Magellan, Ferdinand

Portuguese Fernão de Magalhães Spanish Fernando de Magallanes

born с 1480, Sabrosa, or Porto?, Port.

died April 27, 1521, Mactan, Phil.

Portuguese navigator and explorer.

Born to the nobility, Magellan from 1505 served in expeditions to the East Indies and Africa. Having twice asked King Manuel I for a higher rank and been refused, he went to Spain in 1517 and offered his services to King Charles I (later Emperor Charles V), proposing to sail west to the Moluccas (Spice Islands) to prove that they lay in Spanish rather than Portuguese territory. In 1519 he left Sevilla with five ships and 270 men. He sailed around South America, quelling a mutiny on the way, and discovered the Strait of Magellan. With three ships left, Magellan crossed the "Sea of the South," which he later called the Pacific Ocean because of their calm crossing. He was killed by natives in the Philippines, but two of his ships reached the Moluccas, and one, the Victoria, commanded by Juan de Elcano (1476?–1526), continued west to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the world in 1522.

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▪ Portuguese explorer

Introduction

Portuguese  Fernão de Magalhães , Spanish  Fernando, or Hernando, de Magallanes 

born c. 1480, Sabrosa or Porto?, Port.

died April 27, 1521, Mactan, Philippines

      Portuguese navigator (navigation) and explorer who sailed under the flags of both Portugal (1505–12) and Spain (1519–21). From Spain he sailed around South America, discovering the Strait of Magellan, and across the Pacific. Though he was killed in the Philippines, his ships continued westward to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the Earth. The voyage was successfully terminated by the Basque navigator Juan Sebastián del Cano (Cano, Juan Sebastián del).

Early life

      Magellan was the son of Rui de Magalhães and Alda de Mesquita, members of the Portuguese nobility. At an early age he became a page to Queen Leonor in Lisbon. In early 1505 he enlisted in the fleet of Francisco de Almeida (Almeida, Francisco de), first Portuguese viceroy in the East, whose expedition, sent by King Manuel to check Muslim sea power in Africa and India, left Lisbon on March 25. During a naval engagement at Cannanore on the Malabar Coast of India, Magellan is said by the chronicler Gaspar Correia to have been wounded. Though Correia states that during this early period of his Indian service he acquired considerable knowledge of navigation, little is known of Magellan's first years in the East until he appears among those sailing in November 1506 with Nuno Vaz Pereira to Sofala on the Mozambique coast, where the Portuguese established a fort.

      In 1508 Magellan was back in India, taking part, on February 2–3, 1509, in the great Battle of Diu, which gave the Portuguese supremacy over most of the Indian Ocean. Reaching Cochin in the fleet of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, he left as one of the men-at-arms for Malacca. Magellan is mentioned as being sent to warn the commander of impending attack by Malays and during the subsequent fighting courageously saved the life of a Portuguese explorer, Francisco Serrão, who later from the Moluccas (Maluku) sent him helpful information about those islands. At a council held at Cochin on October 10, to decide on plans for recapturing Goa, he advised against taking large ships at that season, but the new viceroy, Afonso de Albuquerque (Albuquerque, Afonso de, the Great), did so, the city falling on November 24; Magellan's name does not appear among those who fought. There is no conclusive evidence for the theory that during his Indian service he attained the rank of captain.

      The Portuguese victories off the eastern coast of Africa and the western coast of India had broken Muslim power in the Indian Ocean, and the purpose of Almeida's expedition—to wrest from the Arabs the key points of sea trade—was almost accomplished; but without control of Malacca their achievement was incomplete. At the end of June 1511, therefore, a fleet under Albuquerque left for Malacca, which fell after six weeks. This event, in which Magellan took part, was the crowning Portuguese victory in the Orient. Through Malacca passed the wealth of the East to the harbours of the West, and in the command of the Malacca Strait the Portuguese held the key to the seas and ports of Malaysia. It remained to explore the wealth-giving Moluccas, the islands of spice. Accordingly, early in December 1511 they sailed on a voyage of reconnaissance and after reaching Banda returned with spice in 1512. The claim made by some that Magellan went on this voyage rests on unproved statements by Giovanni Battista Ramusio and Leonardo de Argensola, and the want of evidence argues against its acceptance. Even if he did, in truth, reach the Moluccas, a further voyage—which he later commanded from Spain to the Philippines—was required to complete the circle of navigation.

      In 1512 Magellan was back in Lisbon; the following year he joined the forces sent against the Moroccan stronghold of Azamor and in a skirmish after its fall sustained a wound that caused him to limp for the rest of his life. Returning to Lisbon in November 1514 he asked King Manuel (Manuel I) for a token increase in his pension, signifying a rise in rank. But unfounded reports of irregular conduct on his part after the siege of Azamor had reached the king, who, refusing his request, ordered him back to Morocco. Early in 1516 Magellan renewed his petition; the king, refusing once more, told him he might offer his services elsewhere.

Allegiance to Spain

      Magellan therefore went to Spain, reaching Sevilla (Seville) on October 20, 1517. He was joined by the Portuguese cosmographer Rui Faleiro, and together they journeyed to the court at Valladolid. There, having renounced their nationality, the two men offered their services to King Charles I (later, Emperor Charles V). Magalhães henceforward became known by the Spanish version of his name—Fernando de Magallanes.

      By decree of a papal bull in 1493, all new territories discovered or that should be discovered east of a line of demarcation (redrawn 1494) were assigned to Portugal, all that lay west to Spain. Magellan and Faleiro now proposed by sailing west to give practical proof of their claim that the Spice Islands lay west of the line of demarcation—that is, within the Spanish, not the Portuguese, hemisphere. On March 22, 1518, their proposal received royal assent; they were appointed joint captains general of an expedition directed to seek an all-Spanish route to the Moluccas. The government of any lands discovered was to be vested in them and their heirs, and they were to receive a one-twentieth share of the net profits from the venture; both were invested with the Order of Santiago. Magellan was convinced that he would lead his ships from the Atlantic to the “Sea of the South” by discovering a strait through Tierra Firme (the South American mainland). This idea did not originate with him; others had sought a passage by which vessels sailing continuously westward would reach the East and thus avoid the Cape of Good Hope, which was controlled by the Portuguese; in the royal agreement Magellan and Faleiro were directed to find “the” strait. The officials entrusted with East Indian affairs were instructed to furnish five ships for the expedition, prepared in Sevilla, where an unsuccessful attempt to wreck the project was made by Portuguese agents. Magellan's flagship, the Trinidad, had as consorts the San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria, and Santiago. An attack of insanity prevented Faleiro from sailing.

      Magellan, who in 1517 had married Beatriz Barbosa, daughter of an important official in Sevilla, said farewell to his wife and infant son Rodrigo before his ships left Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 20, 1519, carrying about 270 men of various ethnic, racial, and national origins. The fleet reached Tenerife on September 26, sailing on October 3 for Brazil; becalmed off the Guinea coast, it met storms before reaching the line; on November 29 it was 27 leagues southwest of Cape St. Augustine. Rounding Cabo Frio, Magellan entered the Bay of Rio de Janeiro on December 13, then sailing south to the Río de la Plata vainly probed the estuary, seeking the strait. On March 31 he reached Port St. Julian in latitude 49°20′ S, where on Easter day at midnight Spanish captains led a serious mutiny against the Portuguese commander. Magellan with resolution, ruthlessness, and daring quelled it, executing one of the captains and leaving another to his fate ashore when, on August 24, 1520, the fleet left St. Julian.

Discovery of the Strait of Magellan (Magellan, Strait of)

      After reaching the mouth of the Santa Cruz, near which the Santiago, reconnoitring, had been wrecked earlier, Magellan started south again, on October 21 rounding the Cape of the Virgins (Cabo Vírgenes), and at approximately 52°50′ S entered the passage that proved to be the strait of his seeking, later to bear his name. The San Antonio having deserted, only three of his ships reached the western end of the passage; at the news that the ocean had been sighted the iron-willed admiral broke down and cried with joy.

      On November 28 the Trinidad, Concepción, and Victoria entered the “Sea of the South,” from their calm crossing later called the Pacific Ocean. Tortured by thirst, stricken by scurvy, feeding on rat-fouled biscuits, finally reduced to eating the leather off the yardarms, the crews, driven first by the Peru Current and throughout the voyage by the relentless determination of Magellan, made the great crossing of the Pacific. Until December 18 they had sailed near the Chilean coast; then Magellan took a course northwestward; not until January 24, 1521, was land sighted, probably Pukapuka in the Tuamotu Archipelago. Crossing the equinoctial line at approximately 158° W on February 13, the voyagers on March 6 made first landfall at Guam in the Marianas, where they obtained fresh food for the first time in 99 days. A Memorial, sent by Magellan to King Charles before leaving Spain, suggests that he knew (probably partly from Serrão's letters) the approximate position of the Moluccas; in sailing now to the Philippines instead of direct to the Spice Islands, he was doubtless dominated by the idea of early revictualing and the advantage of securing a base before visiting the Moluccas.

      Leaving on March 9, Magellan steered west-southwestward to islands later called the Philippines, where at Massava he secured the first alliance in the Pacific for Spain and at Cebú the conversion to Christianity of the ruler and his chief men. Less than two months later, however, Magellan was killed in a fight with natives on Mactan Island.

Circumnavigation of the globe

      After Magellan's death only two of the ships, the Trinidad and Victoria, reached the Moluccas; only one, the Victoria (85 tons), returned to Spain, under command of Cano, originally master on the Concepción and participator in the mutiny at Port St. Julian. For bringing home, on September 8, 1522, the leaking but spice-laden ship, with only 17 other European survivors and 4 Indians, “weaker than men have ever been before,” Cano received from the emperor an augmentation to his coat of arms, a globe with the inscription “Primus circumdedisti me” (“You were the first to encircle me”).

      Magellan's accomplishment lies in his bold conception and masterly direction of the enterprise that achieved the first circumnavigation of the globe. The first navigator to cross the Pacific from east to west, he disproved the prevailing idea that a mere few days westward sailing from the New World would bring ships to the East Indies. Instead, after a crossing lasting more than three months, he brought a fleet within easy distance of them. Magellan, with a character so complex and of such extreme contradictions, will remain an enigma; psychologically he cannot have been at peace with himself. For his transference of allegiance many writers have denounced him, bearing in mind that in his time the loyalty of a Portuguese to his sovereign was second only to his loyalty to his God; others have pointed out that in offering his services to another ruler Magellan did what Christopher Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, and Amerigo Vespucci had done and that limitations imposed by nationality are irreconcilable with the advancement of knowledge. But on one thing all Portuguese are agreed: “He is ours.”

Mairin Mitchell

Additional Reading

The fullest account of Magellan's remarkable voyage is that of Antonio Pigafetta, who sailed with Magellan and returned with Elcano. The text of the Italian version, translated, edited, and annotated by James Alexander Robertson, is Magellan's Voyage Around the World, 3 vol. (1906). The First Voyage Round the World, by Magellan, edited and translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley (Henry Edward Stanley) (1874, reprinted 1963), also includes the account of Pigafetta, as well as accounts by other members of the expedition.Important introductory works on the life of Magellan include F.H.H. Guillemard, The Life of Ferdinand Magellan and the First Circumnavigation of the Globe, 1480–1521 (1890, reprinted 1971); E.F. Benson, Ferdinand Magellan (1929); and Edouard Roditi, Magellan of the Pacific (1972).

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