, and in 1517, accompanied by his friend the cosmographer Ruy Faleiro, he went to Seville, where he offered his services to the Spanish court.

The famous Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) had divided the overseas world of the "discoveries" between the two powers. Portugal acquired everything from Brazil eastward to the East Indies; the Spanish hemisphere of discovery and conquest ran westward from Brazil to 134°E meridian. This eastern area had not yet been explored by the Spaniards, and they assumed that some of the Spice Islands might lie within their half of the globe. They were wrong, but Magellan's scheme was to test that assumption.

In addition it must be recalled that Columbus had made a terrible mistake, brought home by his "discovery" of America. Accepting the academic errors of learned geographers, ancient and modern, he had grossly underestimated the distance between Europe and the East (sailing westward from the former). Balboa's march across the Panamanian Isthmus had subsequently revealed the existence of a "South Sea" (the Pacific) on the other side of Columbus's "mainlands in the Ocean Sea." Thereafter, explorers eagerly sought northern and southern all-water passages across the stumbling block of the Americas; Magellan, too, sought such a passage.

Major Voyage

King Charles V of Spain (the emperor Charles V) endorsed the design of Magellan and Faleiro, and on Sept. 20, 1519, after a year's preparation, Magellan led a fleet of five ships out into the Atlantic. Unfortunately the ships - the San Antonio, Trinidad, Concepción, Victoria, and Santiago - were barely seaworthy, and the crews, including some officers, were of international composition and of dubious loyalty to their leader. With Magellan went his brother-in-law, Duarte Barbosa, and the loyal and able commander of the Santiago, João Serrão. Arriving at Brazil, the fleet sailed down the South American coast to the Patagonian bay of San Julián, where it wintered from March to August 1520. There an attempted mutiny was squelched, with only the top leaders being punished. Thereafter, however, the Santiago was wrecked, and its crew had to be taken aboard the other vessels.

Leaving San Julián, the fleet sailed southward; on Oct. 21, 1520, it entered the Strait of Magellan. It proceeded cautiously, taking over a month to pass through the strait. During this time the master of the San Antonio deserted and sailed back to Spain, and so only three of the original five ships entered the Pacific on November 28. There followed a long, monotonous voyage northward through the Pacific, and it was only on March 6, 1521, that the fleet finally anchored at Guam.

Magellan then passed eastward to Cebu in the Philippines, where, in an effort to gain the favor of a local ruler, he became embroiled in a local war and was slain in battle on April 27, 1521; Barbosa and Serrão were killed shortly thereafter. With the crew wasted from sickness, the survivors were forced to destroy the Concepción, and the great circumnavigation was completed by a courageous former mutineer, the Basque Juan Sebastián del Cano. Commanding the Victoria, he picked up a small cargo of spices in the Moluccas, crossed the Indian Ocean, and traveled around the Cape of Good Hope from the east. With a greatly reduced crew he finally reached Seville on Sept. 8, 1522. In the meantime the Trinidad, considered unfit to make the long voyage home, had tried to beat its way against contrary winds back across the Pacific to Panama. The voyage revealed the vast extent of the northern Pacific, but the attempt failed, and the Trinidad was forced back to the Moluccas. There its crew was jailed by the Portuguese, and only four men returned after 3 years to Spain.

Magellan's project brought little in the way of material benefit to Spain. The Portuguese were well entrenched in the East, their trans-African route at that time proving to be the only feasible maritime connection to India and the Spice Islands. Charles V acknowledged the political and economic facts by selling his vague East Indian rights to Portugal, rights that were later in part resumed with the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. Yet though nearly destroying itself in the process, the Magellan fleet for the first time revealed in a practical fashion the full extent of humanity's inheritance upon this globe. And in this, its scientific aspect, it proved to be the greatest of all the "conquests" undertaken by the gold-, slave-, and spice-seeking overseas adventurers of early modern Europe.

Further Reading

A primary source is the narrative of Antonio Pigafetta, principal chronicler of the expedition, Magellan's Voyage around the World by Antonio Pigafetta, translated by James A. Robertson (2 vols., 1906). The Pigafetta translation and other source narratives are included in Charles E. Nowell, ed., Magellan's Voyage around the World: Three Contemporary Accounts (1962). The best works on Magellan, by Jean Denuce and Jose Toribio Medina, are in Spanish. In English, Francis H. H. Guillemard, The Life of Ferdinand Magellan (1890), is still good. Another study is Charles M. Parr, So Noble a Captain: The Life and Times of Ferdinand Magellan (1953; 2d ed. entitled Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator, 1964). George E. Nunn, in The Columbus and Magellan Concepts of South American Geography (1932), shows the Magellan voyage to have been a logical consequence of the final views of the Columbus brothers.

 

(born c. 1480, Sabrosa, or Porto?, Port. — died April 27, 1521, Mactan, Phil.) Portuguese navigator and explorer. Born to the nobility, Magellan from 1505 served in expeditions to the East Indies and Africa. Having twice asked King Manuel I for a higher rank and been refused, he went to Spain in 1517 and offered his services to King Charles I (later Emperor Charles V), proposing to sail west to the Moluccas (Spice Islands) to prove that they lay in Spanish rather than Portuguese territory. In 1519 he left Sevilla with five ships and 270 men. He sailed around South America, quelling a mutiny on the way, and discovered the Strait of Magellan. With three ships left, Magellan crossed the "Sea of the South," which he later called the Pacific Ocean because of their calm crossing. He was killed by natives in the Philippines, but two of his ships reached the Moluccas, and one, the Victoria, commanded by Juan de Elcano (1476? – 1526), continued west to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the world in 1522.

For more information on Ferdinand Magellan, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Magellan, Ferdinand
(məjel'ən) , Port. Fernão de Magalhães, Span. Fernando de Magallanes, c.1480–1521, Portuguese navigator who sailed for Portugal and Spain. Born of a noble family, he was reared as a page in the royal household. He served (1505–12) in Portuguese India under Francisco de Almeida and later under Alfonso de Albuquerque. While in service (1513–14) in Morocco, he was accused of financial irregularities; he lost the favor of Manuel I, who rejected his proposal to reach the Moluccas by a western route. In 1517 he went to Spain, where his plan was approved (1518) by Charles I (later Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). Portuguese efforts failed to prevent the voyage.

With five vessels and about 265 men, Magellan sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on Sept. 20, 1519. Sighting the South American coast near Pernambuco, he searched for the suspected passage to the South Sea. In Jan., 1520, the Río de la Plata was explored. While wintering in Patagonia (Mar.–Aug., 1520), he summarily put down a mutiny of some of his officers. On Oct. 21, Magellan discovered and entered the strait which bears his name, and on Nov. 28 he reached the Pacific. His fleet, by then consisting of three vessels, the Concepción, the Trinidad, and the Victoria, sailed NW across the Pacific. No land was sighted for nearly two months, no provisions obtained for three; the men suffered intensely. On Mar. 6, 1521, Magellan reached the Marianas and 10 days later the Philippines, where he was killed (Apr. 27) while supporting one group of natives against another. Soon after, the Concepción was burned as unseaworthy, but the remaining two vessels visited Borneo and then the Moluccas, where they loaded spices.

The Trinidad sailed for Panama but was wrecked; only four of her crew eventually reached Spain. The Victoria, commanded by Juan Sebastián del Cano, sailed across the Indian Ocean and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese detained 13 of her crew at the Cape Verde Islands, but finally, with only 18 men, she reached Sanlúcar on Sept. 6, 1522, thus completing the first voyage around the world. Although he did not live to complete the journey, Magellan provided the skill and determination that took the vessels over the great unknown portion of the globe, one of the greatest achievements of navigation. The voyage proved definitively the roundness of the earth, it revolutionized ideas of the relative proportions of land and water, and it revealed the Americas as a new world, separate from Asia.

Bibliography

See the firsthand account of Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's Voyage around the World, tr. by R. A. Skelton (1969); biographies by F. H. H. Guillemard (1890, repr. 1971), E. F. Benson (1929), and C. M. Parr (2d ed. 1964); L. Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (2003).

 
History 1450-1789: Ferdinand Magellan

Magellan, Ferdinand (Fernão Magalhães; c. 1480–1521), Portuguese navigator. Magellan was born into a Portuguese noble family of French origin, possibly at Ponte da Barca in northern Portugal. In 1492, he became a page in the queen's court. In March 1505 Magellan and his brother enlisted in the fleet of Francisco de Almeida, bound for India down the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Cape Verdes Islands and around the Cape of Good Hope. Almeida sailed in East African waters for more than two years, sacked Mombassa, and established a string of Portuguese forts to serve as trading centers and to guard the sea lanes to India, where Magellan arrived from Mozambique in October 1507.

By the time of his arrival he had served first on a brigantine, then on a caravel in combat in the Arabian Sea. Under the command of Nuno Vaz Pereira on the caravel Santo Espirito, he participated in the Portuguese defeat, at the hands of a huge Egyptian Mamluk fleet fortified by Venetian gunships, which broke the Portuguese blockade of the Red Sea. Soon afterward he was dispatched, under Pereira's command, to the Maldive Islands, but made instead for the port city of Colombo, having been blown by a storm to the coast of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). Magellan participated in the great sea battle of 2 February 1509, in which Almeida's fleet defeated the Mamluk-Venetian coalition at Diu (which became a Portuguese colony), a battle in which Pereira was killed and Magellan seriously wounded. Magellan was involved in intelligence on the Malabar coast, along with his cousin Francisco Serrão, to assess both the strength of local navies and the organization of local trade, which they found to be in the control of Arab merchants. Each of them was given the command of a caravel and promoted to the rank of captain. Magellan was again wounded in the botched attempt, under the command of Affonso de Albuquerque, architect of Portugal's Asian empire, to take Calicut.

Magellan was present at the capture of Malacca in August 1511. Serrão subsequently became director of the Portuguese factory at Ternate, a small town on the island of the same name that the Portuguese fortified and held 1522–1574, and which was used most importantly as a base for the clove trade, and invited Magellan to join him there. Instead, Magellan is thought to have made an illicit voyage, most likely northeast from Malacca to Amboyna, possibly coasting the Philippines. He was relieved of his command and, after eight years in the East, returned to Portugal. He served in a Moroccan campaign under the duke of Braganza in 1514, as a result of which he became embroiled in a corruption scandal which landed him in the bad graces of King Manuel I (ruled 1495–1521).

Like Columbus before him, Magellan thought he might have better success in Spain. He arrived in Seville in October 1517 and, working through the merchant community, eventually secured royal approval for a voyage westward to the Indies. He thought the Moluccas (Spice Islands) were close to South America and thus within the Spanish sphere of influence. His idea was to follow up on Amerigo Vespucci's (1454–1512) third voyage and seek a passage to the Indies around the tip of South America. Magellan had interviewed survivors of Juan de Solis's ill-fated voyage to the Río de la Plata in 1515 and deduced that the continental tip of South America lay within the area assigned to Spain.

The primary motive for the voyage was economic. Spain wanted to trade in the East Indies, but Charles V did not know (as Magellan surely did) that the Moluccas were already in Portuguese hands. Perhaps Magellan thought there were other islands as potentially lucrative but as yet unclaimed. His fleet skirted Brazil to avoid any clash with the Portuguese and, at the mouth of the strait now called by his name, two of his five ships were lost, one by shipwreck, the other by mutiny. The remaining ships navigated the straits in thirty-eight days. Magellan reached Sebu in the Philippines in April 1521, where he became involved in a local war and was killed, along with forty of his men. He was succeeded by his second-in-command, the Spaniard Juan Sebastián del Cano (or Juan de Elcano), who continued on to the Moluccas and became the first captain to have sailed around the world.

The geographical impact of the circumnavigation was enormous, not only because of the new geographical data that it produced, but also because it demonstrated irrefutable proof of the sphericity of the Earth as well as the preponderance of water over continental masses on the Earth's surface, in contrast to what many geographers and explorers of Columbus's generation had believed.

Bibliography

Primary Source

Pigafetta, Antonio. Magellan's Voyage: A Narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation. Translated by R. A. Skelton. New Haven, 1969. Originally published as Navigation et descouurement de la Inde superieure et Isles de Malucque (1525).

Secondary Sources

Parr, Charles M. So Noble a Captain: The Life and Times of Ferdinand Magellan. New York, 1953.

Parry, J. H. The Age of Reconnaissance. Cleveland, 1963.

—THOMAS F. GLICK

 
History Dictionary: Magellan, Ferdinand
(muh-jel-uhn)

A Portuguese navigator of the sixteenth century. His crew was the first to sail around the Earth, although Magellan himself was killed on the voyage.

 
Wikipedia: Ferdinand Magellan
Fernão de Magalhães
Magellan_1810_engraving.jpg
Portuguese maritime explorer
Born Spring 1480
Sabrosa, Portugal
Died April 27 1521
Cebu, Philippines

Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, IPA pronunciation: /fɨɾ'nɐ̃ũ dɨ mɐgɐ'ʎɐ̃ĩʃ/; Spanish: Fernando or Hernando de Magallanes); (Spring 1480April 27, 1521, Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines) was a Portuguese maritime explorer who while in the service of the Spanish crown, tried to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. This was the first known successful attempt to circumnavigate the Earth. He did not complete his final westward voyage; he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. As he died farther west than the Spice Islands, which he had visited on earlier voyages from the west, he became one of the first individuals to cross all the meridians of the globe. He was the first person to lead an expedition sailing westward from Europe to Asia and to cross the Pacific Ocean.

Magellan should also be recognized as the first European explorer to enter the Pacific from the Strait of Magellan, which he discovered. He is also remembered as the first European to reach the archipelago of what is now known as the Philippines, which was unknown to the western world before his landing. Arab traders had established commerce within the archipelago centuries earlier.

Memorial to Hernando de Magallanes in Punta Arenas (Chile)
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Memorial to Hernando de Magallanes in Punta Arenas (Chile)

Of the 270 crew members who set out with Magellan to circumnavigate the earth, only 18 completed the circumnavigation of the globe and managed to return to Spain.[1][2] They were led by Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano, who took over command of the expedition after Magellan's death.

Origins and first voyage

Magellan's parents died when he was only 10, and since his parents were of royal nobility, he became a page to Queen Lenor at the royal court. Little is known about Magellan's background. He was the son of Rui de Magalhães (son of Pedro Afonso de Magalhães and wife Quinta de Sousa) and wife Dona Alda de Mesquita, and brother of Duarte de Sousa, Diogo de Sousa and Isabel de Magalhães, but exactly how he is connected to the respective families it is unknown. He was married to Beatriz Barbosa and had two children: Rodrigo de Magalhães[3] and Carlos de Magalhães. [citation needed]

Magellan made his first experience during the expedition on the 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 member of a crew for the Portuguese ship, but rejected this offer.[citation needed]

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 which would bring the ships of the Crown of Castile full access to the lands of the Spice Islands.

Journey

The arrow points to the city of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on the delta of the Guadalquivir River, in Andalusia.
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The arrow points to the city of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on the delta of the Guadalquivir River, in Andalusia.

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 the Portuguese Magellan, almost prevented the admiral from sailing, and switched his crew of mostly Portuguese men with men of Spain. Nevertheless, Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on September 20. King Manuel 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
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Magellan's ship Victoria

Since 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 March 30, the crew established a settlement that they called Puerto San Julian. On April 2, a mutiny involving two of the five ship captains broke out, but it was unsuccessful because the crew remained loyal. Sebastian del Cano was one of those who were forgiven. Antonio Pigafetta, a wealthy Venetian tourist 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 dela Reina were instead marooned on the coast. Another account states that Luis de Mendoza, the captain of Victoria, was executed along with Quesada.[4] Reportedly those killed were drawn and quartered and impaled on the coast; years later, their bones were found by Sir Francis Drake.[citation needed]

The Strait of Magellan cuts through the southern tip of South America connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
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The Strait of Magellan cuts through the southern tip of South America connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

The journey resumed. Santiago, sent down the coast on a scouting expedition, 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 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  mile ( 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 Gomez, 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

Monument in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, Philippines that marks the site where Magellan was reportedly killed.
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Monument in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, Philippines that marks the site where Magellan was reportedly killed.

Heading northwest, the crew reached the equator on February 13, 1521. On March 6, 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 March 16, Magellan reached the island of Homonhon in the Philippines, with 150 crew left, and became the first European to reach the Philippines.

Magellan was able to communicate with the native peoples because his Malay interpreter, Enrique, could understand their language. 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. They traded gifts with Rajah Kolambu of Limasawa, who guided them to Cebu on April 7.

Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly to Magellan, and he and his queen, Juana, even accepted Christianity. Afterward, Humabon and his rival Datu Zula convinced Magellan to go kill their enemy, Lapu-Lapu, on Mactan. Magellan had wished to convert Lapu-Lapu to Christianity, as he had Rajah Humabon, a proposal to which Lapu-Lapu was dismissive. On the morning of April 17, 1521, Magellan sailed to Mactan with an army of men. During the resulting Battle of Mactan against indigenous forces led by Lapu-Lapu, Magellan was killed.

Pigafetta provided the only extant eyewitness account 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... Recognising 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.[6]

Magellan provided in his will that Enrique, his interpreter, was to be freed upon his death. However, after 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. However, Pigafetta had been making notes about the language, and was apparently able to continue communications during the rest of the voyage.

Circumnavigation and return

Magellan's voyage led to Limasawa, Cebu, Mactan, Palawan, Brunei, Celebes and finally to the Spice Islands.
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Magellan's voyage led to Limasawa, Cebu, Mactan, Palawan, Brunei, Celebes and finally to the Spice Islands.

The casualties suffered in the Philippines left the expedition with too few men to sail the three remaining ships. Accordingly, on May 2, they abandoned Concepción and burned the ship to ensure it could not be used against them. 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 the Venetian Pigafetta mentioned 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).

One of Magellan's ships circumnavigated the globe, finishing 16 months after the explorer's death.
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One of Magellan's ships circumnavigated the globe, finishing 16 months after the explorer's death.

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 west. However, as they left the Spice Islands, 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.

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,[7] 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 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 the late 18th century. The expedition eked out a small profit, but the crew was not paid full wages.[citation needed]

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.[8]

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 could have been a llama, guanaco, vicuña, or alpaca. A black "goose" that had to be skinned instead of plucked was a 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 realised, since their voyage was 14,460 leagues (69,800km or 43,400mi).

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.[9] 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.

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 Naples 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 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

See also

References and footnotes

  1. ^ Swenson, Tait M.. First Circumnavigation of the Globe by Magellan 1519-1522. The Web Chronology project. Retrieved on 2006-03-14.
  2. ^ age of exploration. The Mariners' Museum. Retrieved on 2006-03-14.
  3. ^ Algumas Observações sobre a Naturalidade e a Família de Fernão de Magalhães, Dom José Manoel de Noronha, Imprensa da Universidade, Coimbra, 1921
  4. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia on CD-ROM: Ferdinand Magellan. Retrieved on January 14, 2007.
  5. ^ Szpytman, John. Ferdinand Magellan. Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2006-03-14.
  6. ^ The Death of Magellan, 1521, EyeWitness to History (2001). Retrieved 2006-03-09.
  7. ^ Juan Sebastian Elcano. Edited Appletons Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2006-03-10.
  8. ^ NNDB: Ferdinand Magellan. Retrieved on 2006-11-19.
  9. ^ Maps of the Magellan Strait and a brief history of Ferdinand Magellan. London, UK. Retrieved 2006-03-10.

Further reading

  • Magellan (Francis Guillemard, Antonio Pigafetta, Francisco Albo, Gaspar Correa); London : Viartis [2008] - includes all of the contemporary accounts of Magellan's voyage
  • Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, New York: HarperCollins, [2003] ISBN 0-06-621173-5.
  • Lord Stanley of Alderley, The first voyage round the world, by Magellan, London: Hakluyt, [1874], six contemporary accounts of his voyage

External links

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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 April 27 1521
PLACE OF DEATH Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines

cbk-zam:Fernando de Magallanes


 
 

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