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Voyages of Ferdinand Magellan Timeline

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The Magellan expedition, also known as the Magellan–Elcano expedition, was the first voyage around the world. It was a 16th century Spanish expedition initially led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to the Moluccas, which departed from Spain in 1519, and completed in 1522 by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, after crossing the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, culminating in the first circumnavigation of the world.

The expedition accomplished its primary goal – to find a western route to the Moluccas (Spice Islands). The fleet left Spain on 20 September 1519, sailed across the Atlantic ocean and down the eastern coast of South America, eventually discovering the Strait of Magellan, allowing them to pass through to the Pacific Ocean (which Magellan named). The fleet completed the first Pacific crossing, stopping in the Philippines , and eventually reached the Moluccas after two years. A much-depleted crew led by Juan Sebastián Elcano finally returned to Spain on 6 September 1522, having sailed west across the great Indian Ocean, then around the Cape of Good Hope through waters controlled by the Portuguese and north along the Western African coast to eventually arrive in Spain.

The fleet initially consisted of five ships and about 270 men. The expedition faced numerous hardships including Portuguese sabotage attempts, mutinies, starvation, scurvy, storms, and hostile encounters with indigenous people. Only 30 men and one ship (the Victoria) completed the return trip to Spain. Magellan himself died in battle in the Philippines, and was succeeded as captain-general by a series of officers, with Elcano eventually leading the Victoria's return trip.

The expedition was funded mostly by King Charles I of Spain, with the hope that it would discover a profitable western route to the Moluccas, as the eastern route was controlled by Portugal under the Treaty of Tordesillas. Though the expedition did find a route, it was much longer and more arduous than expected, and was therefore not commercially useful. Nevertheless, the expedition is regarded as one of the greatest achievements in seamanship, and had a significant impact on the European understanding of the world.

In March 1505 at the age of 25, Magellan enlisted in the fleet of 22 ships sent to host Francisco de Almeida as the first viceroy of Portuguese India . Although his name does not appear in the chronicles, it is known that he remained there eight years, in Goa, Cochin and Quilon. He participated in several battles, including the battle of Cannanore in 1506, where he was wounded. In 1509 he fought in the battle of Diu.

After having his proposed expeditions to the Spice Islands repeatedly rejected by King Manuel of Portugal, Magellan turned to Charles I, the young King of Spain (and future Holy Roman Emperor). Under the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, Portugal controlled the eastern routes to Asia that went around Africa. Magellan instead proposed reaching the Spice Islands by a western route, a feat which had never been accomplished. Hoping that this would yield a commercially useful trade route for Spain , Charles approved the expedition, and provided most of the funding.

On 10 August 1519, the five ships under Magellan's command left Seville and descended the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the river. There they remained more than five weeks. The fleet left Spain on 20 September 1519, sailing west across the Atlantic toward South America. Magellan's fleet consisted of five ships, carrying supplies for two years of travel. The crew consisted of about 270 men. Most were Spanish, but around 40 were Portuguese.

On 13 December, the fleet reached Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . Though nominally Portuguese territory, they maintained no permanent settlement there at the time. Seeing no Portuguese ships in the harbour, Magellan knew it would be safe to stop.

The fleet spent 13 days in Rio, during which they repaired their ships, stocked up on water and food (such as yam, cassava, and pineapple), and interacted with the locals. The expedition had brought with them a great quantity of trinkets intended for trade, such as mirrors, combs, knives and bells. The locals readily exchanged food and local goods (such as parrot feathers) for such items. The crew also found they could purchase sexual favours from the local women. Historian Ian Cameron described the crew's time in Rio as "a saturnalia of feasting and lovemaking".

On 27 December, the fleet left Rio de Janeiro. Pigafetta wrote that the natives were disappointed to see them leave, and that some followed them in canoes trying to entice them to stay.

After three months of searching (including a false start in the estuary of Río de la Plata), weather conditions forced the fleet to stop their search to wait out the winter. They found a sheltered natural harbor at the port of Saint Julian, and remained there for five months. Shortly after landing at St. Julian, there was a mutiny attempt led by the Spanish captains Juan de Cartagena, Gaspar de Quesada and Luis de Mendoza. Magellan barely managed to quell the mutiny, despite at one point losing control of three of his five ships to the mutineers. Mendoza was killed during the conflict, and Magellan sentenced Quesada and Cartagena to being beheaded and marooned, respectively. Lower-level conspirators were made to do hard labor in chains over the winter, but later freed.

During the winter, one of the fleet's ships, the Santiago, was lost in a storm while surveying nearby waters, though no men were killed. Following the winter, the fleet resumed their search for a passage to the Pacific in October 1520. Three days later, they found a bay which eventually led them to a strait, now known as the Strait of Magellan, which allowed them passage through to the Pacific. While exploring the strait, one of the remaining four ships, the San Antonio, deserted the fleet, returning east to Spain. The fleet reached the Pacific by the end of November 1520. Based on the incomplete understanding of world geography at the time, Magellan expected a short journey to Asia, perhaps taking as little as three or four days. In fact, the Pacific crossing took three months and twenty days. The long journey exhausted their supply of food and water, and around 30 men died, mostly of scurvy. Magellan himself remained healthy, perhaps because of his personal supply of preserved quince.

On 6 March 1521, the exhausted fleet made landfall at the island of Guam and were met by native Chamorro people who came aboard the ships and took items such as rigging, knives, and a ship's boat. The Chamorro people may have thought they were participating in a trade exchange (as they had already given the fleet some supplies), but the crew interpreted their actions as theft. Magellan sent a raiding party ashore to retaliate, killing several Chamorro men, burning their houses, and recovering the 'stolen' goods

On 16 March, the fleet reached the Philippines , where they would remain for a month and a half. Magellan befriended local leaders on the island of Limasawa, and on 31 March, held the first Mass in the Philippines, planting a cross on the island's highest hill. Magellan set about converting the locals to Christianity . Most accepted the new religion readily, but the island of Mactan resisted.

On 27 April, Magellan and members of his crew attempted to subdue the Mactan natives by force, but in the ensuing battle, the Europeans were overpowered and Magellan was killed by Lapulapu, a native chieftain in Mactan.

Following his death, Magellan was initially succeeded by co-commanders Juan Serrano and Duarte Barbosa (with a series of other officers later leading). The fleet left the Philippines (following a bloody betrayal by former ally Rajah Humabon) and eventually made their way to the Moluccas in November 1521. Laden with spices, they attempted to set sail for Spain in December, but found that only one of their remaining two ships, the Victoria, was seaworthy.

The Victoria set sail via the Indian Ocean route home on 21 December 1521, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano. By 6 May 1522 the Victoria rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations.

Twenty crewmen died of starvation by 9 July 1522, when Elcano put into Portuguese Cape Verde for provisions. The crew was surprised to learn that the date was actually 10 July 1522, as they had recorded every day of the three-year journey without omission. They had no trouble making purchases at first, using the cover story that they were returning to Spain from the Americas. However, the Portuguese detained 13 crew members after discovering that Victoria was carrying spices from the East Indies. The Victoria managed to escape with its cargo of 26 tons of spices (cloves and cinnamon).

On 6 September 1522, Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage arrived in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain aboard Victoria, almost exactly three years after they departed. They then sailed upriver to Seville, and from there overland to Valladolid, where they appeared before the Emperor. When Victoria, the one surviving ship and the smallest carrack in the fleet, returned to the harbour of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth, only 18 men out of the original 270 men were on board. In addition to the returning Europeans, the Victoria had aboard three Moluccans who came aboard at Tidore.

Magellan has come to be renowned for his navigational skill and tenacity. The first circumnavigation has been called "the greatest sea voyage in the Age of Discovery", and even "the most important maritime voyage ever undertaken". Appreciation of Magellan's accomplishments may have been enhanced over time by the failure of subsequent expeditions which attempted to retrace his route, beginning with the Loaísa expedition in 1525 (which featured Juan Sebastián Elcano as second-in-command). The next expedition to successfully complete a circumnavigation, led by Francis Drake, would not occur until 1580, 58 years after the return of the Victoria.

Magellan named the Pacific Ocean (which was also often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century), and lends his name to the Strait of Magellan.

Even though Magellan did not survive the trip, he has received more recognition for the expedition than Elcano has, since Magellan was the one who started it, Portugal wanted to recognize a Portuguese explorer, and Spain feared Basque nationalism.

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Technology of the Age of Exploration

• The First Voyage Round the World, by Magellan, full text, English translation by Lord Stanley of Alderley, London: Hakluyt, [1874] – six contemporary accounts of his voyage
• Guillemard, Francis Henry Hill (1890), The life of Ferdinand Magellan, and the first circumnavigation of the globe, 1480–1521, G. Philip, retrieved 8 April 2009
• Zweig, Stefan (2007), Conqueror of the Seas – The Story of Magellan, Read Books, ISBN 978-1-4067-6006-4

• Corrections

Ferdinand Magellan & The First Voyage Around the World

During the Age of Exploration, one task was particularly noteworthy: the circumnavigation of Earth. Discover the life of Ferdinand Magellan and the first voyage around the world.

The Age of Exploration saw the achievement of incredible feats with the voyages of European expeditions. Perhaps the most famous of them all is the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, but many other expeditions are equally groundbreaking. Besides making contact with a “new continent,” the circumnavigation of the Earth was seen as an enormous feat. With Columbus’ travels and following expeditions by other explorers, the circumnavigation of the world was believed possible, but who would be first? Europe’s major powers put their efforts into completing the task, but one expedition, led by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer serving the Spanish crown, would ultimately be successful: the Magellan expedition.

Magellan’s Early Life & First Travels

Magellan was born in the north of Portugal in 1480. His family was of noble origin and enjoyed a minor presence yet sufficient status among the higher classes of the Kingdom of Portugal. His father, Rui Magellan, was the mayor of a small town. Ferdinand served as a page to Queen Eleanor, consort of John II of the Portuguese crown. After the death of John, Magellan served under Manuel I. When Magellan was 25, he joined a Portuguese expedition to India, where they would establish Francisco de Almeida as the first viceroy of Portuguese India. Magellan stayed in India for almost a decade; then, he traveled to Malacca, where, in 1511, the Portuguese conquered the city under the governor Alfonso de Albuquerque.

Magellan received great riches and promotions from his participation in the conquest of Malacca. He received a slave, baptized under the name Enrique of Malacca, who would join Magellan through many of his travels and endeavors. Magellan’s behavior became increasingly rebellious and not in tune with the Portuguese authorities’ expectations. He took leave without permission, was accused of illegally trading in Morocco, and even quarreled with the Portuguese King Manuel I.

Magellan dedicated himself to studying the most recent nautical charts available to him. He investigated, alongside cosmographer Rui Faleiro, the possibility of reaching the Moluccas through a gateway from the Atlantic to the South Pacific in the Americas. While in Malacca, Magellan befriended the navigator Francisco Serrao, who reached and stayed in the Spice Islands (the Moluccas). His letters to Magellan would prove very useful for his consequent travels to the Islands.

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Please check your inbox to activate your subscription, magellan the spanish explorer: pledging loyalty to the opposing crown.

When Magellan fell out of favor with the Portuguese King, he turned to the Spanish crown. Magellan had been refused time and time again an expedition made possible by the Portuguese crown. King Manuel I disapproved of Magellan’s planned expedition. Thus, Magellan renounced his Portuguese nationality and proposed his travel expedition to King Charles I of Spain (Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor ).

At the time of Magellan’s proposed expedition, Spain was at the start of its expansion into other continents, mainly the Americas, which would be decisive for the Spanish to consolidate their empire.

Portugal had a similar situation. The Portuguese Empire had explored most of the coasts of Africa, reached the Indies through said passage, and established colonies all throughout Africa and Asia.

However, both Iberian empires had become rivals whose differences were often solved only through external intervention. The Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 established a division of lands outside of Europe between Spain and Portugal. The treaty was largely left unsettled, but in 1529, the Treaty of Zaragoza clarified and formalized the divisions. Before its formalization, however, Magellan and his fleet would achieve the first circumnavigation of the Earth, arguably abusing the agreement set in the Tordesillas treaty.

Magellan convinced the Spanish king that his expedition would not be opposed to the agreement between Spain and Portugal; thus, he was allowed to sail. King Manuel I was greatly insulted by Magellan’s expedition and work under the Spanish crown. The preparations of the Spanish fleet were disrupted by the Portuguese, and a fleet was sent after Magellan, though it failed to capture him.

Expedition through the Atlantic & Reaching the Americas

Magellan and his fleet left Spain from the port of Seville in 1519. The fleet traveled through the Guadalquivir River until they reached the Atlantic through the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda. The fleet remained in place for weeks, going back and forth from Seville to solve unforeseen difficulties. More than a month later, they departed. The fleet reached the Canary Islands, then passed next to Cape Verde and the coasts of Sierra Leone. Four months went by before the fleet reached the coasts of the Americas.

In December 1519, Magellan and his fleet touched land in what is now Rio de Janeiro. They traveled through the estuary of the Rio de la Plata River, then reached and named the region of Patagonia . In Patagonia, the Spaniards met local Indigenous people for the first time. After making contact and trading with them, the Spanish kidnapped some to bring them back for the king. Unfortunately, the kidnapped Indigenous people didn’t survive.

In March 1520, the fleet found itself in harsh conditions. They took refuge in the port of San Julian, but after considering the expedition had failed, some of the crew attempted to overthrow Magellan as their leader. The insurrection ultimately failed; the leaders of the unsatisfied crew were killed or banished, and Magellan forgave the rest as he needed them to continue. Later, the crew of one of the five ships, San Antonio , once again rose against Magellan and turned back for Spain.

The Strait of Magellan & the Voyage in the Pacific

After facing difficulties finding a passage to the Pacific Ocean (known to them as Mar del Sur ), the fleet reached the Strait of Magellan. Magellan originally named it the Strait of All Saints ( estrecho de Todos los Santos ), but the strait gained its name in honor of Magellan and his expedition, having been the first European explorer to find the strait.

Known to be a harsh place, the Strait of Magellan was challenging to pass through. The Spaniards saw bonfires lit by the natives and thus named the territory “ Tierra del Fuego ” (Land of Fire). Indigenous people lived or had reached as far down as Antarctica . The ocean known to them as Mar del Sur was then baptized the Pacific Ocean for its tranquil waters. For three months, after passing through the strait, the fleet was unable to reach land and disembark. The conditions aboard were challenging, to say the least.

The difficulties during the voyage in the Pacific decreased once the fleet reached the Mariana Islands . The state of the fleet was in tatters, having barely survived over three months without touching land. They then reached the Philippines, becoming the first Europeans to do so. Magellan and his fleet carried out the conversion of the local islanders to Catholicism. Magellan won over the locals by proving his strength and urging them to convert so that they could become like them. Thus, the fleet remained in the region before continuing to the Moluccas.

The Battle of Mactan, Magellan’s Death, & the First Circumnavigation of the World

In the Philippines, the locals were manipulated into converting to Catholicism, but when attempting to form an alliance with one chieftain, Magellan proposed to battle an opposing leader to win over his potential ally. Magellan and his fleet went to the Island of Mactan to fight, convert, and make the chieftain Lapulapu submit to the Spanish crown. The battle was a decisive defeat for the Spanish, who were unprepared and outnumbered. Magellan himself was killed during combat. After Magellan’s death, the expedition under his command had to choose a new leader.

The expedition chose Magellan’s brother-in-law and Juan Serrano as co-commanders, but their leadership would be short-lived. On the first of May, the Spanish disembarked to join the Cebuanos for a feast, yet once the meal was finished, they were surprised and murdered by the Cebuanos. The Spaniards had been betrayed by Magellan’s slave Enrique, who was supposed to be freed after his master’s death but was forced to continue working as an interpreter for them. Enrique made a deal with the island’s leader, Humabon, in order to regain his freedom.

With both co-commanders murdered, Juan Lopez de Carvalho was named captain. The fleet chose to continue with just two ships: Trinidad and Victoria . Carvalho was deemed unable to command, and Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa was chosen as the new captain, leading the ship Trinidad . Meanwhile, Juan Sebastian Elcano was to captain the ship Victoria . When the fleet reached the Moluccas, it was decided that they should leave for Spain at once, yet the Trinidad was in no shape for that sort of travel, so only the Victoria would continue, and the Trinidad would follow later. Elcano and his ship circumnavigated the African continent for their return, and in September 1522, they reached Spain, completing the first circumnavigation of the world .

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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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Quick Facts:

He led the first circumnavigation of the world, and is considered the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean

Name : Ferdinand Magellan [fur-dn-and] [muh-jel-uhn]

Birth/Death : 1480-1521

Nationality : Portuguese

Birthplace : Porto or Sabrosa, Portugal

Portrait of Ferdinand Magellan

Half-length portrait of Ferdinand Magellan (circa 1580-1521), first European to circle the globe. The Mariners Museum 1949.0619.000001

Introduction Ferdinand Magellan is known for circumnavigating – sailing around – the world. From Spain he sailed around South America, discovering the Strait of Magellan, and across the Pacific. Though he was killed in the Philippines, his ship the Victoria continued westward to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the globe. But in some cases, his journey was filled with more than he would bargain for. Magellan’s story is filled with war, storms, mutiny, and hostile native encounters.

Biography Early Life Ferdinand Magellan was born in 1480 in Portugal; the exact city is unknown. Many believe it was either Porto or Sabrosa. Ferdinand Magellan is the English version of his name. In Portuguese, his name is Fernão de Magalhães. He came from a noble family. His father was Rui de Magalhães and Alda de Mesquita. Young Magellan was a page in the royal court for the queen of Portugal. Here, he would learn helpful skills such as hunting, fighting, and he would have learned about the stars. 1 His father often traveled to a town called Oporto (also spelled Porto). The harbor here was crowded with shipping and seafaring travelers with tales of adventure. It is possible that Oporto is where Magellan found a love for the sea and exploration. 2 But Ferdinand Magellan was not always an explorer. He began his career as a soldier in the Portuguese navy. He left Portugal in 1505 and sailed to India under the command of Francisco de Almeida. They were sent by King Manuel I to break Muslim sea power in India and Africa. 3 Magellan left Lisbon on March 25, 1505. He would travel and fight in several battles over the next few years.

In 1506, Magellan traveled to the East Indies (modern day Indonesia) and joined expeditions to Spice Islands (also called the Molucca Islands). In February 1509, he took part in the naval Battle of Diu, which marked the decline of Ottoman (modern day Turkey) influence in the area. The Portuguese now had dominance over most of the Indian Ocean. He returned to Lisbon in 1512. A year later, he went to Morocco in Northern Africa where he fought in another battle. During the battle, Magellan received a serious wound that would cause him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. 4 Also while in Morocco, Magellan was accused of stealing. He was proven innocent, but the incident ruined his reputation with the Portuguese king. Magellan wanted to command a voyage to the Spice Islands. He believed he could reach them by sailing west. When he returned to Portugal, he petitioned King Manuel I three times to let him go. The King refused each time. Ferdinand Magellan then went to King Charles I of Spain. The Spanish King agreed to sponsor what would become Magellan’s great voyage around the world.

Voyages Principal Voyage By the end of October 1517, Magellan was in Seville, becoming a Spanish citizen. King Charles I funded Magellan and he set sail September 20, 1519 with a fleet of five ships and roughly 200 men. The five ships were: the Trinidad , captained by Magellan; San Antonio , captained by Juan de Cartagena; Concepción , captained by Gaspar de Quesada; Victoria , captained by Luis de Mendoza; and the Santiago , captained by Juan Serrano. They stopped at the Canary Islands to pick up some supplies, and then continued into the Atlantic Ocean. Magellan received a letter that the Spanish officers planned to kill him after leaving the Canaries. Magellan remained on guard for his life throughout much of the trip. They sailed for several weeks, and by November 20, they crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere. 5 In December, they stopped at Guanabara Bay in southeastern Brazil to resupply once again.

Magellan’s fleet continued on down the coast of South America. He was searching for a passage that connected one ocean to the other. As their journey went on, life at sea became difficult. Food and water became rationed, and the crew was not happy. On April 1, 1520, while at Port St. Julian, the three captains Cartagena, Mendoza, and Quesada called their crews to mutiny. 6 The mutiny was crushed by Magellan. Mendoza had been killed during the mutiny. Quesada and Cartagena were found guilty of murder and treason. Quesada was beheaded for his crime, while Cartagena was left marooned – or stranded – on land when the fleet left. 7 The fleet traveled onward. While near Santa Cruz, the Santiago wrecked while on a scouting mission. They continued south and on October 21, 1520 he finally found the passage they were searching for. Shortly after entering the passage, the San Antonio deserted the mission. On November 8, 1520 the Trinidad , Concepción , and Victoria reached the “Sea of the South.” 8 Today we know it as the Pacific Ocean. This passage at the tip of South America that Ferdinand Magellan had found would later be renamed the Strait of Magellan.

Subsequent Voyages Ferdinand Magellan had problems along the way, but he had finally reached the Pacific Ocean. Once through the strait, Magellan continued northward up the coast of Chile. In March the reached the island we now know as Guam. Here, they found and ate fresh food for the first time in 99 days. 9 Having found a route through South America, Magellan was still determined to reach the Spice Islands. He and his fleet continued west. Along their course, they noticed a constant flow of wind. This air provided steady winds to their back which was very helpful to their sailing. Magellan and his crew had unknowingly discovered “trade winds.” The name would come from the important role they would later play in transoceanic trade. Their journey continued until they reached the Philippines in March of 1521. By this point, Magellan had endured a somewhat difficult yet successful journey. But his luck would not last much longer.

Later Years and Death Throughout the Philippine Islands, Magellan and his men regularly interacted with the natives. At Cebú, The native chief, his wife, and several of the natives were baptized and converted to Christianity. Because of this, Magellan thought he could convince other native tribes to convert. But not all interactions with the natives were friendly. Chief Datu Lapu Lapu of the Mactan Island rejected conversion. So Magellan took a group of about 60 men to attack Mactan. The Mactan’s had about 1500 men. On April 27, 1521, Ferdinand Magellan was killed during battle on the Philippine Islands. The Trinidad and Victoria soon made it to the Spice Islands. The Trinidad needed much repair. So the Victoria , captained by Juan Sebastian Elcano continued on.On December 21,1521, the Victoria sailed across the Indian Ocean to Spain. September 6, 1522, they arrived with only 18 men at Sanlúcar de Barrameda on the coast of Spain.

Legacy Although he died in the Philippines, we recognize Ferdinand Magellan as the first European to circumnavigate the globe. He fearlessly commanded a fleet of ships, one that completed the journey in his name and honor. Several discoveries were made along the way. The Strait of Magellan, off the southern coast of South America, became an important navigational route. His discovery of the trade winds ranks among his most useful and major findings. 10 The expedition gave Europeans a much better understanding of the extent of the Earth’s size. Much of what we know of Magellan’s journey came from Antonio Pigafetta. A crew member of the famed voyage, Pigafetta kept a first hand account of the voyage. He and his story survived the journey around the globe, and his account later was translated. Magellan had set out with a goal to discover a Western sea route to the Spice Islands. What he helped prove, however, is that the world is indeed round, and much bigger than Europeans previously imagined.

• Mervyn D. Kaufman, Ferdinand Magellan (Mankato: Capstone Press, 2004), 6.
• Frederick Albion Ober, Ferdinand Magellan (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1907), 5 – 6.
• Britannica Educational Publishing, The Britannica Guide to Explorers and Explorations That Changed the Modern World (New York: Britannica Educational Publishing, 2010), 77.
• Michael Burgan, Magellan: Ferdinand Magellan and the First Trip Around the World (Mankato: Capstone Publishers, 2001), 11.
• Nancy Smiler Levinson, Magellan and the First Voyage Around the World (New York: Clarion Books, 2001), 55.
• Ober, Ferdinand Magellan , 143 – 148.
• Ober, Ferdinand Magellan , 151 – 153.
• Britannica Educational Publishing, The Britannica Guide , 81.
• Laurence Bergreen, Magellan: Over the Edge of the World (New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2017), 89.
• The Mariners' Educational Programs
• Bibliography

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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.

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.

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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Biography of Ferdinand Magellan, Explorer Circumnavigated the Earth

Though killed en route, his fleet continued on

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Ferdinand Magellan (February 3, 1480–April 27, 1521), a Portuguese explorer, set sail in September 1519 with a fleet of five Spanish ships in an attempt to find the Spice Islands by heading west. Although Magellan died during the journey, he is credited with the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

Fast Facts: Ferdinand Magellan

• Known For : Portuguese explorer credited with circumnavigating the Earth
• Also Known As : Fernando de Magallanes
• Born : February 3, 1480 in Sabrosa, Portugal
• Parents : Magalhaes and Alda de Mesquita (m. 1517–1521)
• Died : April 27, 1521 in the Kingdom of Mactan (now Lapu-Lapu City, Philippines)
• Awards and Honors : The Order of Magellan was established in 1902 to honor those who have circumnavigated the Earth.
• Spouse : María Caldera Beatriz Barbosa
• Children : Rodrigo de Magalhães, Carlos de Magalhães
• Notable Quote : “The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.”

Early Years and Voyages

Ferdinand Magellan was born in 1480 in Sabrosa, Portugal, to Rui de Magalhaes and Alda de Mesquita. Because his family had ties to the royal family, Magellan became a page to the Portuguese queen after his parents' untimely deaths in 1490.

This position as a page allowed Magellan the opportunity to become educated and learn about the various Portuguese exploration expeditions—possibly even those conducted by Christopher Columbus .

Magellan took part in his first sea voyage in 1505 when Portugal sent him to India to help install Francisco de Almeida as the Portuguese viceroy. He also experienced his first battle there in 1509 when one of the local kings rejected the practice of paying tribute to the new viceroy.

From here, however, Magellan lost the viceroy Almeida's support after he took leave without permission and was accused of illegally trading with the Moors. After some of the accusations were proven to be true, Magellan lost all offers of employment from the Portuguese after 1514.

The Spanish and the Spice Islands

Around this same time, the Spanish were engaged in trying to find a new route to the Spice Islands (the East Indies, in present-day Indonesia ) after the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world in half in 1494.

The dividing line for this treaty went through the Atlantic Ocean and Spain got the lands west of the line, including the Americas. Brazil, however, went to Portugal as did everything east of the line, including India and the eastern half of Africa.

Similar to his predecessor Columbus, Magellan believed that the Spice Islands could be reached by sailing west through the New World. He proposed this idea to Manuel I, the Portuguese king, but was rejected. Looking for support, Magellan moved on to share his plan with the Spanish king.

On March 22, 1518, Charles I was persuaded by Magellan and granted him a large sum of money to find a route to the Spice Islands by sailing west, thereby giving Spain control of the area, since it would in effect be "west" of the dividing line through the Atlantic.

Using these generous funds, Magellan set sail going west toward the Spice Islands in September 1519 with five ships ( the Conception, the San Antonio, the Santiago, the Trinidad, and the Victoria ) and 270 men.

The Early Portion of the Voyage

Since Magellan was a Portuguese explorer in charge of a Spanish fleet, the early part of the voyage to the west was riddled with problems. Several of the Spanish captains on the ships in the expedition plotted to kill him, but none of their plans succeeded. Many of these mutineers were held prisoner and/or executed. In addition, Magellan had to avoid Portuguese territory since he was sailing for Spain.

After months of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, the fleet anchored at what is today Rio de Janeiro to restock its supplies on December 13, 1519. From there, they moved down the coast of South America looking for a way into the Pacific. As they sailed farther south, however, the weather got worse, so the crew anchored in Patagonia (southern South America) to wait out the winter.

As the weather began to ease in the spring, Magellan sent the Santiago on a mission to look for a way through to the Pacific Ocean. In May, the ship was wrecked and the fleet did not move again until August 1520.

Then, after months of exploring the area, the remaining four ships found a strait in October and sailed through it. This portion of the journey took 38 days, cost them the San Antonio (because its crew decided to abandon the expedition) and a large amount of supplies. Nevertheless, at the end of November, the remaining three ships exited what Magellan named the Strait of All Saints and sailed into the Pacific Ocean.

Later Voyage and Death

From here, Magellan mistakenly thought it would only take a few days to reach the Spice Islands, when it instead took four months, during which time his crew suffered immensely. They began to starve as their food supplies were depleted, their water turned putrid, and many of the men developed scurvy.

The crew was able to stop at a nearby island in January 1521 to eat fish and seabirds, but their supplies were not adequately restocked until March when they stopped in Guam.

On March 28, they landed in the Philippines and befriended a tribal king, Rajah Humabon of Cebu Island. After spending time with the king, Magellan and his crew were persuaded into helping the tribe kill their enemy Lapu-Lapu on Mactan Island. On April 27, 1521, Magellan took part in the Battle of Mactan and was killed by Lapu-Lapu's army.

After Magellan's death, Sebastian del Cano had the Conception burned (so it could not be used against them by the locals) and took over the two remaining ships and 117 crewmembers. To ensure that one ship would make it back to Spain, the Trinidad headed east while the Victoria continued west.

The Trinidad was seized by the Portuguese on its return journey, but on September 6, 1522, the Victoria and only 18 surviving crew members returned to Spain, completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

Though Magellan died before the voyage was completed, he is often credited with the first circumnavigation of the Earth as he initially led the voyage. He also discovered what is now called the Strait of Magellan and named both the Pacific Ocean and South America's Tierra del Fuego.

Magellanic Clouds in space were also named for him, as his crew was the first to view them while sailing in the Southern Hemisphere. Most important to geography though, was Magellan’s realization of the full extent of the Earth—something that significantly aided to the development of later geographic exploration and the resulting knowledge of the world today.

• Editors, History.com. “ Ferdinand Magellan. ”  History.com , A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009.
• “ The Ages of Exploration. ” Exploration.marinersmuseum.org.
• Burgan, Michael.  Magellan: Ferdinand Magellan and the First Trip Around the World . Mankato: Capstone Publishers, 2001.
• What Was the Age of Exploration?
• Biography of Explorer Cheng Ho
• Basque Country and People
• Profile of Prince Henry the Navigator
• Biography of Christopher Columbus, Italian Explorer
• Amerigo Vespucci, Italian Explorer and Cartographer
• The Portuguese Empire
• Biography of Robert Cavelier de la Salle, French Explorer
• The Dutch Empire: Three Centuries on Five Continents
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• Ellen Churchill Semple
• Biography of Marco Polo, Merchant and Explorer
• The Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition
• The Rise of Islamic Geography in the Middle Ages
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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.

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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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Ferdinand Magellan and the first Trip around the World

Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – 1521)

On 10 August 1519, five ships under Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan ‘s command left Seville and descended the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the river. After further preparation 5 weeks later the ships set sail for the very first circumnavigation of the earth.

Growing up in Lisbon

Magellan was born Fernão de Magalhães (or Magalhãens) to an impoverished noble family in the northern Portuguese province of Trás-os-Montes . His father, Rui de Magalhães, was mayor of his home village Sabrosa . His mother was Alda de Mesquita. When he was ten years old, Magellan lost his parents. In 1492, like his brother before him, he went to the royal court of King John II of Portugal and Queen Eleonora as a page. Here, in Lisbon, together with his cousin Francisco Serrão, he enjoyed a comprehensive education, possibly by Martin Behaim , and was raised to the rank of squire in 1496.

Expeditions to India and Malacca

In 1505 he participated in the India expedition of the viceroy Francisco de Almeida , where he distinguished himself as a lifesaver and prevented a mutiny. Under Afonso de Albuquerque he took part in the conquest of the important port of Malacca , now Malaysia, in 1511 and played an important role in the storming of the city on 10 August. In December 1511, an expedition of three ships under the command of António de Abreu sailed on to the Spice Islands . According to a source, Magellan was among the 100-man crew and was appointed captain during the expedition. A short time later, however, Magellan lost his captain’s post again because he had sneaked away from the fleet with his ship and sailed further east.

Fighting in Morocco , Disgrace in Portugal, Service for Spain

On his return he was sent to Morocco in 1513, where he fought in the Battle of Azamor and was wounded at the knee. Because of illegal trade with the Moors, he fell out of favour with King Manuel I and was released from Portuguese civil service on 15 May 1514. Thereupon he went to Spain and offered his services in 1517 to the Spanish King Charles I (from 1519 as Charles V Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire).

In Search for the Spice Islands

Magellan had probably found a secret map in the Portuguese Maritime Archives which indicated that a paso , a passage to the Pacific Ocean, existed in South America. It is possible that the large estuary delta of the Río de la Plata had been misconstrued as a strait. He decided to be the first to use this path to the west to reach the Spice Islands (today’s Moluccas). They were a strategically important starting point for the lucrative spice trade. Moreover, Magellan was convinced that, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, the Spice Islands were located on the world half promised by Pope Spain.[4] On 22 March 1518 he signed a contract in Valladolid with Charles I of Spain, who provided Magellan with five ships with which he was to find the Spice Islands.

Starting for a Trip around the World

The provided fleet consisted of five ships of which the flagship Trinidad sailed under Ferdinand Magellan’s command. The crew consisted of 270 men across the continent and took off on August 10, 1519. The ships sailed from Seville down the Guadalquivir, at its mouth near Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where the Spanish authorities tried to prevent the Portuguese admiral from travelling for more than five weeks. It was not until September 20, 1519 that the fleet set sail from here. On his flagship, the Trinidad, Magellan had a torch installed at night so that the other ships could maintain visual contact. Magellan sailed first to the Canary Islands, where he took up supplies in Tenerife on 26 September, and then to the Cape Verde Islands (3 October), where he set course for Brazil. On November 20th, his fleet crossed the equator. On December 6, the fleet reached the South American coast, where it anchored on December 13 in a bay named by Magellan as Bahia de Santa Lucía (now Guanabara Bay) – after the day saint Santa Lucia. The Portuguese later gave it the name of St. Januarius . It is today’s bay of Rio de Janeiro .

Magellan’s ship Victoria , detail from a world map by Abraham Ortelius, 1590

Reaching the South Sea

On March 30, the fleet reached a bay called Puerto San Julián. As the southern winter was approaching, Magellan decided to hibernate. Because of running out of supplies, he had his food rations cut. Already on April 1, the poor supply situation led to a mutiny. Due to hunger, disease and exhaustion, some crew members demanded their return to Spain. In October 1520 the four ships left Puerto San Julián after seven months of winter quarters. Again all bays and estuaries were searched in detail for the paso. On October 21, 1520, Magellan reached a cape he called Cabo Vírgenes. The Concepción and the San Antonio were sent on a reconnaissance trip south of the cape and discovered the entrance to the long sought-after passage. Before the passage, Magellan asked the captains of the other ships whether they favoured a continuation of the voyage or a return. No one except the pilot of the San Antonio  dared to recommend a change. Since the passage is divided several times, a boat and two ships were sent out for exploration. From the crew of the boat came the message that the road had an exit to the northwest: The South Sea was reached.

The Island of Thieves

The fleet continued and in early 1521 they reached the equator and later Guam . The cities they traveled to were named by Magellan according to the features he observed. For instance he renamed the island to the ‘ Island of Thieves ‘ since his small boats on board of the Trinidad were stolen.

The Magellan–Elcano voyage. Victoria, one of the original five ships, circumnavigated the globe, finishing 16 months after Magellan’s death.

The Philippines and a Poisoned Arrow

After taking up much-needed supplies, Magellan’s fleet sailed on to the Philippines . At that time, 150 sailors were still alive. With the help of his interpreter Enrique Melaka, Ferdinand Magellan was able to exchange gifts with the Prince of Limasawa, Raja Kolambu, who led the Spaniards to the island of Cebu , where they succeeded in converting the prince of Cebu, Rajah Humabon, and many of his subjects to Christianity. The chief Lapu-Lapu on the neighbouring island of Mactan , however, rejected the idea of supremacy and missionary work. As a result, Magellan tried to take possession of the island by force for his ally and thus for Spain and Christianity. The military action on Mactan on 27 April 1521 failed: despite their firearms, the Spaniards were pushed back on the shore by the locals and had to mourn several casualties. Magellan was killed in that battle. According to the reports of his chronicler Pigafetta , he was one of the last to fight in the water to cover the retreat of his people. A poisoned arrow had pierced his thigh; shortly thereafter he had been struck down by two lance shots, one wounding him in the face, the other under his right arm. Soon after the failed attack on Mactan, the prince of Cebu renounced Christianity and lured the Europeans into a trap. 35 sailors were killed.

Elcano Finishing the Journey

The Spaniards barely escaped, but they were now so few that they sank the Concepción themselves and distributed the survivors to Trinidad and Victoria. Juan Sebastián Elcano captained the Victoria and Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa the Trinidad . Elcano had been chosen captain, although he had only been a simple bosun at the beginning of the voyage. They began their journey home with the flagship and the Victoria, arriving in September, 1522. Through interviewing some of the survivors, Europe learned about the first circumnavigation of the globe. Also during this journey, the crew observed numerous animals that were completely new to Europeans. Afterwards, several straits and locations were named after Ferdinand Magellan and even craters on the Moon and Mars have been named after him.

Since the 19th century, Ferdinand Magellan’s name has been associated primarily with the first historically documented circumnavigation of the Earth. However, Magellan neither circumnavigated the earth himself, nor did he ever plan to do so – even if his companion and admirer Antonio Pigafetta claimed he did. But Pigafetta’s statements about Magellan are clearly written with apologetic intent, that is, he wanted to defend the reputation of his late boss against his enemies and critics. In the documents from the planning phase of the expedition, there is not a single indication that Magellan or anyone else had planned a circumnavigation of the earth at that time. In the end, this came about only out of necessity, because Juan Sebastián Elcano , the last captain of the Victoria , and his crew hoped to bring their worn-out ship with its valuable spice cargo back to Spain this way – which they eventually succeeded in doing. Consequently, Elcano and his crew first reaped the glory of being the first humans to circumnavigate the earth. Since every educated contemporary at the time knew that the earth was a sphere, the voyage of the Victoria was seen not so much as proof of the spherical shape as of the superiority of their own time, in which they lived, over antiquity. Before the 19th century, little of this fame fell on Magellan. While his Spanish patrons did not hold him in particularly high esteem either during his lifetime or afterwards, his Portuguese compatriots reviled him as a traitor. However, his seafaring and military achievements were certainly recognized – especially the discovery and passage of the strait between South America and Tierra del Fuego, known as the “ Estrecho de Magallanes ” ( Strait of Magellan ) from around the middle of the 16th century.

However, subsequent expeditions – notably that of García Jofre de Loaísa in 1525, in which Elcano also participated – showed that the practical value of the sea route to the Pacific and on to Asia found by Magellan was very small. The passage of the Strait of Magellan was a gamble, and the Pacific Ocean was not only immensely large, but made it impossible to establish lasting trade and dominion relations as long as it could only be crossed from east to west. The opposite direction was not achieved until 1565, when Andrés de Urdaneta succeeded in making his way back from the Visayas to Mexico by sailing far out into the North Pacific and taking advantage of the prevailing westerly winds there. Only now were the Spaniards able to colonize the Philippines (soon to be called the Philippines).

References and Further Reading

• [1]  Magellan at Britannica  
• [2] Stefan Zweig (2007), Conqueror of the Seas – The Story of Magellan
• [3]  The Voyage of Ferdinand Magellan
• [4]  How the Pope divided the New World among Spain and the Rest of the World , SciHi Blog
• [5]  Juan Sebastián Elcano and the First Circumnavigation of the Earth , SciHi Blog
• [6]  Dr. Gallup-Diaz,  Great Voyages: Ferdinand Magellan, ‘Our One True Guide’: The First Circumnavigation of the Globe , Penn Museum @ youtube
• [7]  Primera vuelta al mundo Magallanes-Elcano – V Centenario , official Spanish website for the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation of the earth
• [8] Antonio Pigafetta :  Magellan’s voyage around the world.  3 vol. Ed. by James Alexander Robertson, Cleveland (Ohio), 1906.
• [9] Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas :  Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del mar océano.  Madrid 1601.
• [10] Ferdinand Magellan at Wikidata
• [11] Timeline of 16th Century Explorers via DBpedia and Wikidata

Tabea Tietz

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Though Magellan is often credited with the first circumnavigation on the globe, he did so on a technicality: He first made a trip from Europe to the Spice Islands, eastward via the Indian Ocean, and then later made his famous westward voyage that brought him to the Philippines. So he did cover the entire terrain, but it was not a strict point A to point A, round-the-world trip, and it was made in two different directions. His slave, Enrique, however, was born in either Cebu or Mallaca and came to Europe with Magellan by ship. Ten years later, he then returned to both Cebu (with Magellan) and Mallaca (after Magellan died) by ship on the armada s westward route. So Enrique was the first person to circumnavigate the world in one direction, from point A to point A.

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10 Surprising Facts About Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the Globe

By: Evan Andrews

Updated: October 17, 2023 | Original: December 4, 2012

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.

2. Magellan’s voyage was sparked by a treaty between Spain and Portugal.

Magellan originally launched his expedition as a means of finding a western route to the Moluccas, a small archipelago in Indonesia known for its stores of precious spices like cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. The Spanish were desperate to discover this alternate path because of 1494’s Treaty of Tordesillas, a decree from Pope Alexander VI that had essentially divided the world in half between the Spanish and the Portuguese. This agreement placed the more practical eastern route to the Spice Islands under Portuguese control, forcing the Spanish to find a new passage by sailing west around South America.

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.

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.

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