This is the very intriguing and interesting story of Magellan's "Circumnavigation" of the World in 1520, 1521 and 1522 with his two followers, Elcano and Pigafetta. It's a story of discovery, mutiny, privation, war and more.
The Explorers. Circumnavigating the World with Magellan, Elcano & Pigafetta. Episode 1.
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proudly presents:proudly presents:
The Explorers,The Explorers,
Magellan,Magellan, ElcanoElcano & Pigafetta,& Pigafetta,
the First Europeans to Circumnavigate the World.the First Europeans to Circumnavigate the World.
Episode 1.Episode 1.
written bywritten by:: Fergus DucharmeFergus Ducharme,, assisted by:assisted by: JoemarieJoemarie AcallarAcallar && NiloNilo JimenoJimeno
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Ferdinand Magellan,
Born: 1480, Sabrosa, Portugal
Died: April 27, 1521, Mactan, Philippines
Magellan was a Portuguese Explorer who
became known for having organised and
captained the first expedition from Europe to
Asia by the west, rounding the Americas by
the south and crossing the Pacific Ocean for
the first time, which resulted in the first
circumnavigation of the Earth.
The circumnavigation was actually completed
after Magellan’s death during the Voyage by
the Basque Juan Sebastian Elcano.
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This is Magellan’s story.
In March 1505 at the age of 25,
Magellan enlisted in the fleet of 22
ships sent to deliver Dom Francisco
de Almeida the first viceroy of
Portuguese India to his posting.
Magellan’s name does not appear in
the chronicles, but it is known that he
remained eight years, in Goa, Cochin
& Quilon.
He participated in several battles,
including the Battle of Cannanore in
1506, where he was wounded. In
1509 he fought in the Battle of Diu.
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Later, Magellan sailed under Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in the first Portuguese embassy
to Malacca, with Francisco Serrão, his friend and possibly cousin.
In September, after arriving at Malacca, the expedition fell victim to a conspiracy ending
in retreat. Magellan had a crucial role, warning Sequeira and saving Francisco Serrão,
who had already landed. These actions earned him honours and a promotion.
In 1511, under the new governor Alfonso de Albuquerque, Magellan and Serrão
participated in the Conquest of Malacca. After the conquest their ways parted: Magellan
was promoted, with a rich plunder and, in the company of a Malay he had indentured and
baptized Enrique of Malacca, he returned to Portugal in 1512.
Albuquerque, Magellan, Serrão & Enrique of Malacca
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Serrão, on the other hand, departed in the first expedition sent to find the “Spice Islands" in
the Molucca’s, where he remained. He married a woman from Amboina and became a military
advisor to the Sultan of Ternate, Bayan Sirrullah. His letters to Magellan would prove decisive,
giving information about the spice-producing territories.
After taking a leave without permission, Magellan fell out of favour with the King. He was
serving in Morocco where he was wounded, resulting in a permanent limp. He was accused of
trading illegally with the Moors. The accusations were proved false, but he received no further
offers of employment after 15 May 1514.
In 1515, he got an employment offer to be a crew member on a Portuguese ship, but rejected
this.
In 1517 after a quarrel with King Manuel I, who denied his persistent demands to lead an
expedition to reach the spice islands from the east (i.e., while sailing westwards, seeking to
avoid the need to sail around the tip of Africa), he left for Spain.
King Manuel I of Portugal
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While in Seville he befriended his countryman Diogo Barbosa and soon married his
daughter by his second wife María Caldera Beatriz Barbosa. They had two children:
Rodrigo de Magalhães and Carlos de Magalhães, both of whom died at a young age. His
wife died in Seville around 1521.
Meanwhile Magellan devoted himself to studying the most recent charts, investigating, in
partnership with Cosmographer Rui Faleiro, a gateway from the Atlantic to the South
Pacific and the possibility of the Moluccas being Spanish according to the demarcation of
the Treaty of Tordesillas. This treaty basically granted to the Portuguese the ‘exclusive
rights’ to travel to ‘Asia’ via what is now the Cape of Good Hope (the southern most Cape
of Africa). To avoid conflict the Spaniards wanted to explore to western route around the
Americas, through what would become known as the Straights of Magellan.
Christopher Columbus’ voyages to the West (1492–1503) had the goal of reaching
the Indies and to establish direct commercial relations between Spain and the Asian
kingdoms.
The Spanish soon realized that the lands of the Americas were not a part of Asia, but a
new continent. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas reserved for Portugal the eastern routes
that went around Africa, and Vasco de Gama and the Portuguese had arrived in India in
1498.
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Spain urgently needed to find a new commercial route to Asia. After the Junta de Toro
conference of 1505, the Spanish Crown commissioned expeditions to discover a route to
the west. Spanish explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean in 1513
after crossing the Isthmus of Panama, and Juan Diaz de Solis died in Rio de la Plata in
1516 while exploring South America in the service of Spain.
In October 1517 in Seville, Magellan contacted Juan de Aranda, Factor of the Casa de
Contratación. Following the arrival of his partner Rui Faleiro, and with the support of
Aranda, they presented their project to the Spanish king, Charles I, future Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V. Magellan's project, if successful, would realize Columbus' plan of
a spice route by sailing west without damaging relations with the Portuguese. The idea
was in tune with the times and had already been discussed after Balboa's discovery of
the Pacific.
On 22nd March 1518 the king named Magellan and Faleiro captains so that they could
travel in search of the Spice Islands in July.
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Rui Faleiro Ferdinand Magellan
He raised them to the rank of Commander of the Order of Santiago. The king granted them:
1. Monopoly of the discovered route for a period of ten years.
2. Their appointment as governors of the lands and islands found, with 5% of the resulting
net gains.
3.The right to levy one thousand ducats on upcoming trips, paying only 5% on the
remainder.
4.Granting of an island for each one, apart from the six richest, from which they would
receive a fifteenth.
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The expedition was funded largely by the Spanish Crown, which provided ships carrying
supplies for two years of travel. Expert Cartographers Jorge Reinel and Diogo Ribeiro, a
Portuguese who had started working for Charles V in 1518 as a cartographer at the Casa
de Contratación, took part in the development of the maps to be used in the travel.
Several problems arose during the preparation of the trip, including lack of money, the
king of Portugal trying to stop them, Magellan and other Portuguese incurring suspicion
from the Spanish, and the difficult nature of Faleiro.
Finally, thanks to the tenacity of Magellan, the expedition was ready. Through the
bishop Juan Rodriquez de Fonseca they obtained the participation of
merchant Christopher de Haro, who provided a quarter of the funds and goods to barter.
The fleet provided by King Charles V included five ships: the flagship Trinidad (110 tons,
crew 55), under Magellan's command; San Antonio (120 tons; crew 60) commanded by
Juan de Cartagena; Concepcion (90 tons, crew 45) commanded by Gaspar de
Quesada; Santiago (75 tons, crew 32) commanded by Juan Serrano; and Victoria (85
tons, crew 43), commanded by Luis Mendoza. (The last ship was named after the church
of Santa Maria de la Victoria de Triana, where Magellan took an oath of allegiance to
Charles V.) Trinidad was a caravel, and all others rated as
carracks (Spanish carraca or nao; Portuguese nau).
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The crew of about 270 included men from several nations: including Portugal, Spain, Italy,
Germany, Belgium, Greece, England and France. Spanish authorities were wary of Magellan,
so that they almost prevented him from sailing, switching his mostly Portuguese crew to
mostly men of Spain. It included about 40 Portuguese, among them Magellan's brother-in-
law Duarte Barbosa, João Serrão, a relative of Francisco Serrão, Estêvão Gomes and
Magellan's indentured servant Enrique of Malacca.
Faleiro, who had planned to accompany the voyage, withdrew prior to boarding. Juan
Sebastian Elcano, a Spanish merchant ship captain settled at Seville, embarked seeking the
king's pardon for previous misdeeds, and Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian scholar and traveller,
asked to be on the voyage, accepting the title of “supernumerary" and a modest salary. He
became a strict assistant of Magellan and kept an accurate journal. The only other sailor to
report the voyage would be Francisco Albo, who kept a formal logbook .
Juan de Cartageña was named Inspector General of the expedition, responsible for its
financial and trading operations.
Elcano,
Magellan, &
Pigafetta
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On 10th August 1519, the five ships under Magellan's command left Seville and descended
the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the river where they stayed
until 20th September when they finally set sail.
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King Manuel I ordered a Portuguese naval detachment to pursue Magellan, but the explorer
evaded them. After stopping at the Canary Islands, Magellan arrived at Cape Verde, where he
set course for Cape St. Augustine in Brazil. On 27th November the expedition crossed
the equator and on 6th December the crew sighted South America.
As Brazil was Portuguese territory, Magellan avoided it and on 13th December anchored near
present-day Rio de Janeiro. There the crew was re-supplied, 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 Rio de la Plata on
10th January 1520.
[The Río de la Plata was first explored by the Portuguese in 1512-1513. The Spanish first explored it in 1516, when the
navigator Juan Diaz de Solis traversed it during his search for a passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, naming
it the Mar Dulce, or fresh water sea. The Portuguese navigator Magellan briefly explored the estuary in 1520 before his
expedition continued its circumnavigation, and in 1521 Cristóvão Jacques also explored the Plate River estuary and ascended
for the first time the Parana River, entering it for about 23 leagues (around 140 km), to near the present city of Rosario]
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On Easter (April 1 and 2), a mutiny broke out involving three of the five ship captains.
Magellan took quick and decisive action. Luis de Mendoza, the captain of Victoria, was killed
by a party sent by Magellan, and the ship was recovered. After Concepcion's anchor cable
had been secretly cut by his forces, the ship drifted towards the well-armed Trinidad,
and Concepcion's captain de Quesada and his inner circle surrendered. Juan de Cartagena,
the head of the mutineers on the San Antonio, subsequently gave up.
Antonio Pigafetta reported that Gaspar Quesada, the captain of Concepcion, and other
mutineers were executed, while Juan de Cartagena, the captain of San Antonio, and a priest
named Padre Sanchez de la Reina were marooned on the coast. Most of the men,
including Juan Sebastian Elcano were needed and forgiven. Reportedly those killed
were drawn and quartered and impaled on the coast; years later, their bones were found by
Sir Francis Drake.
[Puerto San Julian was given its name by Magellan who arrived there on 31st March 1520 and over wintered in the harbour.
They met the native people who were described by Pigafetta as giants, and called them Patagonians, meaning "Big Feet",
since they wore guanaco hide shoes or boots stuffed with straw. At the start of April, Magellan was faced by a mutiny led by
his Spanish captains at midnight on Easter day, but succeeded in overcoming it, executing mutineers including one captain
and leaving another behind. He left the port on 21st August 1520 and on 21st October found the eastern entrance to the
passageway he was looking for, the strait that now bears his name.]
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As a side note, on April 1st, 2014 the Roman Catholic faithful of Puerto San Julian celebrated
the 404th anniversary of the first mass celebrated in Argentina. It was on April 1st, 1520,
which was Palm Sunday, that the first mass was celebrated by Friar Pedro de Valderrama, a
Franciscan Friar and member of the expedition.
He is also credited as the priest who celebrated the first mass in the Philippines after the
Expedition landed on an Island in southern Leyte called: Mazaua. It was Easter Sunday March
31, 1521.
The monument in Puerto San
Julian commemorating the First
Mass celebrated on April 1st, 1520
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Episode 2 of the Magellan, Elcano and Pigafetta
adventure will follow in about 2 weeks!
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