VS
 

Magellan landed on the island of Homonhon on March

Magellan March
17, 1521.
1521. He befriended with Raja Kulambu
Kulambu who ruled
Limasawaa that time and guided him to Cebu
Limasaw Cebu on April

7. Magellan
brought fromtold h isallMalay
his
Asia slavthrough
slave
the way e Enrique, who heand
Portugal h ad
had
Spain and who therefore, with Magellan, was the first
man to circumnavigate the worldto
worldto assure the people
peo ple

of Cebu that they had come as friends, not as enemies.

 

 W ith
ith the assurance of being a friend and not as enemies,
Rajah Humabon
Humabon which was the Cebu chief that time,
 welcomed Magellan as his friends. A blood compact
 was then made between Rajah Humabon
Humabon and
Magellan and gifts were exchanged.
 

OnApril 17, a mass

mas s was
was held on
o n the shore of Cebu. A 
cross was set up where in Cebuanos could clearly see it.
On that day
day,, 800 Cebuanos
Cebua nos were converted into
Christ ianity.. Among these
Christianity these were
were Raja Humabon
himself, who received the Christian name of Carlos in
honor of the King of Spain. Humabon
Humabonss wife, the first
Philippine queen to espouse the Catholic faith, was
bapti zed Juana in honor
baptized hon or of the King Carlos
Carlos mother
mother.. To
To
her,, Magellan
her Magella n gave
gave an image of the Holy Infant
Infa nt Jesus.
 

 W hy
hy did Magellan interfere in the
quarrel between
between the two Mactan
chieftains?  W as
as he right in doing
so? Give your reas
reasons.
ons.
 

y W hy
hy did Magellan interfere in the quarrel of the two
Mactan
Mactan chi
chieft
eftain
ains?
s?

On the same day that Magellan

Ma gellan was converting
converting the
Cebuanos into Christianity,
Christianity, a quarrel between the two
two
chiefs of the neighboring
neighboring island
island of Mactan occu
occurred.
rred.
Rajah Sula asked for Magellan
Magellans help to defeat his rival,
rival,
Rajah Si Lapu
Lapu Lap
Lapu,
u, wh
who
o Sula sai
said,
d, refus
refused
ed to
to
recognize the King of Spain as his king. Upon hearing
that, Magellan with some sixty men, embarked to
Mactan
Macta n to punis
punishh Lapu Lapu. Rajah
Rajah Humabon,
Humabon, offer
offered
ed
the help of his warriors, but Magellan refused down
the offer saying that the Spaniards could handle the
Mactan
Mactan wa
warri
rriors
ors..
 

Magellan demanded that Lapu-lapu and his men pay

pay him
tribute to show that they recognized
recognize d the sovereignty of 
the Spanish king over
over them. Lapu-lapu refused toto do so,
and Magellan andand some of his men then waded ashore
and attack
attacked
ed the Mactan defen
defenders
ders..
 

 W ith
ith bolos,arrows
arro ws and spears with fire-hardened
f ire-hardened bamboo
tips, Lapu-lapu and his men fought them and wounded
wounded
Magellan. The Spaniards retreated, leaving their wounded
commander. Seeing this, Lapu-lapu
Lapu-lapuss men swarmed ovover
er
Magellan and showered him with spears. Thus died
Magellan, the
th e first
fi rst man to go
go around the world.
 

 W ith
ithhis brilliant victory
victory,, Lapu-lapu rose to
to fame as the first
champion of Filipino freedom. He was the first hero to
repulse W estern aggression against the Filipinos.

The Spaniards hurried back to Cebu after their defeat in nearby 

Mactan. Having lost face, they
the y were
were no longer feared or
respected by the Cebuanos. In place of the fallen Magellan,
the Spaniards chose two new commandersDuarte Barbosa
and Juan Serrano.
 

 A feast was held in Cebu on May 2, 1521. Twenty-seven

Twenty-seven
Spaniar
paniards,
ds, includin
including
g Barbosa and Serrano, went to the
feast and were
were massacred.
massacred. The Cebuanos
Cebuanos killed them
because some of them not only robbed the Cebuanos but
also raped some of the Cebu women.
women. Those who
remained in the ships sailed away when they learned
about the fearful massacre.
 

y W as
as he right in doing so?

y
No..
No
Give your reasons.
First of all, Magellan assured
assured the people
peop le of Cebu that he
came here as a friend and not as an enemy yet he still
broke what he said.
sa id.

If he didnt
didnt interfere in the quarrel,
quar rel, Magellan wouldnt
wouldnt
S S
die becausewer
Lapu-Lapu at the
were e thefirst
oneplace,
who Rajah
has theul
ula
a an
and
d Raja
argumentRajah
h he
and i
shouldnt get in it.
 

 W hat
hat was the importance of Magellans
Magellans expedition?
expedi tion?

Considering the inadequacy of marine instruments at the

time, Magellan´s voyag
voyagee can be considered as the
t he greatest
greatest
single trip ever undertaken. In terms of the hardships the

men endured
maritime andhas
exploit theperhaps
couragenever
courage they displayed,
dis
beenplayed, Magellan
Magellans
surpassed. Thes
route he took to reach the Philippines was entirely new,
and the  V enetian monopoly
m onopoly of the
t he trade route to the east
 was thus broken. Spain became
becam e the supreme power
power in the
building of a colonial empire.
Magellans
Magellan s voyage
voyage vastly increased the geographical
knowledge of mankind and proved once and for all that the
earth is oblique spheroid.
 

Magellan's expedition of 1519-1522 was first to sail from the Atlantic

Ocean into the Pacific Ocean, and to cross the Pacific.
Pacif ic. It also
completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth, although
Magellan himself
him self did not complete the entire voyage.
voyage.
 

Final
Finally the voyage paved the way to Spanish colonization
ly,, the
and Christianization of the Philippines. The later
 voyages of Fernando de  V illalobos
illalobos and Miguel Lopez de
Legaspi,
Legas pi, to a certain extent, owed their success to
Magellans epochal voyage to the Far East.

From the point of view

v iew of the
the Filipinos, Magellan
Magellanss
expedition
exped ition was signif
significant
icant because
be cause it paved the way for
contacts between the Philippines
Philipp ines and western
western
civilization.