THE FIRST MAN TO CIRCLE

THE GLOBE
CIRCUMNAVIGATE

TO GO COMPLETELY AROUND
SAIL ALL THE WAY ARAOUND THE WORLD
ANTONIO PIGAFETTA
BORN IN VICENZA, VENICE ITALY ON 1490
HE STUDIED ASTRONOMY,GEOGRAPHY,AND
CARTOGRAPHY
FERDINAND MAGELLAN
• The Portuguese explorer is often credited as being the first person to have circumnavigated the
globe, but the reality of his journey is a bit more complicated. Magellan first set sail in September
1519 as part of an epic attempt to find a western route to the spice-rich East Indies in modern-day
Indonesia. While he successfully led his crew across the Atlantic, through a strait in southern
South America and over the vast expanse of the Pacific, he was killed only halfway through the
circuit in a skirmish with natives on the Philippine island of Mactan. Magellan’s death meant that
he personally failed to circle the world, but his expedition continued on without him. In September
1522, one of his ships arrived safely back in Spain having completed a successful
circumnavigation of the globe. Of the mission’s 260 original crewmen, only 18 had survived the
perilous three-year journey.
STRAIGHT OF MAGELLAN
Juan Sebastian Elcano
• If Magellan wasn’t the first person to circle the globe, then who was? The most
obvious candidate is Juan Sebastian Elcano, a Basque mariner who took control
of the expedition after Magellan’s death in 1521 and captained its lone surviving
vessel, the “Victoria,” on its journey back to Spain. Elcano and his sailors stand
as the first people to have successfully voyaged around the world as part of a
single journey, but they might not be the first humans to have circumnavigated
the globe over the course of a lifetime. Opinions differ, but many historians give
the honor to Magellan’s Malay slave, Enrique. Magellan had seized Enrique from
Malacca during an earlier 1511 voyage to the East Indies, and the Malay later
served as the round-the-world expedition’s interpreter in the Pacific islands.
ENRIQUE OF MALACCAN
• Enrique had previously traveled west with Magellan from Asia to Europe
before joining in the voyage across the Atlantic and Pacific, so by the time
the mission reached Southeast Asia, he had very nearly circled the globe
and returned to his homeland—albeit over the course of several years and
multiple voyages. Enrique abandoned the expedition and disappeared
shortly after Magellan’s death in the Philippines. By then, he was only a few
hundred miles short of his point of origin in Malacca. If he ever returned to
his homeland, then Enrique may deserve the true credit for being the first
person to circumnavigate globe.
10 Surprising Facts About Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the
Globe
• 1. Magellan’s expedition had a multinational crew. Although it was a
Spanish expedition, Magellan’s fleet featured a culturally diverse crew.
Spaniards and Portuguese made up the vast majority of the sailors, but the
voyage also included mariners from Greece, Sicily, England, France, Germany
and even North Africa.
TREADY OF TORDESILLAS
3. Magellan was considered a traitor to his home
country of Portugal.

• While Ferdinand Magellan was originally from Portugal, King

Charles I of Spain ultimately sponsored his voyage. This outraged
the King Manuel I of Portugal, who sent operatives to disrupt
Magellan’s preparations, ordered that his family properties be
vandalized and may have made an attempt to assassinate him.
• Once the expedition sailed, Manuel I even ordered two groups of
Portuguese caravels to pursue Magellan’s fleet in the hopes of
capturing the navigator and returning him to his homeland in
chains.
4. Many of Magellan’s crew mutinied or deserted
the expedition.
• Magellan’s mostly Spanish crew resented the idea of being led by a
Portuguese captain, and the expedition was forced to weather two
mutinies before it had even reached the Pacific. The first of these
failed revolts was easily unraveled, but the second proved more
elaborate. Worried that Magellan’s obsession with finding passage
to the Pacific was going to doom the expedition, in April 1520 three
of his five ships turned against him. Magellan and his supporters
ultimately thwarted the revolt, and he even marooned two men on
an island when he found they were planning a third mutiny. The
rebellions continued later that year when the vessel San Antonio
deserted the fleet and prematurely returned to Spain.
5. Magellan’s expedition claimed to have encountered
giants in South America.

• While anchored near modern-day Argentina, Magellan’s men

reported encountering 8-foot-tall men on the beaches of Patagonia.
After befriending these “giants,” Magellan supposedly tricked them
into boarding his ship and took one of the men captive.
• The giant was later baptized and named Paul, but died during the
fleet’s long crossing of the Pacific Ocean. Historians have surmised
that Magellan’s giants were in actuality members of the Tehuelche, a
naturally tall tribe of Indians native to southern Chile and Argentina.
While Magellan’s men almost certainly exaggerated the height of the
Tehuelche, the myth of Patagonian giants would persist for many
years.
6. Magellan gave the Pacific Ocean its name.

• After weathering horrific storms near southern South America and losing one of his
ships to rough seas, Magellan finally entered what is now known as the Strait of
Magellan in November 1520. Crossing into a calm and gentle ocean, he named it “Mar
Pacifico,” which means “peaceful sea” in Portuguese. Magellan believed that he would
quickly reach the Spice Islands, but his beleaguered fleet would sail the Pacific Ocean for
98 days before reaching any habitable land.

7. Magellan was a staunch Christian evangelist—and this

may have cost him his life.
• Although it was never an official part of his mission, Magellan took great pains to
convert all the indigenous peoples he encountered to Christianity. The most notable
example came in April 1521 in the Philippines, where he baptized King Humabon of
Cebu along with thousands of his subjects. Magellan’s religious fervor was so strong
that he threatened to kill those chieftains that resisted converting to Christianity, and
this harsh decree ultimately proved to be his downfall.
• When a king named Lapu-Lapu refused to convert, Magellan’s men
burned his village on the island of Mactan. Magellan later returned to
Mactan with 49 men and demanded that Lapu-Lapu yield to his authority.
The king refused, and in the ensuing battle Magellan was killed after he
was struck by a spear and then repeatedly stabbed by the islanders’
cutlasses and scimitars. In the Philippines, where Magellan is
remembered as a tyrant rather than a hero, the Battle of Mactan is
reenacted every April 27, with a well-known Filipino actor playing the role
of Lapu-Lapu.
• " That caused the captain faced downward. Then immediately they rushed upon
him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cut classes, until they killed our
mirror, our light, our comfort and our true guide. When they wounded him, he
turned back many times to see whether we were all in boats. thereupon,
beholding him dead. We wounded, retreated, as best as we could to the boats
which were already pulling off" 
8. Magellan’s slave may have been the first person
to truly circumnavigate the globe

• One of the most important members of Magellan’s voyage was his

personal slave Enrique, who had been with the captain since an earlier
voyage to Malacca in 1511. A native of the East Indies, Enrique reportedly
spoke a Malay dialect and acted as the expedition’s interpreter during
their time in the Philippines. As many historians have noted, if Enrique
was originally from that part of the world, then by the time the expedition
reached the Philippines he would have already circled the earth and
returned to his homeland. If true, this would mean the slave Enrique—
rather than any of the European mariners—was the first person to
circumnavigate the globe.
9. Magellan only deserves partial credit for the circumnavigation.
• Magellan is often cited as the first explorer to have circumnavigated the globe, but this is not
technically true. While he organized the voyage and negotiated the treacherous South
American strait and the crossing of the Pacific, Magellan was killed before the mission ever
reached the Spice Islands. Credit for the successful circumnavigation of the globe should also
go to the Basque mariner Juan Sebastian Elcano, who commanded the return voyage of
Victoria—the only surviving vessel—from late 1521 until its arrival in Spain in September
1522.
10. The next circumnavigation of the globe took place nearly 60 years after the return of
Magellan’s expedition.
• When the lone vessel Victoria returned to Spain in September 1522, only 18 men remained
out of the expedition’s original crew of about 260. Circumnavigating the globe ultimately
proved to be such a herculean feat—and the Magellan expedition’s success so improbable—
that it was 58 years before it was repeated. Led by the English navigator Sir Francis Drake, this
second circumnavigation of the globe first sailed in 1577 and largely followed the same route
as Magellan. Like Magellan’s armada, Drake’s fleet was also ravaged by the long journey, and
only his flagship Golden Hind remained when he returned to England in 1580.