Magellan’s Voyage

Around the World

Historical Context
Source Documents
• Albo, Francisco – Diario o derrotero del viage de Magallanes…
(1519)
• Bautista, Juan (Genoese Pilot) – Roteiro de navegacam de
Fernam de Magalhaes (1826)
• Correa, Gaspar – Lendas de India (1858)
• Oliveirius, Fernandus de Sancta Columba – Viagem do
Maglhaes (The Leiden Manuscript, 16th c.)
• Mafra, Gines de. Libro que trata del descubrimiento y principio
del estrecho que se llama de Magallanes (1920)
• Martire, Pietro d’Anghierra – “De orbe novo” (1530)
• Pigafetta, Antonio – II primo intorno viaggio al mondo (1536)
• Transylvanus, Maximilianus – De Molucis insulis (1522)
SPICES

Other products: porcelain, silk, incense, herbs, perfumes, fabrics, carpets, spices
and other oriental products.
CRUSADE
The marriage of Queen
Isabella of Castile and
King Ferdinand of
Aragon (1469) coupled
with the victory of the
Catholic monarchs over
the Moors in the Battle
of Granada (1492)
resulted in the rise of
Spain as a world
power.
 The Search for a Westward Route to the
Indies
• The race for the “Spice Islands”
• Inter Cetera and the Treaty of Tordesillas (1492)
• The Portuguese Conquest of Malacca (1511)
 Treaty of Tordesillas

Spain and Portugal were the first countries to make a push for exploration. The Treaty of
Tordesillas divide the world between Spain and Portugal to keep the peace; everything west
of the line belonged to Spain, while everything east of the line belonged to Portugal.
 Ferdinand
Magellan
• Born ca. 1480 in Porto,
Sabroso, Portugal
• Served under the
Portuguese flag in India
(1505) and in the conquest
of Malacca (1511), bought a
slave and named him
Enrique, probably from
Sumatra
• Walked with a limp due to
injury while serving under
the Portuguese flag in
Morocco in 1513
Ferdinand Magellan
• Initially presented his plan to a
westward route to King Manoel I
in 1516 but was rejected
• Arrived in Seville, Spain on 20
Oct. 1517 and soon presented to
King Carlos I his plan to find a
Westerly route to the Indies
• Staunch and devout Catholic,
married to Dona Beatriz de
Barbosa shortly before departure
to the Indies in 1519
King Carlos I (V)
• Born in 1500
• Son of Queen Juana and
grandson of King Ferdinand II
• Arrived from Belgium in
September 1517 with no
knowledge of the Castilian
language
• Issued a Capitulacion (contract)
to Magellan and cosmographer
Faleiro on 22 March 1518
authorizing the expedition to
the east via westerly route
Antonio Pigafetta
• Born ca. 1491 in Vicenza,
Italy: family moved later to
Florence
• Originally, Plegafetta, then
Pagafetta until, finally,
Pigafetta
• Member of the Knights of
Rhodes
 Antonio Pigafetta
• Applied to join the expedition
and was listed under the title
criados del capitan y
soresalientes
• For some unexplained reason
he disliked Sebastian de Elcano
• Wrote profusely about the
people the expedition met and
even drafted the vocabulary of
some natives languages,
including Rajah Humabon’s
Cebuano language.
The Fleet and Its Crew
• Trinidad – Ferdinand Magellan
• Santiago – Juan Serrano
• Victoria – Luis de Mendoza or Mendoa
• Concepcion – Gaspar Quesada
• San Antonio – Juan de Cartagena
The Magellan-Elcano expedition left the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda in Seville on
Aug. 20, 1519 with around 270 men of different nationalities.
 Mutiny

This is a painting of the mutiny to overthrow Magellan. - Stefano Bianchetti

 “As (the mutineers) understood that Gaspar de
Quesada was a friend of Magellan's, Juan de
Cartagena got in his boat at night, with twenty men,
and went to the ship of Gaspar de Quesada... in order
that all three might go at once to board Magellan and
kill him..."

The First Voyage Around the World by Magellan by Antonio Pigafetta

and Lord Stanley Alderley, 1520
 Magellan acted decisively to protect the
future of the expedition.
The Captain-major went to the said three ships which
were already mentioned, and there the captain of one
of them was killed, who was treasurer of the whole
fleet, and named Luis de Mendoa; he was killed in his
own ship by stabs with a dagger by the chief
constable of the fleet, who was sent to do this by
Fernando de Magelhaes."
Pigafetta's Logbook, 1520
 In 1521, Pigafetta recorded that:

“Wednesday, November 18, 1520…We were three months and twenty

days without refreshment from any kind of fresh food. We ate biscuit
which was no longer biscuit but its powder, swarming with worms, the
rats having eaten all the good. It stank strongly of their urine. We drank
yellow water already many days putrid. We also ate certain ox hides
that covered the top of the yards to prevent the yards from chafing the
shrouds, and which had become exceedingly hard because of the sun,
rain and wind. We soaked them in the sea for four or five days, then
placed them for a short time over the hot embers and ate them thus,
and often we ate sawdust. Rats were sold for half a ducat apiece, and
even so we could not always get them.”
1521 was when the first contact between the Spanish forces and
the inhabitants of Cebu
Enrique de Malacca
Allegiance to Rajah Humabon
Beginning of
Christianity
???
THE BATTLE OF MACTAN
LAPU-LAPU
Our image of Lapu-lapu (left) as a gym-toned
warrior may need to change because he was
70 years old at the time of the Battle of
Mactan and probably had the features of
Humabon (right) who was short and fat.
 A new portrait of Lapu-Lapu
was unveiled by the National
Historical Commission of the
Philippines (NHCP). The
painting was made by artist
Carlo Caacbay from Bulacan.
Magellan was 41 years
old when he was killed
in the Battle of Mactan.
Far from a typical
solider-built, Magellan
was of shorter stature,
and was limping.
Misunderstanding of Lapulapu and Humabon
 “On Friday, April 26, Zula, a chief of the island of Mactan, sent
one of his sons to present two goats to the captain-general, and
to say that he would send him all that he had promised, but that
he had not been able to send it to him because of the other
chief Cilapulapu, who refused to obey the king of Spagnia.
He requested the captain to send him only one boatload of men
on the next night, so that they might help him and fight against
the other chief. The captain-general decided to go thither with
three boatloads. We begged him repeatedly not to go, but he,
like a good shepherd, refused to abandon his flock. At midnight,
sixty men of us set out armed with corselets and helmets,
together with the Christian king, the prince, some of the chief
men, and twenty or thirty balanguais.
 A reproduction of the map
drawn by Pigafetta of the
islands of Cebu and Mactan.
The two islands of Cebu and
Mactan became the focal points
of the unfolding drama of
Spain’s earliest effort in the
colonization of the islands but
was thwarted by the resistance
of the chieftains of the villages in
Mactan led by the old Lapulapu
 “We reached Mactan three hours before dawn. The captain
did not wish to fight then, but sent a message to the
natives by the Moro to the effect that if they would obey
the king of Spagnia, recognize the Christian king as their
sovereign, and pay us our tribute, he would be their
friend; but that if they wished otherwise, they should wait
to see how our lances wounded. They replied that if we had
lances they had lances of bamboo and stakes hardened with
fire. [They asked us] not to proceed to attack them at once,
but to wait until morning, so that they might have more men.
They said that in order to induce us to go in search of them;
for they had dug certain pitholes between the houses in order
that we might fall into them.”
 Battle of Mactan
• Magellan together with his 49 men VS. Lapu-lapu and 1500 men.
(Pigafetta’s exaggerated estimate)

• According to Pigafetta, the battle cost the European’s eight dead

and a large but unspecified number of wounded. Four of
Humabon’s warrior killed, although when and where these
warriors killed are not known.

• Pigaffeta’s account mentions that the ships’ cannon killed fifteen

of Lapu-lapu’s men but does not say how many casualties Lapu
Lapu’s warriors sustained during the heat of the battle itself.
Killed by the Natives
Died as a Portuguese
Completing the Circumnavigation
• 21 September 1521 – Juan Sebastian de Elcano
becomes Captain of the Victoria
• 8 November 1521 – Arrival at Tidore in the
Moluccas (now Maluku, Indonesia); purchase and
loading of spices for the return voyage begins
shortly
• 29 December 1521 – Departure of the Victoria; the
Trinidad stays for repairs at Tidore
• Prompted them to leave
the island.
• By that time, their number
was just enough to man
two ships, the Victoria
(now under the command
of Juan Sebastian Elcano)
and Trinidad.
 On September 7,
1522, Elcano and 17
survivors arrived in
Spain aboard the
ship Victoria.
 Magellan’s Voyage Around the World by
Antonio Pigafetta
• Returned to Italy -> Write a formal account
• Presented his draft to Pope Clement VII, Philippe
de Villiers L’Isle-Adam (grandmaster of the Knights
of Rhodes) and to Louis of Savoy (mother of King
Francis I of France), hoping that they would help
him finance its publication.
Relevance/Significance
• Maximilianus Transylvanus’
De Moluccis Insulis (The
Moluccas Islands) came off
the press.
– Secondary Source
– Interviewees: Juan Sebastian
Elcano, Francisco Albo and
Hernando de Bustamante
 Magellan’s Voyage Around the World by
Antonio Pigafetta
• The original journal of Pigafetta did not survive
time
• James Alexander Robertson made his own English
version of the Ambrosian copy and it appeared in
The Philippine Islands (volume 33). 1819
Relevance/Signifance
• European Historiography
– Magellan’s expedition proved that the earth is not flat but an
oblate sphere
– They confirmed that the Portuguese route is not the only way
to the Spice Islands
– They proved the theory that one can go to the east by sailing
west
– They brought to the attention of the Europeans that on the
other side of the American continent exists a large body of
water which they named Pacific Ocean (Mar Pacifico)
Relevance/Significance
• Philippine Historiography
– Contains important details about the conditions of the
Visayan Islands in the 16th century
• The prominent leaders during that time
• Economic activities
• Social and Cultural practices
• Religious beliefs
Relevance/Signifance
• Philippine Historiography
– Beginning of Christianity in the Philippines
– The First Mass in the Philippines
– The Conversion of Rajah Humabon and his wife
– The story of the image of the Sto. Nino
Antonio Pigafetta

• He joined the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in its

battle against the Turks
• He died sometime in 1534