A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE FIRST

VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD BY

MAGELLAN BY ANTONIO
PIGAFETTA
and
ANALYSIS OF PIGAFETTA’S
CHRONICLE
 FERDINAND MAGELLAN
 February 3 1480- April 25,
1521
 Portuguese Explorer who
organised the Spanish
Expeditions to the East Indies
from 1519-1522 to search for
western route to the Maluku
Islands ( the Spice Island)
resulting in the first
circumnavigation of the
Earth, completed by Juan
Sebastian Elcano
 ANTONIO PIGAFETTA
 1491-1531
 Italian scholar and
explorer from the
republic of Venice
 He traveled with the
portugese explorer
Ferdinand Magellan and
his crew by order of the
King Charles 1 of Spain
on their Voyage around
the world.
 His work became a classic that prominent literary
men in the West like William Shakespeare, Michel
de Montaigne and Giambattista Vico referredto the
book in their interpretation of the New World.
 His travelogue is one of the most important primary
sources in the study of precolonial Philippines.
 His account was also a major referent to the events
leading to Magellans arrival in the Philippines, his
encounter with local leaders, his death in the hands
of Lapulapu’s forces in the Battle of Mactan and in
the depature of what was left of Magellan’s fleet
from the islands.
 The First Voyage Around the World by
Magellan
 The document reveals several insights not just in
the character of the Philippines during pre
colonial period, but also on how the fresh eyes of
the European regard a deeply unfamiliar terrain,
environment, people and culture.
 Published after Pigafetta returned to Italy.
 Antonio Pigafetta wrote his firsthand
observation and general impression of the Far
East including their Experiences in the Visayas.

In Pigafetta’s account, their fleet reached what he

called the Ladrones Islands or the “Islands of the
Thieves”
“These people have no arms, but use sticks,
which have a fishbone at the end. They are
poor, but ingenious, and great thieves, and
for the sake of that we called these three
islands the Ladrones Islands”.
 Ladrones Island
 Presently known as Marianas Islands.
 It is located south-southeast of Japan, west-
southwest of Hawaii, north of New Guinea, and
east of Philippines
 March 16, 1521
 Pigafetta reported that they reach the isle of
Zamal, now Samar, but Magellan decided to land
in another uninhabited island for greater security
where they could rest for a few days.
 After two days, March 18, nine men came to
them and show joy and eagerness in seeing them
and welcomed them with food, drinks, and gifts.
 The natives gave them:
› Fish
› Palm wine ( uraca)
› figs
› 2 cochos
› Rice (umai)
› cocos
 Pigafetta described what seemed like a coconut.
“This palm produces a fruit names cocho, which is
large as the head, or thereabouts: its first husk is
green, and two fingers in thickness, in it they find
certain threads, with which they make the cords for
fastening their boats. Under this husks there is another
very hard, and thicker than that of a walnut. They
burned this second rind, and make with it a powder
which is useful to them. Under this rind there is a
white marrow of a fingers thickness, which they eat
fresh with meat and fish, as we do bread, and it has
the taste of almond, and if anyone dried it he might
make bread of it.
 “very familiar and friendly”
 Willingly showed them different islands and the
names of this islands.
 They went to Humunu Island (Homonhon)
(Watering Place of Good Signs) where they
found the first signs of gold in the island.
 They named the island with the nearby islands as
the Archipelago of St. Lazarus
 March 25, they saw two ballangai (balangay)
 Ballangai( balangay)
 A long boat full of people in Mazzava/ Mazaua.
 The leader (king) (Raia Siagu) sent his men to
the ship of Magellan.
 The king offered to give Magellan a bar of gold
and chest of ginger, Magellan declined. Instead
Magellan asked for money for the needs of his
ships. The king responded by giving them the
needed provisions and food in chinaware.
 Magellan exchanged gifts of robes in Turkish
fashions, red cap, knives and mirrors.
 The two men expressed their desire to become
brothers.
 Magellan also boasted of his men in an armor
who could not struck with swords and daggers.
The king was fascinated and remarked that men
in such armor could be worth one hundred of his
men.
 Magellan showed other weapons, helmets and
artilleries. He also shared his charts and maps
and how they found the islands.
 Magellan was introduced to the king’s brother
who was also king of another island.
 They went to this island and they saw mines of
gold.
 The gold was abundant that the parts of the ship
and the house of the second king were made of
gold.
 Raia Calambu
 King of Zuluan and Calagan ( Butuan and
Caragua)
 Pigafetta described him as the most handsome of
all men that he saw in this place.
 He was adorned with sick and golden accecories
like golden dagger, which he carried with him in
a wooden polished sheath.
 March 31 (Easter Sunday)
 Magellan ordered the chaplain to preside a Mass
by the shore.
 The king sent two dead pigs and attended the
Mass with the other king.
“…when the offertory of the mass came, the two
kings, went to kiss the cross like us, but they
offered nothing, and at the elevation of the body of
our Lord they were kneeling like us, and adored our
Lord with joined hands.”
 After the Mass, Magellan ordered that the cross
be brought with nails and crowned in place.
 Magellan explained that the cross, the nail, and
the crown were the signs of his emperor and that
he was ordered to plant it in the places that he
would reach and the cross would be beneficial for
their people because once the Spaniards saw this
cross, then they would know that they had been
in this land and would not cause them troubles,
and any person who might be held captives by
them would be released.
 April 7 1521
 Magellan and his men reached the port of Cebu,
the largest and the richest of the islands with the
helped of Raia Calambu.
 The king of Cebu (Rajah Humabon) demanded
that they pay tribute as it was customary but
Magellan refused.
 Magellan said that he was the captain himself and
thus would not pay tribute to the other king.
 Magellan’s interpreter explained to the king of
Cebu that Magellan’s king was the emperor of
the great empire and that it would do them better
to make friends with them than to forge enmity.
 The king consulted his council and the next day,
together with the other principal men of Cebu,
they met in an open space and the king offered a
bit of his blood demanded that Magellan do the
same.
“Then the king said that he was content, and as a
greater sign of affection he sent him a little of his
blood from his right arm, and wish he should do the
like. Our people answered that he would do it.
Besides that, he said that all the captains who came
to his country had been accustomed to make a
present to him, and he to them, and therefore they
should ask their captain if he would observe the
custom. Our people answered that he would: but as
the king wished to keep up the custom, let him
begin and make a present, and then the captain
would do his duty.”
 Magellan spoke about peace and God. People
took pleasure in his speech.
 Magellan asked the people who would succeed
the king after his reign and the people responded
that the eldest child of the king, who happened to
be a daughter, would be the next in line.
 Parents were no longer taken into account and
has to follow the orders of their children as the
new leaders of the land.
 People wished to become Christians through their
free will and not because they were forced or
intimidated.
 April 14
 The people gathered with the king and other
principal men of the island.
 Magellan spoke and encouraged the king to be a
good Christian by burning all the idols and
worship the cross instead.
 The king of Cebu was baptized as Christians.
 “To that the king and all his people answered that
thy would obey the commands of the captain and do
all that he told them. The captain took the king by
the hand, and they walk about on the scaffolding,
and when he was baptized he said that he would
name him Don Charles (Carlos), as the emperor his
sovereign was named: and he named the Prince Don
Fernand (Fernando), after the brother of the
emperor, and the king of Mazavva Jehan: to the
Moor he gave the name of Christopher, and to the
others each a name of his fancy.”.
 After eight days, all of the islands inhabitant
were already baptized.
 Pigafetta admitted that they burned a village
down for obeying neither the king nor Magellan.
 The Mass was conducted by the shore everyday.
 When the queen (Hara Amihan) came to the
Mass one day, Magellan gave her an Image of the
Infant Jesus made by Pigafetta himself.
 April 26
 Zula, a principal man from the island of Matan
(Mactan) went to see Magellan and ask him a
boat full of men so that he could fight the chief
name Silalapulapu (Lapulapu).
 According to Zula, Lapulapu refused to obey the
king and was also preventing him from doing so.
 Magellan offered three boats and went to Mactan
himself to fight Lapulapu.
 They arrived in Mactan in daylight with 49 in
numbers while the islanders of Mactan were
estimated to number 1500.
 “ When we reached land we found the islanders
fifteen hundred in number, drawn up in three
squadrons; they came down upon us with terrible
shouts, two squadrons attacking us on the flanks,
and the third in front. The captain then divided his
men in two bands. Our musketeers and crossbow-
men fired for half an hour from a distance, but did
nothing, since the bullets and arrows, though they
passed through their shields made of thin wood, and
perhaps wounded their arms, yet did not stop them.
 The captain shouted not to fire, but he was not
listened to. The islanders seeing that the shots of
our guns did them little or no harm would not retire,
but shouted more loudly, and springing from one
side to the other to avoid our shots, they at the same
time drew nearer to us, throwing arrows, javelins,
spears hardened in fire, stones and even mud, so
that we could hardly defend ourselves. Some of
them cast lances pointed with iron at the captain-
general.”
 Magellan died in the battle.
 The natives perceiving that the bodies of the
enemies were protected with armors, aimed for
their legs instead.
 Magellan was pierced with a poisoned arrow in
his right leg.
 A few of their men charges at the natives and
tried to intimidate them by burning an entire
village but this only enraged the natives further.
 Magellan was specifically targeted because the
native knew he was the captain general.
 Magellan was hit with a lance in the face.
Magellan retaliated and pierced the same native
with his lance in the breast and tried to draw his
sword but could not lift it because of his
wounded arms. One native with a great sword
delivered a blow in Magellan’s left leg, brought
him face down and the natives ceaselessly
attacked Magellan with lances, swords and even
their bare hands.
“Whilst the Indians were thus overpowering him,
several times he turned round towards us to see if
we were all in safety, as though his obstinate fight
had no other object than to give an opportunity for
the retreat of his men.”
 The king of Cebu who was baptized could have
sent help but Magellan instructed him not to join
the battle and stay in the balangay so that he
would see how they fought.
 The king offered the people of Mactan’s gifts of
any value and amount in exchange of Magellan’s
body but the chief refused. They wanted to keep
Magellan’s body as a momento of their victory.
 Duarte Barbosa is elected as the new captain.
 Henry, Magellan’s slave and interpreter betrayed
them and told the king of Cebu that they intended
to leave as quickly as possible. The slave
allegedly told the king that if he followed his
advice, the king would acquire the ships and the
goods of Magellan’s fleet.
 The two conspired and betrayed what was left of
Magellan’s men.
 The king invited these men to a gathering where
he said he would present the jewels that he would
send for the King of Spain.
 Twenty-four men attended while Pigafetta was
not able to joined because he was nursing his
battle wounds.
 The natives had slain all the men except the
interpreter and Juan Serrano who was already
wounded.
 The fleet departed and abandoned Serrano.
 They left Cebu and continued their journey
around the world.
 From the original five ships set to sail( San
Antonio, Concepcion, Victoria, Trinidad and
Santiago) only Victoria returned to Spain.
 And from the original 237 men only 18 men
survived.
ANALYSIS OF PIGAFETTA’S
CHRONICLE
“The best storyteller is the one
who not only knows the story but
saw it.”
 One of the most cited documents by historians
who wished to study the pre colonial Philippines.
 One of the earliest written accounts.
 Pigaffetta was seen as a credible source for a
period, which was prior unchronicled and
undocumented.
 Earliest detailed documentation.
 It was believed that Pigafetta’s writing s account
fot the “purest” precolonial society.
 Pigafetta’s work is a great importance in study
and writing of Philippine history.
 We should recognized certain biases
accompanying the author and his identity,
loyalties, and the circumstances that he was in;
and how it affected the text that he produced.
 We need to understand that he was a chronicler
commissioned by the King of Spain to
accompany and document a voyage intended to
expand the Spanish empire. A noble descent who
came from a rich family in Italy.
 These attributes influenced his narrative, his
selection of details to be included in the text, his
characterization of the people and of the species
that he encountered, and his interpretation and
retelling of the events.
 Being a scholar of cartography and geography,
Pigafetta was able to give details on geography
and climate of the places that their voyage has
reached.
 Pigafetta’s description to people was coming
from sixteenth century European perspective.
 Pigaffetta regarded the indigenous belief systems
and way of life as inferior to Christianity and of
the Europeans.
 He always remarks on the nakedness of the
natives or how he was fascinated by their exotic
culture.
 He emphasized the native’s amazement and
illiteracy to the European artillery, merchandise
and other goods.
 He repeatedly mentioned the abundance of spices
like ginger, and of precious metals like gold.
 When they saw the indigenous attires of the
natives, Pigafetta saw them as being naked
because from the European standpoint, they were
wearing fewer clothes.
 Pigafetta’s perspective was too narrow to realize
that such attire was only appropriate to the
tropical climate of the islands.
 The same for the materials that the native used
for their houses like palm and bamboo that would
let more air come through the house and
compensate for the hot climate in the islands.
 We should understand that such observations
were rooted from the context of Pigafetta and his
era.
 Europe
 Dominated by the Holy Roman Empire.
 Loyalty and purpose was the domination of the
Catholic Church all over the world. Other belief
systems different from that of Christianity were
perceived to be blasphemous and barbaric, even
demonic.
 Sixteen century European economy was
mercantilist (system measures the wealth of
kingdom based on their accumulation of bullions
or precious metals like gold and silver.
 That’s why Pigafetta always mention the
abundance of gold in the islands as shown in his
description of leaders wearing gold rings and
golden daggers, and of the gold mines.
 An empire like Spain would indeed search for
new lands where they could acquire more gold
and wealth to be on top of all the European
nations.
 The obsession with spices might be odd for
Filipinos because of its ordinariness in the
Philippines, but understanding the context would
reveal that spices were scarce in Europe.