reason of magellan's voyage

Chronicles of worldly wonders by Jimmy Maher

The Voyage of Magellan

Chapter 13: the strait.

• Aug 30, 2024

October 21 – November 6, 1520

“We saw an opening like a bay, and it has at the entrance, on the right hand, a very long spit of sand, and the cape which we discovered before this spit is called [by us] Cape Virgenes, and the spit of sand is 52 degrees south latitude, 67.5 degrees west longitude, and from the spit of sand to the other part there may be a matter of five leagues.”

These words in the logbook of Francisco Albo, an assistant pilot aboard the Trinidad , heralded a dramatic change in the expedition’s fortunes. And yet, as happens with so many important discoveries of the geographical and other stripes, it wasn’t immediately obvious to the sailors just what it was that they had actually stumbled upon. They had been disappointed again and again in the course of this endless voyage down the South American coast. From out to sea, this latest break in the shoreline’s monotony looked no more promising than any of the ones that had preceded it. The cape that marked the entrance to the bay was long and flat and high, a ridge of naked clay and rock standing 135 feet (40 meters) above the water, its edges marked by cliffs plunging precipitously down into the ocean. Like every other feature of the landscape in this part of the world, it seemed almost consciously sculpted to be as unwelcoming as possible. Magellan named it Cape Virgenes, or “Cape Virgins,” after Saint Ursula and her group of martyred holy virgins, whose feast day it was. It has retained that name to this day.

The ships turned west as they rounded the cape, sailing past the headland we call Punta Dúngeness. Magellan named the bay which is sheltered by the headland Bahía Posesión: “Possession Bay,” what with possession being nine-tenths of the law and all. At the bay’s western edge, the fleet found that which it had failed to find every time it had previously tried to probe the interior of the continent: a narrower body of saltwater that continued inland. Magellan decided to send the San Antonio and Concepción — the two ships with the most experienced pilots, in the persons of Estevão Gomes and João Lopes Carvalho respectively — to conduct a preliminary survey. Meanwhile the Trinidad and Victoria would stay behind to complete a thorough reconnaissance of the bay itself, looking for anything else that might be of interest. Captain Mesquita of the San Antonio and Captain Serrano of the Concepción were told to return to Bahía Posesión within five days to report their findings. If the waterway did indeed appear to be a navigable strait, the ships would then all set off down it together.

Alas, the weather made a mockery of these well-laid plans, as it so often did in this part of the world. The San Antonio and Concepción had barely set off when a fearsome gale blew in from out to sea. The Trinidad and Victoria were left in a vulnerable position. Bahía Posesión proved very deep, so deep that their anchors could touch bottom only in scattered places, and then only by playing the chains out to their utmost length. As soon as the wind began to blow in earnest, the overstretched anchors lost their purchase on the seafloor. This wouldn’t do at all; the risk of being blown aground in this constricted space was too great. Magellan had no choice but to raise sails and tack against the gale back out to sea.

But if the Trinidad and Victoria were in a vulnerable position, the San Antonio and Concepción were in a nearly untenable one. They had already passed beyond the mouth of the narrows when the storm blew in, and didn’t have enough space to tack back against the wind. Like pieces of driftwood riding a white-water rapid, they were shot deeper into what is now called the First Narrows, where the land looms close on each side and the shoreline is a minefield of jagged rocks and hidden shoals. Unable to risk dropping anchor for fear of having it torn away — and, in the case of the San Antonio , for fear of being rammed by the Concepción coming up behind — the two ships plunged at breakneck speed through the narrows, struggling desperately with rudder and sails to avoid the greedy, seeking tendrils of stone that reached up from the sea bottom to tear at their keels. Somehow they made it, careening willy-nilly into another bay that lay beyond the First Narrows, where they were finally able to drop anchor. Luckily for them, this second bay was shallower than the first, and the anchors held.

The gale blew strong most of the night, but slackened toward morning, allowing the two ships to explore their new surroundings in relative peace. The second bay, which they named Bahía Felipe after another saint whose feast day had recently passed, appeared at first to be a dead end, yet another disappointment in an interminable string of them. But then, lo and behold, they found a second narrows leading out of it at its westward edge. The two captains held a hasty conference, at which they agreed to repeat their captain general’s approach in the last bay: the San Antonio would continue onward to explore the Second Narrows, while the Concepción stayed behind to finish the reconnaissance of Bahía Felipe.

The San Antonio found these narrows to be wider and more easily navigable than the last ones. At their other end, they opened out not into another bay but into what gave every sign of being a real ocean channel, wide and deep and still very, very salty. It ran more south than west, but every instinct of every seasoned sailor aboard screamed that it had to join with the ocean again at some point ahead. Of course, they didn’t know whether it would ultimately turn back east to dump them back into the Atlantic Ocean, take them due south across the very bottom of the world, or take them to the other side of the continent. There was only one way to find out — but, in the meantime, time was running short to make the rendezvous back at Bahía Posesión. The San Antonio turned about and retraced its course, picking up the Concepción along the way.

The Trinidad and Victoria had themselves returned to Bahía Posesión after the gale blew itself out. They conducted their survey of the bay distractedly, every man aboard wondering the whole while whether the other half of the fleet had been able to weather the storm. They saw no sign of wreckage near the mouth of the First Narrows, but that didn’t mean the ships hadn’t been destroyed deeper inside. One day a lookout spotted a thin column of smoke rising from the landscape in the direction in which the San Antonio and Concepción had sailed. Was it a native campfire, or was it possibly a signal fire lit by shipwrecked sailors? Magellan refused to countenance sending a search party to find out — not now anyway, before the planned day of the rendezvous had even come. Within a few hours, the smoke vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.

At last, the rendezvous day arrived. And right on schedule, the San Antonio and Concepción came bursting back onto the scene, looking like a pair of motley giant scarecrows, with every flag they had aboard flying proudly as they charged up to deliver their happy news. Magellan was so cheered that, in a rare moment of indulgent levity, he allowed his crew to unlimber his flagship’s cannons. Several cannonades boomed across the waters of the bay, the first time such explosions had ever been heard this far south.

Magellan ordered all of the ships to set off in the direction the San Antonio and Concepción had just come from. Through the First Narrows, then Bahía Felipe, then the Second Narrows they sailed. Then further, deeper into the unknown.

The place in which they found themselves is one of the most otherworldly to be found anywhere on our world. Here the monotony of the rolling Patagonian steppe gives way to soaring mountain peaks, the southern terminus of the Andes range that stretches all the way north to Columbia and Venezuela. No one who sees this place can ever forget its cold, austere beauty. “The land on both sides is very huge and mountainous,” wrote Francis Pretty, an English officer who sailed this way with Sir Francis Drake 58 years after Magellan. “The lower mountains, although they be monstrous and wondrous to look upon for their height, yet there are others which in height exceed them in a strange manner, reaching themselves above their fellows so high, that between them do appear three regions of clouds. This strait is extreme cold, with frost and snow continually. The trees seem to stoop with the burden of the weather, and yet are green continually, and many good and sweet herbs do very plentifully grow and increase under them.” As the ships sailed further south — ever closer to the very bottom of the world — the trees were replaced for long stretches by sheer walls of ice, glaciers which groaned and squealed, engaging in an inscrutable dialog with Mother Nature that punctured the crystalline stillness of the Antarctic spring, until the great chunks of ice calved off into the strait with a sound like rolling thunder.

Thankfully, the strait after the Second Narrows was wide enough that dodging the floating ice was not too difficult. The ocean storms which had tormented the fleet throughout its progress down the coast were largely absent from these sheltered waters. From time to time, however, they managed to pick their way through the mountain passes, to descend upon the ships as the sudden whirlwinds which sailors call williwaws, which can come out of nowhere to strip the canvas right off a mast or even capsize an unwary ship. What with the williwaws and the floating miniature icebergs, the ships dared not sail by night. The delay this caused wasn’t too frustrating, though, since the days were by now far longer than the nights.

These days were mostly gray, but, when the sun broke through, the spectacle that it revealed could take your breath away. At these sublime instants, the sailors were witness to a wonderland of dazzling, sparkling radiance, of sunlight glinting off blue ice, off ivory snow, off frigid greenish water, seemingly even off the blurry azure sky itself, where condors swooped and soared on immense outstretched wings of white and black. It was like a glimpse of the upper reaches of Mount Olympus, a realm whose terrible beauty made it a fit place only for gods. The mortals who now passed through it felt tiny and naked before its splendor, their souls seared by ineffable forces beyond their ken.

During the brief nights, sparkles and flashes periodically dispersed the darkness, as if Hephaestus was working at his divine bellows somewhere nearby. The provenance of these illuminations remains as unknown to us as it was to the sailors: they may have been lightning strikes, or some unexplained atmospheric phenomenon not that far removed from Saint Elmo’s Fire. Or they may have been the campfires of the hardy native peoples who, we now know, were living in this land of unbearable harshness and splendor in considerable numbers during this century. Just as in the daytime, from time to time at night the skies cleared and the bright white light of the Milky Way and the Southern Cross poured down upon the ships like the god of forges’ molten silver. On these occasions, the sailors took note of two illuminated “clouds” that were actually tightly packed clusters of stars; these two satellite galaxies of our own are today known as the Magellanic Clouds. Magellan was inspired to name the terrestrial region through which he was sailing Tierra del Fuego: “The Land of Fire.”

Strangest and most unnervingly of all, the ships’ compasses behaved erratically, only sometimes pointing in their accustomed direction, and even then rather lazily, as if they were growing as weary of this expedition as their owners. Modern science tells us that this was because the magnetic forces are weakest in and around the Antarctic regions. To the sailors, however, it was just one more tried and true rule from their world that no longer held here in this land of capricious gods.

On November 1, the ships reached a spot where the waterway split into two, passing to either side of a large land mass, which we now know as Dawson Island.  Feeling more convinced than ever that the passage must be a proper strait, Magellan finally gave it a name: Todos los Santos , or “Strait of Saints,” because November 1 was All Saints’ Day. Within a few years, it would be officially rechristened the Strait of Magellan by no less an authority than King Charles of Spain.

The fleet now faced a fork in the road, as it were. Not only did the strait branch in two directions just ahead, but another wide channel or bay opened out directly to the east. Magellan called a meeting of all his captains, pilots, and other senior officers aboard his flagship, with the purpose of discussing next steps. He was inclined to split the fleet once again, to send one ship to explore the bay and the easterly channel while the other ones continued into the more westerly branch, which naturally seemed the more promising pathway if reaching the western side of the continent was one’s goal. Captain Mesquita of the San Antonio , being full of youthful zeal and eager to atone to Magellan for his rather ignominious failure to protect his command during the Easter Mutiny, immediately volunteered to take his ship east. Pleased with his cousin’s initiative in an almost fatherly way, Magellan acquiesced.

But then Mesquita’s pilot Estevão Gomes, who had long nursed a grudge against the captain general for succeeding where he had failed to convince the Spanish crown to fund a westward expedition like this one, raised his hand to voice his disagreement with the plan. In fact, he said, he didn’t think that any of the ships should sail any further at all. Yes, they had found a waterway that might very well be a transcontinental strait, but it was too far south and too treacherous in all of its particulars to represent a viable alternative trade route to Asia. The men of the expedition had done everything that their king could ask of them already. A straightforward westward route to Asia simply didn’t exist. The route around the bottom of Africa which the Portuguese had been following for decades was clearly the only practical way to reach Asia from Europe by sea. There was no shame in returning to Spain now to report these facts, disappointing though they were.

Whatever his personal motivations for saying these things may have been, nothing Gomes stated was incorrect on the face of it. Nevertheless, Magellan was left fairly spluttering with indignation. They had all endured months of staggering stress and hardship to arrive at this place and this moment. And now Gomes wished to turn around and go home? “Even if we are forced to eat the leather chafing gear on the yards before we reach our destination,” Magellan barked, “we must go forward and complete the task we promised to the Holy Roman Emperor. If we continue to do our duty, God will help us and bring us good fortune!” Gomes sat silently through the rest of the meeting with a scowl on his face.

After the conclave adjourned, Magellan conferred with several of his most trusted officers about the sullen pilot, who now made no secret of his contempt for not only his captain general but for the youthful captain of his own vessel as well. In spite of this, everyone was loath to relieve him of his post, because he was still generally regarded as the most talented pilot in the fleet; this reputation was the reason he had originally been attached to Magellan’s own flagship, and the reason Magellan had reassigned him to the San Antonio when the inexperienced Mesquita had taken over that ship. It would be a shame — possibly a dangerous shame — for the fleet to lose a man like that. Swallowing his misgivings, Magellan elected to leave Gomes in his post, trusting in the pilot’s sense of professional ethics to ensure that he continued to carry out his duties well despite his personal feelings, as he largely had up to this point. Subsequent events would leave Magellan wishing he had listened to his gut instead of his advisors while he still had the chance.

The sailors aboard the Trinidad , Victoria , and Concepción waved farewell to their comrades aboard the San Antonio and steered their vessels into the more westerly channel while the latter ship headed east. The plan was for the whole fleet to rendezvous back at the point of departure within five days to compare notes.

The channel down which the three ships under Magellan proceeded soon widened out into a sound with outlets in several directions; it was by now becoming clear that Dawson Island was indeed an island. Magellan chose the obvious path in light of his interests, sticking close to the coastline on his starboard side. He couldn’t know it at the time, but as he rounded the cape we call Cape Froward he was seeing the very southernmost tip of the Brunswick Peninsula, itself the southernmost tip of mainland South America.

Here the southern reaches of the Andes Mountains reared up higher than ever to either side, their lower slopes concealed beneath dense forests of beech trees, their middle slopes covered with a coarse bronze grass like nothing the sailors had ever seen, their peaks capped with crowns of china white. When rain fell on the ships, snow could be seen falling on the mountaintops. Waterfalls cascaded down from the heights to the feet of the mountains, where they met meadows festooned with bright flowers of every hue imaginable, and some that were not. Bizarre flightless ducks scudded about on the waves by whirling their stubby wings around in a circular motion that would remind later explorers of paddle wheels, thus winning them the appellation of “steamer ducks.” On one or two occasions the sailors saw what looked like the remnants of native camps from their ships, but they never glimpsed any other humans in the flesh.

Overjoyed to be sailing northwest instead of being driven yet further south, Magellan pressed onward much farther than he ought to have if he was to make his planned rendezvous with the San Antonio . The three ships continued to hug the coastline to starboard, moving slowly against the current amidst the shifting, unpredictable winds, doing their best to stay well clear of the maze of small fjords that fractured the landscape to port. The breakout to open ocean which Magellan sought stubbornly refused to arrive; the strait just seemed to go on and on. At last, on November 6, the planned day of the rendezvous, he begrudgingly ordered a halt at what he assumed to be the mouth of a river, which was probably in truth the narrow outlet of Seno Otway, a large inland sound. The faithful and efficient Captain Serrano of the Concepción believed that, if he sailed back to the rendezvous point alone, he could reach that destination within three days; such was the advantage of sailing on known rather than unknown waters, and of doing so as a lone vessel, without the need to coordinate with others.

Magellan agreed to this plan, and the Concepción departed. While they awaited the return of it and the  San Antonio , the sailors from the  Trinidad and  Victoria fished for sardines, which were so abundant here that Magellan named his “river” the Sardine River. The men ventured ashore to forage and to smoke the tiny fish, a fine delicacy indeed after weeks of seal meat and hardtack. The wood here burned with an unusual fragrance, which only seemed to enhance the flavor of the succulent morsels. On a voyage filled with as many and diverse pains as this one, the wise man sucked the very marrow out of every small pleasure that came his way.

The shore parties also gorged themselves on the barberries that grew along the coast, whose cheek-curdingly sour taste they unaccountably craved. We now know that barberries are enormously rich in Vitamin C, a sailor’s best ally in the war against scurvy. The men’s bodies, in other words, knew better than their minds what was needed to sustain them. Had that situation been otherwise, the sailors might have thought to crush the barberries into a juice or mash and store them in barrels aboard their ships. Doing so could have saved all of them from much torment in the months to come, would probably have saved more than a few of their lives. But it was not to be.

Meanwhile the San Antonio had been having a far less enjoyable time of it. It was once again a deeply troubled ship in terms of the chain of command, as it had been so often before during this expedition.  Estevão Gomes’s insolent demeanor toward Captain Mesquita would have prompted a stronger and more experienced leader — say, Mesquita’s cousin Magellan — to have him clapped in irons. As it was, though, the captain needed his pilot’s navigational skills in these tricky, unknown waters far more than his pilot needed him. By now, there was a real question among the rank and file of just who was actually in charge of the San Antonio . Certainly Gomes issued his orders from the quarterdeck as if the ship belonged to him, and Mesquita was too timid to override him.

The San Antonio first explored the bay to the east, which would be named Useless Bay by the much later British explorer Philip Parker King. Finding that it lived up to its future name in the sense of providing no useful outlets, the ship then proceeded down the eastern side of Dawson Island, until the main branch of the waterway took a turn to the southeast, the precise opposite of the direction the fleet wanted to be traveling. Gomes said that there was no point in trying to explore further down this inauspicious channel, and, as usual, Captain Mesquita deferred to his judgment. Mesquita’s hopes of pleasing his cousin through some exciting discovery or other had come up dry.

The San Antonio thus returned to the rendezvous point right on schedule, on November 6, 1520, the same day that Magellan finally called a temporary halt to his ships’ progress well to the west, on the other side of the Brunswick Peninsula. The captain general was about to pay dearly for his impatience to press on further up the strait that now bears his name. For his failure to keep the rendezvous would provide the final spark needed to ignite the expedition’s second mutiny.

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3 Comments for "Chapter 13: The Strait"

Was it really Gomes who named Useless Bay? Wiki says it was Philip Parker King, and the citation checks out.

Jimmy Maher

You’re both right, of course. Thanks!

Several sources (some wikipedic, some not) say that Bahía Inútil was named not by Magellan or his crew, but by Phillip Parker King, a 19th-century British explorer.

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Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the Earth

• Dani Anthony

On September 20, 1519, five ships carrying about 270 men left the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda sailing west — and kept going. Led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the armada’s goal was to reach the Spice Islands of Maluku (in the Indonesian archipelago) and open a new trading route for Spain.

Thus began the first recorded trip around the globe. An almost unimaginably difficult and perilous journey for the crew, Magellan’s voyage was the opening chapter in the rise of global trade and globalization that defines our world today. It also generated important scientific knowledge, including more information about the earth’s circumference and new understandings of global time.

Establishing this new western sailing route was vital to Spain’s future as an international power. In 1494, after Christopher Columbus returned from the West Indies, the Spanish and Portuguese governments signed a deal known as the Treaty of Tordesillas in which the world was divided into two halves: Portugal could colonize and develop trade with Africa, Asia, and the East Indies, while Spain controlled the Americas. By 1515, then, the only way for Spain to access the luxury goods available in the Spice Islands and elsewhere in Asia was via a westward route.

A map showing the demarcation line between Spanish (green) and Portuguese (blue) claims, as resolved in the Treaty of Tordesillas.

It was at this crucial moment that Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão Magalhães) arrived in Spain. A minor Portuguese noble, Magellan possessed an extensive knowledge of mapmaking and sailing, and already had years of experience sailing the Indian Ocean.

In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa had marched across the Isthmus of Panama and confirmed that Asia and the Americas were separated by an ocean. Magellan was convinced he could sail around those continents and easily reach this ocean, accessing the Spice Islands beyond.

A posthumous portrait of Ferdinand Magellan, painted c. 16th or 17th century (left) ; a 1516 map of the known world at the time of Magellan's voyage (right).

Unable to convince the Portuguese of the importance of finding a route to the west, Magellan then turned to the new king of Spain, Charles I. If Magellan’s expedition was successful, Spain would have access to the goods of the East again.

Like most Spanish-funded endeavors, the people who sailed on this voyage were a diverse group, including German, Greek, French, and Afro-descended crewmembers. Besides Magellan’s Portuguese close friends and family, Spaniards and other Europeans with sailing experiences were brought in, some of them to work off debts. Magellan’s second-in-command was the Spanish overseer and accountant, Juan de Cartagena, and the chronicler was the Venetian Antonio Pigafetta.

Magellan and João Serrão were the only Portuguese captains, with Magellan in charge of the largest ship, the Trinidad , and Serrão at the helm of the Santiago . Spaniards captained the other three ships ( San Antonio , Concepción , and Victoria ), and constant Spanish scheming against the Portuguese would have grave consequences for the voyage.

A 19th-century illustration of Magellan's armada preparing to set sail in 1519.

Magellan did nothing to promote Spanish trust, keeping the route a tight secret until the ships were at sea. His plan relied on Portuguese sailing routes, which were well known to him but unfamiliar to many of his crew.

As the armada crossed the Atlantic, morale declined precipitously. By the time the ships arrived on the coast of what is now Brazil to wait out the Southern Hemisphere winter, many aboard were suffering from scurvy, and the Spanish captains were in open rebellion against Magellan. Mutiny was in the air, with Juan de Cartagena, who resented Magellan’s secrecy, leading the effort.

Brazil, as depicted in a 1519 atlas.

In the cold of their wintering grounds and with reduced rations, the mutineers made their move. Although they managed to take over as many as three of the five ships, they were eventually captured and Magellan exiled Cartagena to an uninhabited island off the coast.

The winter of 1520 also saw the destruction of the Santiago, which ran aground while on a scouting mission to the south. Although the ship’s crew survived, the loss of the Santiago put more pressure on an already pinched crew.

An 1885 drawing of the Strait of Magellan.

By late spring, surviving on seal and penguin meat, the armada entered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan, the narrow body of water separating mainland South America from the Tierra del Fuego. The armada lost another ship during the passage through the Strait: the San Antonio , which became separated from the rest of the armada, and turned around and returned to Spain.

An engraving (c. 1580–1618) of Magellan crossing the Strait that would bear his name.

Once the three remaining ships reached the other side of the Strait of Magellan, the sea they found was calm and placid. Magellan christened it the Pacific Ocean. Crossing the Pacific, the crew of the remaining ships suffered terribly. Twenty-nine sailors died during the four-month voyage.

In April 1521, the group put into an island in the Pacific: Cebu, in what is now the Philippines . As the first Europeans to see these islands, Magellan’s crew would lay the groundwork for the long Spanish colonization of the archipelago, which lasted until 1898. Magellan befriended the local ruler, Raja Humabon, and became embroiled in local politics, which would be his downfall.

On April 27, 1521, Magellan went to war against the ruler Lapu Lapu on Mactan Island, who refused to bring tribute for Raja Humabon and the King of Spain. Fighting in the shallow waters off the shore, Magellan and 49 of his men squared off against over 1,000 Mactanese warriors. Facing such poor odds, Magellan was killed, as well as seven of his men, and his ships returned to Cebu.

A 19th-century illustration of the death of Magellan (left) ; a plaque in Cebu commemorating the site of Magellan's death, Philippines (right).

Raja Humabon, displeased at the newcomer’s loss, hosted a feast where he poisoned a group of some of the highest-ranking members of the expedition, leaving less than half of the original crew. The rest of the members set sail, fleeing to the safety of the sea. On May 2, 1521, those sailors who remained scuttled the Concepción and divided the crew among the remaining two ships, the Trinidad and the Victoria.

For the next six months the ships engaged in piracy as they made their way to the Spice Islands. Finally, in November, they arrived at the island of Tidore, part of the Malukus, and filled their holds with cloves. The Trinidad, which was taking on water, could not be repaired, and it was abandoned along with its crew.

Detail of a 1590 map showing the Victoria , the only ship from the armada to successfully circumnavigate the earth.

The Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano was elected captain of the remaining ship Victoria, which set sail west to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. This voyage took over six months, during which the crew subsisted on rice alone.

On September 6, 1522, the Victoria at last reached harbor in Spain, nearly three years after first setting out. Of the original 270-strong crew, only eighteen had survived.

Map showing the route and chronology of the circumnavigation voyage from 1519 to 1522.

Although Magellan is remembered today for circumnavigating the globe, his reputation in the expedition’s immediate aftermath took a battering from those who had survived the expedition. Both the sailors of the Victoria , as well as the crew of the San Antonio who had turned back from the Strait of Magellan in 1520, disparaged him.

Juan Elcano, on the other hand, was given a hero’s welcome, even though he had joined the voyage only to receive a royal pardon. He was elevated to the peerage and added a globe and the words “first to circumnavigate me” to his coat of arms. In Spain, the circumnavigation is known as the Magellan-Elcano expedition.

Engraving of Juan Elcano, 1791 (left) ; Juan Elcano's coat of arms, bearing the phrase, "Primus circumdedisti me" ("First to circumnavigate me") (right).

The first recorded circumnavigation had important political, economic, and scientific consequences.

Spain calculated the total circumference of the globe for the first time, and determined that the Pacific was much wider than previously guessed, meaning that they owned some of the Pacific islands as demarcated by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Spain took control of the Philippines, and began exploration of the East Pacific.

Cross erected by Magellan's crew on the island of Cebu.

Magellan’s voyage also opened the door for trade. By the 1600s, Spanish territories produced most of the world’s silver, and around a third of it ended up in China through trade. This would have lasting effects on global strategy and economies, and propel Spain to the height of European power.

Perhaps just as important for us today, however, is the establishment of the International Date Line. Upon return to Spain, the sailors of the Victoria learned that they were a day behind in their reckoning. As they sailed against the Earth’s rotation, they lost hours. Many mysteries of the globe were revealed.

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Magellan’s expedition circumnavigates globe

One of Ferdinand Magellan ’s five ships—the Victoria— arrives at Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the world. The  Victoria  was commanded by Basque navigator Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who took charge of the vessel after Magellan was killed in the Philippines in April 1521. During a long, hard journey home, the people on the ship suffered from starvation, scurvy, and harassment by Portuguese ships. Only Elcano and 21 other passengers survived to reach Spain in September 1522.

On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific. He searched the Rio de la Plata, a large estuary south of Brazil, for a way through; failing, he continued south along the coast of Patagonia. At the end of March 1520, the expedition set up winter quarters at Port St. Julian. On Easter day at midnight, the Spanish captains mutinied against their Portuguese captain, but Magellan crushed the revolt, executing one of the captains and leaving another ashore when his ship left St. Julian in August.

On October 21, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The Strait of Magellan, as it became known, is located near the tip of South America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland. Only three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another deserted. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous strait, and when ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy. He was the first European explorer to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic. His fleet accomplished the westward crossing of the ocean in 99 days, crossing waters so strangely calm that the ocean was named “Pacific,” from the Latin word pacificus, meaning “tranquil.” By the end, the men were out of food and chewed the leather parts of their gear to keep themselves alive. On March 6, 1521, the expedition landed at the island of Guam.

Ten days later, they dropped anchor at the Philippine island of Cebu–they were only about 400 miles from the Spice Islands. Magellan met with the chief of Cebú, who after converting to Christianity persuaded the Europeans to assist him in conquering a rival tribe on the neighboring island of Mactan. In subsequent fighting on April 27, Magellan was hit by a  poisoned arrow and left to die by his retreating comrades.

After Magellan’s death, the survivors, in two ships, sailed on to the Moluccas and loaded the hulls with spice. One ship attempted, unsuccessfully, to return across the Pacific. The other ship, the Victoria, continued west under the command of Juan Sebastian de Elcano. The vessel sailed across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 6, 1522, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. The Victoria then sailed up the Guadalquivir River, reaching Seville a few days later.

Elcano was later appointed to lead a fleet of seven ships on another voyage to Moluccas on behalf of Emperor Charles V. He died of scurvy en route.

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Dire straits: the story of Ferdinand Magellan's fatal voyage of discovery

The renegade Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan masterminded a Spanish expedition that completed the first circuit of Earth, although it cost him his life. Writing for BBC History Revealed , Pat Kinsella tells the story and timeline of a triumph beset by mutiny, malnutrition and disaster

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If all had gone to plan during Ferdinand Magellan’s life-defining expedition, almost no one would know his name now. As it happened, everything went disastrously wrong for the Portuguese sea captain, yet he has gone down in history as the first explorer to circumnavigate the planet, even though he died in the middle of the journey.

Magellan did, however, become the first European to lead a voyage into the Pacific Ocean – although future sailors would regularly raise alarmed eyebrows at the name he bequeathed to it. The expedition he led (or at least one of the five ships that set out from Spain in 1519) performed the first known complete loop of the globe.

Although Magellan could never have predicted the extraordinary events that would follow, perhaps the thought of reputational immortality would have provided the 41-year-old with a crumb of comfort on 27 April 1521, as he floundered in the shallows of a beach on the island of Mactan in the Philippines, mortally injured and weighed down by his armour. He had been identified as the leader of the invading alien force by the enraged warriors of island chief Lapu-Lapu, and was about to suffer a pointless and wholly avoidable death after his ill-advised show of military might spectacularly backfired.

• A voyage from hell: how Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world changed history

Magellan’s final moments were frenzied and violent. But if he hadn’t made the fateful decision to lead a small force against a defending army of 1,500 battle-ready men, then perhaps he wouldn’t have been remembered as one of the greatest explorers of his era.

Who was Ferdinand Magellan?

Born into an aristocratic Portuguese family in 1480, Ferdinand Magellan was orphaned as a young boy and at the age of 12 he entered the royal court in Lisbon as a page of Eleanor of Viseu, consort of King John II. Thirteen years later, he enlisted in the fleet of the Portuguese viceroy to the Indies and spent seven years learning the ropes of his future career during action-packed voyages in Asia and Africa.

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Magellan was part of the invading force that saw Portugal secure control of the region’s most important trading routes when it conquered Malacca on the Malay Peninsula in 1511, and he may have ventured as far east as the Moluccas (Spice Islands) of modern-day Indonesia. During these adventures he bought a Malay-speaking man, Enrique de Malacca, to be his slave, interpreter and companion – and he remained so on all Magellan’s later voyages.

By 1512, Magellan was back in Lisbon with a promising-looking career ahead of him. He soon joined the huge expeditionary force of 500 ships and 15,000 soldiers that John II’s successor, King Manuel I, sent to punish the governor of Morocco for failing to pay his tribute to the Portuguese crown in 1513. It was during a skirmish that he sustained an injury that left him with a lifelong limp. But he was then accused of illegal trading with the Moors, which saw him fall from favour.

A dedicated student of maps and charts, consumed with an urge to explore, Magellan had hatched a plan to pioneer a westward route to the Spice Islands, avoiding the perilous route around the Cape of Good Hope. However, the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas and the expeditions and achievements of explorers such as Vasco da Gama had already granted Portugal full control of the eastwards route around southern Africa, and Manuel was disinterested in Magellan’s ideas.

Great reputations

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This snub left the ambitious and capable captain dangerously disaffected – a blessing for the Spanish, who were desperately seeking an alternative way of accessing the riches of India and the Far East. In 1517, Magellan decamped to Seville in Spain, where he quickly married the daughter of another Portuguese exile, had two children and began bending the ear of Charles I about a western route to the Spice Islands.

The 18-year-old Spanish king – grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had commissioned the adventures of Columbus – was desperate to make his mark and smash the dominance his Iberian rivals had over the enormously lucrative spice trade. He seized the potential opportunity to bypass Africa, while avoiding breaking the terms of the treaty with the powerful Portuguese, and commissioned Magellan to undertake the expeditionary mission he had been itching to pursue.

Of course, Magellan wasn’t the first European explorer to sail west in search of a backdoor route to the treasures of the Orient. Columbus had ventured that way across the Atlantic looking for the East Indies in 1492, before bumping into the Bahamas instead, while John Cabot (aka Giovanni Caboto), a Venetian captain commissioned by Henry VII of England, had sailed from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497.

• Ptolemy's maps: the father of modern Geography

Unlike Columbus – who made a further three journeys across the western ocean, but died in denial that he was actually exploring a totally new continent – the Spanish soon realised this was a different land mass (the Americas). While this revelation would ultimately return riches beyond their wildest dreams in terms of gold, Magellan’s focus was on how to get past this ‘New World’ in order to reach the Spice Islands beyond.

No European had sailed around Cape Horn – or indeed even laid eyes on it – but a Spanish adventurer named Vasco Núñez de Balboa had discovered the ocean beyond the New World in 1513, by traversing the Isthmus of Panama. Magellan, a visionary who was working with the most advanced cartographers and cosmographers of the era, was convinced there was a way of getting around the Americas.

Westward ho

In September 1519, Magellan led five vessels, manned by a multinational, 270-strong crew, into the Atlantic – his flagship the Trinidad, plus the Santiago , San Antonio , Concepción and Victoria . Word of his mission reached Manuel I, who jealously dispatched a Portuguese naval detachment to follow the expedition, but Magellan outran them.

But he couldn’t escape all his enemies so easily, especially as some were among his own men. Many of the Spanish sailors in the expeditionary party were suspicious of their Portuguese commander. Some of his crew were criminals released from prison in return for undertaking the dangerous voyage. Others joined just because they were avoiding creditors.

Many of the Spanish sailors were suspicious of their commander

The fleet was hit by a storm, which caused a delay and resulted in food rationing. Here, Juan de Cartagena – who had been appointed captain of the largest ship, the San Antonio , because of his good connections, despite being green in the business of exploration and an inexperienced seaman – began openly criticising Magellan’s competence and refusing to salute his captain-general. Magellan had Cartagena arrested, relieved of his command and imprisoned in the brig of the Victoria until they reached South America. The incident was a precursor to the much more dramatic and bloody events to come.

In December, the expedition reached South America and made landfall in Rio de Janeiro. For two weeks they interacted with indigenous people, trading trinkets for food and sexual favours, before the fleet sailed south, scouring the coastline in search of an opening. They spent fruitless weeks exploring the estuary of Río de la Plata for this elusive passage, before freezing conditions forced the party to seek shelter for the winter in Port St Julian in Patagonia.

Timeline: Ferdinand Magellan's voyage

Ten landmark moments in magellan’s voyage into the unknown, as plotted out on a 1544 copy of the agnese atlas, produced by the italian mapmaker battista agnese.

Morale was already plummeting when, in April 1520, Cartagena made his move. He escaped Victoria , reboarded the San Antonio , and begun fermenting trouble and securing support from the Spanish crew and officers, playing on bad blood about Magellan’s Portuguese nationality.

In the mutiny that followed, the San Antonio was declared independent of Magellan’s command. The captains of the Concepción and the Victoria (Gaspar de Quesada and Luiz Mendoza) joined them, as did the Victoria ’s pilot Juan Sebastián Elcano, and many of the officers and crew. A letter was sent to Magellan on the Trinidad, demanding he acknowledge that the fleet was no longer under his command.

Magellan sent his reply in the hands of an assassin

Magellan coolly sent his reply back in the hands of an assassin. After coming alongside the Victoria in a small boat, while pretending to hand over the letter to Mendoza, the man fatally stabbed the errant captain instead. Simultaneously, crew loyal to Magellan stormed aboard the ship and attacked the mutineers, who were overcome.

The rebels maintained control of the San Antonio and Concepción , with Cartagena having boarded the latter prior to the fighting breaking out. Magellan positioned the three ships he had at his disposal across the mouth of the bay, and prepared for combat.

During the night, heavy winds caused San Antonio to drag its anchor and drift towards the Trinidad. Magellan met the oncoming ship with a cannon broadside, causing the mutineers aboard the stricken carrack to surrender. Conceding defeat, Cartagena followed suit and gave up the Concepción without resistance the following morning.

Having quelled the revolt, Magellan immediately sentenced 30 men to death, but then (mindful of his threadbare resources) commuted their punishment to hard labour. The leaders of the mutiny weren’t so lucky. Quesada was beheaded for treason, and both his body and that of Mendoza’s were mutilated and put on sticks. Too fearful of Cartagena’s connections to order him executed, Magellan instead left him marooned with Padre Sánchez de la Reina, a priest who’d supported the mutineers. They were never heard of again.

The real deal

Back on course.

In July, Magellan dispatched the Santiago to scout ahead for the elusive passage. She discovered the Rio de Santa Cruz in what is now Argentina, but sank in a storm while trying to make the return journey. Remarkably, the crew survived, and two men trekked overland for 11 days to alert Magellan, who mounted a rescue mission.

In October, the entire fleet set off, and Magellan at last sighted the strait that now bears his name, a route between the tip of mainland South America and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. However, conditions continued to be rough, and when the fleet split to explore either side of an island, the crew of the San Antonio forced their captain to desert and return to Spain (where they spread scurrilous rumours about Magellan’s brutality to avoid punishment).

While the main fleet waited in vain for the San Antonio , Gonzalo de Espinosa led an advance party along the strait, returning after six days with news that made Magellan weep with joy: they’d sighted open ocean. On 28 November, the expedition emerged into an ocean that seemed so relatively benign on the day, Magellan named it Mar Pacifico, or Peaceful Sea.

The true nature and enormity of the Pacific was soon revealed to the explorer, however. !e fleet left the coast of Chile to sail across the new-found ocean, a journey Magellan expected to last four days, but which took almost four months. The fleet was woefully underprepared and the sailors savaged by scurvy and thirst, many dying.

• Mutiny at sea: the forgotten story of murder and brutality aboard HMS Wager

Magellan crossed the equator in February 1521 and reached the Pacific island of Guam in March, where the fleet replenished its exhausted supplies. Not long afterwards they finally arrived at the Philippine archipelago. This, though, was just the beginning of Magellan’s real troubles; his erstwhile planning and leadership came dramatically undone when he needlessly embroiled himself in a dispute between two local chiefs.

In the Philippines, Magellan communicated with local rajahs through his Malay slave, Enrique. At the evangelical explorer’s behest, a number of island chiefs – including Cebu’s Rajah Humabon – converted to Christianity.

In return for his soul, however, Humabon sought Magellan’s support in a disagreement with a neighbour, Lapu- Lapu, a chief on Mactan Island, who had already irked the explorer by declining to convert or bow to the Spanish crown.

On 27 April 1521, 60 heavily armed Europeans accompanied a fleet of Filipino boats to Mactan, where Lapu- Lapu again refused to recognise the authority of Humabon or the Spanish. Facing 1,500 warriors, Magellan – confident in the shock-and-awe capability of his superior weaponry, which included guns, crossbows, swords and axes – instructed Humabon to hang back, while he waded ashore with an attack party of 49 men.

They torched several houses in an attempt to scare the islanders, but this only served to whip Lapu-Lapu’s warriors into a battle rage. In the resulting beachfront mêlée, where the Europeans were weighed down by their armour, Magellan was identified and injured by a bamboo spear thrust. Felled, he was then surrounded and killed, along with several others. With their captain dead, the survivors retreated to the boats.

After the battle, when the Europeans refused to release Enrique (despite Magellan’s orders to do so in the event of his death), Humabon turned against the Spanish. Several were poisoned during a feast, including Duarte Barbosa and João Serrão, who had assumed leadership of the expedition following the demise of Magellan.

Rounding the circle

João Carvalho took command of the fleet and ordered an immediate departure. By this time, however, too few men remained to crew the three ships. The Concepción was burnt, and the two remaining vessels made for Brunei, indulging in a spot of piracy en route, and attacking a junk bound for China. Espinosa then replaced Carvalho as leader, as well as being captain of the Trinidad , while Elcano was made the captain of the Victoria .

In November, the expedition finally reached the Spice Islands and managed to trade with the Sultan of Tidore. Loaded with cloves, they attempted to return home by sailing west across the Indian Ocean – which had never been Magellan’s intention – until the Trinidad started leaking. The wounded ship stopped for repairs, and eventually tried to return via the Pacific, but was captured by the Portuguese and subsequently sank.

Meanwhile, under the captaincy of Elcano, the Victoria continued across the Indian Ocean, eventually limping around the Cape of Good Hope in May. Tragically, 20 men starved on the last leg along the Atlantic coast of Africa, and another 13 were abandoned on Cape Verde – Elcano had put into port to resupply, but the Portuguese there caught on that they were part of a Spanish expedition; fearing for his cargo, Elcano fled.

On 6 September 1522, after three years’ absence, Victoria arrived in Spain, becoming the first ship to have sailed around the planet. Only 18 of Magellan’s original 270-man crew arrived with her. Though ultimately successful in finding a western passage that opened up the Pacific and the west coast of the Americas, the Strait of Magellan proved too far south to be a viable trade route to the Orient, which intensified the search for the elusive Northwest Passage from the mid-16th century.

Although Magellan didn’t make it home, he did complete a full circumnavigation of the globe (Philippines to Philippines, albeit in two chunks separated by several years), a feat probably matched by his Malaysian slave Enrique. But the first European to definitively do so in a single voyage was the man who captained Victoria on her final leg – the mutineer Elcano.

Drake's fortune

Pat Kinsella specialises in adventure journalism as a writer, photographer and editor

This article was first published in the September 2019 issue of BBC History Revealed

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Magellan was first to sail around the world, right? Think again.

Five hundred years on, the explorer’s legacy is complicated—and contested.

In September 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain with five ships. Three years later only one ship, the Victoria (depicted on a 1590 map), made it back to Spain after circumnavigating the world.

Five hundred years ago, Ferdinand Magellan began a historic journey to circumnavigate the globe. Simple, right? Not really— the explorer and his voyage are a study in contradiction. Magellan was Portuguese, but sailed on behalf of Spain. He was a formidable captain, but his crew hated him. His expedition was the first to sail around the world, but he didn’t end up circling the globe himself. His name wasn’t even Magellan.

Like Columbus before him, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan proposed reaching Asia and the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, by sailing west from Europe.

Nonetheless, it’s clear that Ferdinand Magellan’s 1519 expedition changed the world forever. His journey was “the greatest sea voyage ever undertaken, and the most significant,” says historian Laurence Bergreen , author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe . “That’s not hyperbole.”

Brutal, bellicose, and brave, Magellan turned a commercial voyage into a hair-raising showdown with a wide world few Europeans could imagine. At the beginning of his journey, his contemporaries suspected it was impossible to sail around the entire globe—and feared that everything from sea monsters to killer fogs awaited anyone foolhardy enough to try. “It sounded suicidal to do this,” says Bergreen.

The Portuguese nobleman was born Fernão de Magalhães around 1480. As a page to queen consort Eleanor and Manuel I, he experienced court life in Lisbon. But the young man had a sense of adventure, and took part in a string of Portuguese voyages designed to discover and seize lucrative spice routes in Africa and India.

At the time, Portugal and Spain were involved in an intense rivalry to see who could find and claim new territory where they could source the spices coveted by European aristocrats. In 1505, Magellan joined the fight, traveling to India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. But his days in service to Portugal were numbered: He was accused of illegal trading and fell out with Manuel I, who turned down his proposal to locate a new spice route.

Magellan was convinced that by sailing west instead of east and going through a rumored strait through South America, he could map a new route to Indonesia and India. So he abandoned his Portuguese loyalty and headed to Spain, where he gained both citizenship and Charles V’s blessing for a five-ship journey westward.

The captain stood to gain great wealth and status from the trip: Charles gave him a decade-long monopoly on any route he might discover, a cut of the profits, and a noble title to boot. But he was in an awkward position when it came to his majority-Spanish crew and his royal mission. “The Castilians resented sailing under a Portuguese commander and the Portuguese considered him a traitor,” writes historian Lincoln Paine.

A 16 th -century engraving depicts Magellan surrounded by mythological characters and fantastic animals and represents European views of the still-mysterious Americas.

After winter weather forced his ships to wait for months in what is now Argentina, Magellan’s crew mutinied. One ship wrecked; another ditched the expedition altogether and headed back to Spain. The captain struggled to regain control of his men, but once he did, the repercussions were swift and harsh. He ordered some of the mutineers beheaded and quartered; others were marooned or forced into hard labor.

The voyage got back on track and Magellan managed to navigate a treacherous passage that’s now named in his honor—the Strait of Magellan. But his troubles weren’t over. As the crew forged across the Pacific Ocean, food spoiled and scurvy and starvation struck . Magellan and his men briefly made landfall in what was likely Guam , where they killed indigenous people and burned their homes in response to the theft of a small boat.

A month later, the expedition reached the Philippines. To the crew’s surprise, Enrique, an enslaved man Magellan had purchased before the journey, could understand and speak the indigenous people’s language. It turned out he was likely raised there before his enslavement—making him, not Magellan, the first person to circumnavigate the globe.

Magellan swiftly claimed the Philippines on Spain’s behalf, but his involvement in what Bergreen calls an “unnecessary war” was his undoing. “He wasn’t defeated by natural forces,” says Bergreen.

In March 1521 the expedition reached the Philippines, where relations with the indigenous people (as depicted in this engraving) went from peacefully trading fruit to engaging in pitched battle. Magellan was killed on Mactan Island on April 27.

Instead, he demanded that local Mactan people convert to Christianity and became embroiled in a rivalry between Humabon and Lapu-Lapu, two local chieftains. On April 27, 1521, Magellan was killed by a poison arrow while attacking Lapu-Lapu’s people.

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They “all at once rushed upon him with lances of iron and of bamboo,” wrote Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian scholar who accompanied the journey, “so that they slew our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide.” The crew left his body behind—an indication, perhaps, of how they truly felt about their relentless leader.

After Magellan’s death, his crew continued in the single ship that remained, captained by Juan Sebastian Elcano, a Basque. They returned to Spain in September 1522. Along the way, they had encountered a new ocean, mapped new routes for European trade, and set the stage for modern globalism. Sixty thousand miles later, and after the death of 80 percent of those involved, the expedition had proven that the globe could be circumnavigated and opened the door to European colonization of the New World in the name of commerce.

A legend was born—and in 1989, one of Magellan’s namesakes even traveled to Venus. During a five-year-long journey, NASA’s Magellan spacecraft made images of the planet before burning up in its atmosphere.

But though Magellan’s name is associated with discovery by some, others shy away from that word. “When I write my textbook I will state that Magellan arrived in the Philippines in 1521,” says historian Ambeth Ocampo , former chairman of the Republic of the Philippines’ national historical commission. “Magellan should not be seen as the beginning of Philippine history but one event [in] a history that still has to be written and rewritten for a new generation.”

A 1545 map traces the route of Magellan's world voyage—a milestone in the centuries-long process of globalization.

For the indigenous people encountered by Magellan and his crew, the explorer’s arrival heralded a new age of conquest, Christianization, and colonization. Lapu-Lapu, the Mactan ruler whose forces killed Magellan, is often credited with slaying the explorer. As a result, notes Ocampo, he has become a national hero in the Philippines.

Though Lapu-Lapu likely did not do the deed, he is widely commemorated as a symbol of Filipino resistance and pride. Now, historians are working toward a more accurate portrayal ahead of the 500th anniversary of Magellan’s arrival in the Philippines. The government’s quincentennial celebrations in 2021 will include replacing a 10-foot statue of Lapu-Lapu in the city that bears his name. A monument that shows the battle itself—and the group effort that brought down an epic explorer—will take its place.

Should Magellan be considered a hero, or what Ocampo calls the Philippines’ “first tourist”? As Guam , the Philippines , Spain and even Portugal celebrate and question the quincentennial, the explorer’s legacy remains as complicated as ever.

Related Topics

• CIRCUMNAVIGATION
• AGE OF DISCOVERY
• INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
• CHRISTIANITY

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Magellan's Voyage and the Perspective of "Otherness"

Explore other cultural realities through the diary of antonio pigafetta, journalist of this first voyage around the world..

By Museo de América

Museo de América

View of the port of Seville (ca. 1600) Museo de América

The first expedition to voyage around the world, captained by Ferdinand Magellan, set sail on August 20, 1519 from the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz, Spain). The larger ships could not sail the river Guadalquivir up to the city of Seville due to the sandbanks formed around its mouth.

The nationalities of the expedition's crew, which included the Italian Pigafetta, were extremely diverse. But it was only made up of men, as women were prohibited from joining the crew in order to prevent potential riots.

Cinnamon tree (1789/1794) by José Guio Museo de América

…to seek out and discover spices in the Maluku Islands. The aim of the journey was to reach the Spice Islands, today known as the Maluku Islands. Spices were used to season meat and fish, enhancing flavors or camouflaging those brought about by the conditions of storage. The search for spices continued into subsequent centuries. This image shows a drawing of the Ishpingo or cinnamon tree. This example is an Amazonian variety of cinnamon, of which the flowers—shown here—are used, unlike the Asian variety, of which the bark is used.

Pepper shaker (1600/1622) by MR Museo de América

Some of the most sought after condiments were clove, pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon, which were used to flavor delicious food and drinks. This silver spice rack was found in the Nuestra Señora de Atocha shipwreck, which sunk off the coast of Florida in 1622. This type of rack is called a turret. It is made up of different elements stacked on top of each other, with this dome-shaped pepper pot placed at the very top of the set.

Scarlet macaw (ca. 1942) Museo de América

Exotic Nature

Knowledge of the natural world and the use of its resources are themes that run throughout the diary of Pigafetta, as the purpose of his voyage was to locate valuable natural produce (spices) for selling.

Tridacna gigas shell Museo de América

The flesh of these two mollusks, respectively, weighed 26 and 44 pounds [more than 11.7 and almost 20 kilos]. Some previously unknown species caused surprise due to their giant size, such as these Pacific shells, which were first used in Spain as basins for holy water at the entrance to churches.

The expeditionaries exchanged various objects for food, live animals, and other products. In Brazil, they were interested in large macaws ( Ara sp.) and a species of golden lion tamarin monkey ( Leontopithecus rosalia ). These kinds of exotic animals became prized pets in Europe, reflecting the status of their owners. There are numerous portraits, particularly of women and children, with these animals, such as Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia and Magdalena Ruiz, by Alonso Sánchez Coello, in the Prado Museum (Museo Nacional del Prado).

Basket (20th Century) by Kayapó Museo de América

Visions of the Indigenous World

The meeting of societies that had had no previous contact had an enormous impact on the expeditionaries as well as the other cultures.

Population of the Napo River shore (1789/1794) Museo de América

Visions of the Indigenous World in America ...These people paint their entire body and face beautifully with fire and in other ways... The corporal appearance of the Amazonian communities was admired by the Europeans. These societies totally or partially covered their bodies with paint. The designs were not intended to look pretty, but rather were an expression of belonging to a specific group, or a protection against spiritual influences.

Canoe (1862/1865) Museo de América

They have boats carved out of a single piece of wood with stone tools, known as canoes. The tribes that live along the banks of the Amazon basin maintain a close relationship with the river. It is the main route for communication, a fundamental part of their beliefs, and an essential source of economic resources. The most efficient way to move along the river is via canoe. Traditionally, a tree trunk would be hollowed out using fire or hot stones, and the lack of metal meant that stone tools had to be used to carve out the inside.

The women work and carry all the food in wicker backpacks, or in baskets placed upon or tied to their heads. The expeditionaries saw how the Amazonian tribes organized a division of work based on gender and age. Women invested a large part of their day on gathering duties. In order to leave their hands free, they put the food they gathered in vegetable fiber baskets that they could carry on their backs, but tied with a belt around their front.

Bow (1867) by Ona (selk´nam) Museo de América

Within the division of labor by gender, the men of the groups that lived in the region of Patagonia were mainly dedicated to hunting guanaco ( Lama guanicoe ). Apart from the meat, they also used their skin and tendons for tools and clothing. The guanaco was a species previously unknown in Europe, which is why Pigafetta uses comparisons with other animals to describe it: the body and long neck of a camel, the hooves of a deer, and the tail of a horse. According to the author, it also imitates a horse's neigh.

Man from the Guam island (1789/1794) by Juan Ravenet Museo de América

Visions of the Pacific Indigenous Community After 100 days of traveling across the Pacific, and with an urgent need for food, they had a brief encounter with the inhabitants of the island of Guam. They named it the Island of Thieves due to the theft of a skiff from one of their boats. The absence of the concept of private property in these indigenous communities led to an unexpected clash of mindset. The behavior of these skilled navigators was not understood by the expeditionaries, and was met with violence until they were able to recover the valuable part of their vessel.

Peineta (Helu) (1775/1880) by Tonga Museo de América

These combs are one of the few elements of personal adornment that women would wear on their heads in some Polynesian societies such as Tonga. They are delicate pieces made from very thin rods obtained from the central spines of the coconut palm leaf, joined together with braided vegetable fibers, forming geometric designs. Following contact with western societies, some elements of the material culture changed in meaning, going from common use to being considered a symbol of higher social status.

Woman of the aeta group or "negritos" from the Manila mountains (19th Century) by Juan Ravenet Museo de América

Visions of the Asian Indigenous Community Journeying around the myriad islands allowed the expeditionaries to learn about the enormous ethnic diversity of the Philippine archipelago, which was populated by cultural groups with a wide variety of languages, customs, and physical appearances. Some societies, such as the Aeta people, have dark skin and were therefore known as blacks. This female portrait is a delicate study of the particular characteristics of the population of the mountainous region of Manila.

Bracelet (19th Century) by Kalinga Museo de América

In many societies of Oceania and Indonesia, pigs were one of the most prized animals, used as an element of prestige in exchanges. The teeth of the wild boar were especially valued by the men, who would use them to make bracelets, as in this case, but also pendants or even a nose adornment. Among the tribes in the north of the island of Luzon, defending these animals was considered a symbol of affluence and power.

Swords (Kalasag) (19th Century) by Bagobo Museo de América

Different Types of Relationships

Although the preferred relationship was one of commercial exchange, contacts with other populations sometimes led to tension, conflict, and confrontation.

Mirror (18th Century) Museo de América

Commercial Relationships All of our mirrors had broken and the few good ones were wanted by the King [King of Tidore, of the Maluku Islands]. The economic system was based on trade. The expeditionaries offered iron objects, knives, scissors, cloth, combs, bells, glass, and particularly mirrors, which were all considered curios. Obviously exchanges were established based on precisely the difference in the valuation criteria of the items, so that each party thought they were getting a good deal.

Carrier of Manila (1789/1794) by Juan Ravenet Museo de América

Following the arrival of the Spanish, the port of Manila became one of the most important centers of commercial activity in the world. Silver from American mines was exchanged for sought-after Asian products, which would end up in the houses of noblemen and the bourgeoisie across America and Europe. The presence in Manila of numerous Chinese traders, or Sangleys (those that came to trade) was essential to boost economic development and facilitate the necessary flow of merchandise with the Asian powerhouse.

Headdress (Aheto) (ca. 1993) by Karajá Museo de América

The Process of "Othering" They wrap themselves in clothing made from macaw feathers, with large rolls on their backside made with the longest feathers; they look ridiculous. The Amazonian cultures used feathers from various birds to make headdresses, bracelets, and skirts. These elements were used in special ceremonies, though not always understood or valued by western cultures. The feather objects were not held in high regard by the expeditionaries. Societies were categorized based on the complexity of their material culture, which marked the relationship established with them, and was used as a criterion to legitimize their domination.

Sword (19th Century) by Moros de Mindanao Museo de América

Throughout this voyage around the world, the expeditionaries made contact with different populations, and each required different types of relationships and exchange of different goods. In the text, distancing is justified with regard to these groups, marking them as "other" based on their religion (moors, pagans, and gentiles), their clothing, their economy, their way of life, and even their size (giant Patagonians). This sword, made by the moors of the Southern Philippines, and called kalis tulid, is an emblem of power and prestige for the chief, used both in battle and on parades.

Figure (Bulul) (19th Century) by Ifugao Museo de América

The expeditionaries observed the beliefs of the cultures that they came across along their voyage, but most were dismissed as idolism, and their representations burned. These types of anthropomorphic sculptures by the Ifugao culture, made from wood, represent the ancestral spirits, guardians of the granaries and houses, and invoke the protection of harvests, health, and prosperity.

Conflicts and Confrontations Weapons were highly valued objects by the western expeditionaries when they made contact with other cultures. They were used to profile a scale of value between societies, and to estimate the potential relationships that were possible between the parties. Wooden swords similar to these ( kalasag ) could have been used by the indigenous people who clashed with Magellan on the island of Mactán, which ended with the death of the captain. They stuffed hair from their defeated enemies around the edge of the ancient kalasag in order to appropriate their power and courage.

Spear (19th Century) by Malayo-filipino Museo de América

Bows and arrows with poisoned tips were common weapons among the Filipino indigenous communities. It was precisely one of these that caused the death of Ferdinand Magellan. In the Muslim communities of the Southern Philippines, known as moors, lances as well as swords were essential elements for face-to-face confrontations. They would use lances made from a metal sheet shaped into a lance, that could be finished with extended blades, and a handle made from a thick piece of bamboo or wood.

Morion (helmet) (19th Century) by Moros de Mindanao Museo de América

Filipinos had their own collections of arms, but they also started adapting new weapons following the European influx. For example, this bronze helmet is similar to the Hispanic morion, a military helmet typical of the second half of the 16th century. It may be an imitation, but is a version made by the moors of the Philippines. The differences that the expeditionaries found between other populations were an excuse for the violent interaction which took place: attacks, battles, and even kidnapping men and women considered different and "other."

Hammock (1862/1865) Museo de América

Cultural Influences

Contact with different groups led to the adoption, on both sides, of new customs, and the use of previously unknown objects.

Some Amazonian communities with a nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life required light tools that could be easily transported. A hammock is a lightweight netting made from vegetable fiber. It is hung at each end from two strong posts, to allow a person to rest while preventing contact with the floor. The position of the body in the hammock avoids any pressure points, and aids venous return. The relaxation of the soft swinging, and the sensation of weightlessness, led to these items being distributed to other cultures in warm environments, or regions of high humidity.

Cockfight (1789/1794) by Tomás de Suría Museo de América

They have large, domestic roosters, but they do not eat them; rather they worship them, although they also make them fight… Hens are not native to America, and so it is surprising that these domestic birds have been described there from very early dates. The breeding of European chickens spread from the Antilles to many indigenous groups in Brazil. However, another route that these birds took to America was via the Pacific, from Asia and Polynesia, where white-feathered hens were bred for rituals, and in some cases for cock fights; a tradition that made its way to Mexico.

Curation and texts: Beatriz Robledo Sanz, Andrés Gutiérrez Usillos Coordination: Susana Alcalde Amieva Photographs: Joaquin Otero, Gonzalo Cases Museo de América This exhibition is part of the First Voyage Around the World project.

The Asian Influence on American Arts

Ferdinand Magellan: Facts & Biography

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who led the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe. Like many of his contemporaries, Magellan set out to discover a Western sea route to the Spice Islands in Indonesia. Magellan ended up proving, instead, that the world was indeed round and bigger than anyone had previously imagined.

Ferdinand Magellan was born about 1480 to a noble family in Portugal. As a boy, he served the queen of Portugal as a page, and studied cartography and navigation tenaciously.

In his mid-20s, Magellan joined the Portuguese fleet — a job that took him to East Africa, where he fought Egyptian ships in the Battle of Diu; Malacca (Malaysia), where he participated in the conquest of their port; and Morocco, where a wound resulted in a limp he would suffer for the rest of his life. While in Morocco, Magellan was accused of trading illegally with the Moors. Despite his repeated denial of the allegations, Magellan lost his post and future offers of Portuguese employment.

In 1517, Magellan moved to Seville, Spain, where he met a well-connected Portuguese transplant, Diogo Barbosa, married his daughter, Beatriz, and had a son. The Barbosas secured Magellan a meeting with the Spanish court to discuss Magellan’s idea for a voyage. Inspired by the voyages of Christopher Columbus , Vasco Núñez de Balboa and other explorers, Magellan had devised a plan to find a westward-sailing, all-water route to the Spice Islands (also called the Moluccas). Young King Charles I readily approved and financed the expedition.

Journey in the Atlantic

On Aug. 10, 1519, Magellan set sail with 270 men and five ships: the Trinidad (commanded by Magellan), the San Antonio, the Victoria, the Conception, and the Santiago. From Spain, the fleet sailed to Brazil and then headed south, hugging the coast. They were searching for a fabled water passage that would allow them to cross South America without going around Cape Horn.

Going was hard. Magellan searched Rio de la Plata, a Brazilian estuary, fruitlessly for a long time. Many crewmembers were freezing in the bad weather or starving. At Port San Julian, off the coast of Patagonia (which Magellan named), the crew mutinied against Magellan on Easter midnight. He quelled the uprising, killing one captain and leaving another behind. He also sent the Santiago ahead to scout, but it was shipwrecked. Most of the crewmembers were saved, and the fleet spent a winter of harrowing storms in Port San Julian.

Strait of Magellan

When the weather improved, Magellan set sail again. On Oct. 21, 1520, he finally found the passageway that would come to bear his name. The Strait of Magellan is a curvy, narrow channel that separates Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America from the continental mainland. Sailing through it was treacherous: dangerous to navigate, freezing cold and foggy.

It took the fleet over a month to pass through the 350-mile strait. During that time, the captain of the San Antonio turned his ship around and sailed back to Spain — taking a good deal of the supplies with him.

Pacific Ocean

After 38 days on the strait, the fleet finally emerged at the Pacific Ocean in November 1520. They were the first Europeans to see this ocean. Magellan named it Mar Pacifico because its waters appeared calm in comparison to the difficult strait waters.

Magellan underestimated the size of the ocean, and the ships were unprepared for the journey. Many crewmembers starved while searching for land. Finally in March, the ships landed at Guam. There, they were able to replenish their foot supplies before sailing to the Philippines.

Philippines and Magellan’s death

Upon landing at Cebu, Magellan was overcome with religious zeal and decided to convert the natives to Christianity. Some of the natives agreed to convert, while others did not — and the split caused problems in the population. The Cebuan king became Christian, and sought to fight against a neighboring group, the Mactan, who did not convert. The Cebuans asked Magellan to join them in their fight, and he agreed.

Against the advice of his men, Magellan led the attack, assuming his European weapons would ensure a quick victory. The Mactan people, however, fought fiercely and struck Magellan with a poison arrow. Magellan died from the wound on April 27, 1521.

Return to Spain

After Magellan’s death, Sebastian del Cano took command of the two remaining ships, the Trinidad and the Victoria (the Conception was burned because there were not enough men left to operate it). A former mutineer, del Cano led the ships to the Spice Islands . After securing the spices they had so long ago set out for, the ships set sail for Spain. The Trinidad was attacked by a Portuguese ship and left shipwrecked.

In September 1522 — three years and a month since the journey began — the Victoria docked back in Seville. Only one ship of the original five — and only 18 men of the original 270 — survived the voyage. Among them was Antonio Pigafetta, a scholar who had kept a detailed diary of the expedition.

Magellan’s accomplishments

Though Magellan did not make it around the world, he did lead the first expedition to do so. And though the Strait of Magellan was too dangerous to be used as a regular route, its mapping proved invaluable to the European understanding of the world — as did the European discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the empirical proof that the world was round. [ Countdown: 9 Craziest Ocean Voyages ]

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Jessie Szalay is a contributing writer to FSR Magazine. Prior to writing for Live Science, she was an editor at Living Social. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from George Mason University and a bachelor's degree in sociology from Kenyon College. 

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Ferdinand Magellan

How did the Pacific Ocean get its name and what did this Portuguese explorer have to do with it?

Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) was a Portuguese explorer who is credited with masterminding the first expedition to circumnavigate the world.

Magellan was sponsored by Spain to travel west across the Atlantic in search of the East Indies. In doing so, his expedition became the first from Europe to cross the Pacific Ocean and circumnavigate the world.

Who was Magellan?

Magellan was born in Portugal and was a successful explorer and navigator. He wanted to reach South-East Asia, where spices grew and gems were to be found, by sailing westwards across the Atlantic Ocean. He hoped to find a passage through South America so that he could sail all the way from the Atlantic to the ocean beyond the Americas (now known as the Pacific). He left Spain in 1519 with five ships and about 260 men.

Did he find a passage through South America?

Magellan found the strait that is now named after him, but only by chance. When two of his ships were driven towards land in a storm, the men feared they would be wrecked on the shore. Then, just in time, they spotted a small opening in the coastline. It was the passage for which they had been searching since they left home.

Where did the name ‘Pacific’ come from?

Magellan named the ocean the Pacific (meaning 'peaceful') because it was calm and pleasant when he entered it. 

By now one of his ships had deserted, but the other four started the journey across their new-found sea. To everyone's amazement, the crossing was to take three months and 20 days. Magellan and his men suffered terrible hunger on the voyage. They ran out of fresh food and many died of scurvy.

Did Magellan get home safely?

No: he was killed in a fight with islanders in the Philippines. He died on 27 April 1521 on Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines.

So although he had masterminded the first expedition to sail around the world, he didn’t complete the voyage. In fact, the first person to sail around the world was a Malaysian, who had come back to Europe with Magellan many years before and then went as an interpreter on his later voyage. The first European to complete the circumnavigation was Magellan's second-in-command, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who took over after his death.

How many men returned to Spain?

Of all the men who sailed with Magellan, only 18 returned to Spain in 1522. People were amazed when they saw those on board the one remaining ship, Victoria , for they looked starved and filthy.

Did people make use of the trade route Magellan had discovered?

The western sea route to the Spice Islands was not used for many years. Spain was too busy taking land in South America, and it was easier for the Portuguese to get to the East by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.

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August 5, 2019

500 years on, how Magellan's voyage changed the world

Ferdinand Magellan set off from Spain 500 years ago on an epoch-making voyage to sail all the way around the globe for the first time.

The Portuguese explorer was killed by islanders in the Philippines two years into the adventure, leaving Spaniard Juan Sebastian Elcano to complete the three-year trip. But it is Magellan's name that is forever associated with the voyage.

"Magellan is still an inspiration 500 years on," said Fabien Cousteau, a French filmmaker and underwater explorer like his grandfather Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

"He was a pioneer at a time when explorers who went off into the unknown had a strong habit of not coming back."

Here are five ways in which Magellan's voyage marked human history and continues to inspire scientists and explorers today.

Some of them spoke to AFP at a conference in Lisbon to mark the August 10 fifth centenary.

Magellan's voyage was a turning point in history, as unique as the first manned journey into outer space and the later moon landings, said NASA scientist Alan Stern, leader of its New Horizons interplanetary space probe.

"When the first one circled the planet, (that) sort of meant that we now had our arms around the planet for the first time," he said.

"That just transformed humanity in my view. I would call it the first planetary event, in the same way that Yuri Gagarin was the first off-planetary event" when the Soviet cosmonaut went into outer space.

Geographical

Magellan's voyage rewrote the maps and geography books. He was the first to discover the strait, which now bears his name, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the tip of South America.

"Perhaps his greatest feat, and still considered today one of the greatest feats of the history of navigation, was negotiating this strait, of which there were no maps and whose existence was vaguely rumoured," said US historian Laurence Bergreen, author of a biography of Magellan.

Philosophical

The voyage transformed humans' own conception of their place in the world.

"It wasn't just geography and anthropology, it showed something philosophical: that it's all one world," said Bergreen.

"Before Magellan people didn't really know that. They didn't know how the world was connected or how big it was."

Astronomical

The voyage contributed to Europeans' knowledge of the universe and has marked the worlds of space exploration and astronomy to this day.

While crossing the Magellan Strait, the explorer and his crew observed two galaxies visible to the naked eye from the southern hemisphere, now known as the Magellanic Clouds.

Some recently-designated areas of the surface of Mars have been given the same names that Magellan gave to parts of South America, with Bergreen's help. A giant telescope being developed in Chile will also bear the explorer's name.

Inspirational

Magellan's achievement was a landmark in the history of exploration still hailed by his modern-day successors.

"In the space program, to prepare for these long duration missions, we say 'the lessons for the future are written in the past'," said Dafydd Williams, a former NASA astronaut, now 65, who went on two space missions.

"So many in the space program have read about Magellan."

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Ferdinand Magellan

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

(1480-1521)

Who Was Ferdinand Magellan?

As a boy, Ferdinand Magellan studied mapmaking and navigation. By his mid-20s, he was sailing in large fleets and was engaged in combat. In 1519, with the support of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Magellan set out to find a better route to the Spice Islands. He assembled a fleet of ships which, despite huge setbacks and Magellan’s death, circumnavigated the world in a single voyage.

Magellan was born in Portugal, either in the city of Porto or in Sabrosa, circa 1480. His parents were members of the Portuguese nobility and after their deaths, Magellan became a page for the queen, at age 10. He studied at Queen Leonora's School of Pages in Lisbon and spent his days poring over texts on cartography, astronomy, and celestial navigation — subjects that would serve him well in his later pursuits.

Navigator and Explorer

In 1505, when Magellan was in his mid-20s, he joined a Portuguese fleet that was sailing to East Africa. By 1509, he found himself at the Battle of Diu, in which the Portuguese destroyed Egyptian ships in the Arabian Sea. Two years later, he explored Malacca, located in present-day Malaysia, and participated in the conquest of Malacca's port. It was there that he acquired a native servant he named Enrique. It is possible that Magellan sailed as far as the Moluccas, islands in Indonesia, then called the Spice Islands. The Moluccas were the original source of some of the world's most valuable spices, including cloves and nutmeg. The conquest of spice-rich countries was, as a result, a source of much European competition.

While serving in Morocco, in 1513, Magellan was wounded and walked the remainder of his life with a limp. After his injury, he was falsely accused of trading illegally with the Moors, and despite all of his service to Portugal, and his many pleas to the king, any further offers of employment were withheld him.

In 1517, Magellan moved to Seville, Spain, to offer his skills to the Spanish court. His departure from Portugal came at an opportune time. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) declared all newly discovered and yet to be discovered territories east of the demarcation line (46°30′ W) were given to Portugal and all territories west of the line were given to Spain. In the three years following his departure from Portugal, Magellan had religiously studied all of the most recent navigation charts. Like all navigators of the time, he understood from Greek texts that the world was round. He believed that he could find a shorter route to the Spice Islands by sailing west, across the Atlantic Ocean, around South America and across the Pacific. This was not a new idea, Christopher Columbus and Vasco Núñez de Balboa had paved the way, but such a voyage would give the Spanish open access to the Spice Islands without having to travel across areas controlled by the Portuguese.

Final Years and Death

Magellan presented his plan to King Charles I of Spain (soon to become Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire), who gave his blessing. On September 20, 1519, he set out with a fleet of five fully supplied ships, but hardly adequate to sail the distances he proposed. The fleet sailed first to Brazil and then down the coast of South America to Patagonia. There an attempted mutiny took place and one of the ships was wrecked. Despite the setback, the crew continued on with the four remaining vessels.

By October 1520, Magellan and his men had entered what is now called the Strait of Magellan. It took them over a month to pass through the strait, during which time the master of one of the ships deserted and sailed back home. The remaining ships sailed across the Pacific Ocean. In March 1521, the fleet anchored in Guam.

Later in March, 1521, Magellan’ fleet reached Homonhom Island on the edge of the Philippines with less than 150 of the 270 men who started the expedition. Magellan traded with Rajah Humabon, the island king, and a bond was quickly formed. The Spanish crew soon became involved in a war between Humabon and another rival leader and Magellan was killed in battle on April 27, 1521.

The remaining crew escaped the Philippines and continued on towards the Spice Islands, arriving in November 1521. The Spanish commander of the last ship, the Victoria, set sail December and reached Spain on September 8, 1522.

The Controversy Over Who was First

There has been considerable debate around who were the first persons to circumnavigate the globe. The easy answer is Juan Sabastian Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan’s fleet starting from Spain on September 20, 1519, and returning in September 1522. But there is another candidate who might have gone around the world before them — Magellan’ servant Enrique. In 1511, Magellan was on a voyage for Portugal to the Spice Islands and participated in the conquest of Malacca where he acquired his servant Enrique. Fast forward ten years later, Enrique is with Magellan in the Philippines. After Magellan’s death, it is reported that Enrique was grief-stricken and when he found out he was not going to be freed, contrary to Magellan’s will, he ran away. At this point the record gets murky. Some accounts state Enrique fled into the forest. Official Spanish records list Enrique as one of the men massacred in the attack, but some historians question the records’ credibility or accuracy, citing a bias against Indigenous peoples.

So, it is possible that if Enrique had survived after his escape, he might have made his way back to Malacca where he was originally enslaved by Magellan back in 1511. If true, it would mean Enrique — not Elcano and the surviving members of the crew — was the first person to circumnavigate the globe, albeit not in a single voyage.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Ferdinand Magellan
• Birth Year: 1480
• Birth City: Sabrosa or Porto
• Birth Country: Portugal
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: While in the service of Spain, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan led the first European voyage of discovery to circumnavigate the globe.
• Nationalities
• Death Year: 1521
• Death date: April 27, 1521
• Death City: Mactan
• Death Country: Philippines

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