Magellan discovers a way around the world

Posted in America, Discoveries, Exploration, Historical articles, History, Ships on Friday, 28 October 2011

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This edited article about the Great Discoveries originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 850 published on 29 April 1978.

Magellan, picture, image, illustration

Ferdinand Magellan and the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, by Oliver Frey

The dark eyes of the sallow-skinned, heavily-bearded Portuguese adventurer who stood before King Charles I of Spain shone with enthusiasm as he unfolded his “wild” plan.

“If I could sail to the west and take my ship southwards under the tip of the great American continent, I would be able to reach all the riches of the East Indies,” he told the king. “In so doing, I would be going in exactly the opposite direction to that taken by the Portuguese when they sailed southwards under the tip of Africa and then eastwards to the Indies.”

The westward route “under” America would lead to the same goal as the eastward route “under” Africa, declared the adventurer, because, as everyone – or almost everyone – now agreed, the world was round.

King Charles nodded his approval at the speaker, Ferdinand Magellan, and agreed to provide five ships, the Concepcion, Santiago, Trinidad, San Antonio and Victoria. They were all about the same size as Columbus’s Santa Maria, but altogether much better equipped. They bristled with guns and were laden with gunpowder, and they carried the best navigational aids available at the time.

On a September day in 1519 the little armada set off on what was to become one of the great voyages of all time. The early part of the route was by now familiar – the Canaries, Cape Verde, then across the Atlantic to the coast of Brazil and South America.

Here Magellan made an elementary mistake. Arriving at the wide estuary of the River Plate, he turned westwards, believing he was going “under” the continent. It was some time before he realised that he was in a wide river.

Nothing brings this remarkable voyage so vividly alive for us as the diligent account of it recorded daily in the diary of one of Magellan’s officers, Antonio Pigafetta. In South America, he tells us, the natives swapped him five fat fowls for the king in a pack of playing cards. “And they thought they had cheated me,” he wrote.

Pigafetta recounts how Magellan wanted to capture and take with him two Patagonian natives. “He gave them many knives, forks, mirrors, bells and glass and they held all these things in their hands. Then the captain had some irons brought, such as are put on the feet of wrongdoers. The natives took pleasure in seeing the irons, but they did not know where to put them.”

Magellan solved their dilemma brutally by putting the irons on their legs and making them prisoners, which, says Pigafetta, caused the unfortunate Patagonians “to foam like bulls.”

Magellan’s men had by this time become quite convinced that it was impossible to sail around the American continent – and that South America probably merged into the unexplored continent of Antarctica. They urged their leader to return to Europe and, when he refused, they mutinied. Once again Magellan showed a brutal side to his character. The captain of the Concepcion, a ringleader, was hanged and others were marooned.

Fourteen months after leaving Spain, Magellan triumphantly proved his theory right when the South American mainland came to an end. His little fleet turned westwards and for the next 38 days fought the stormy Straits that are now named after him – 515 kilometres of waterway in some places less than three kilometres wide and overhung by towering, snow-covered cliffs.

The Santiago had already been lost – stranded on a sandbank – and the Straits of Magellan proved too much for the San Antonio, whose captain suddenly turned round and made off back to Spain. But for the three survivors there was history to be made. All at once they found themselves in a new ocean. Magellan later called it the Pacific or “Peaceful”, Ocean, because his ships did not encounter one storm.

Turning northwards, the little fleet sailed up the west coast of South America, discovering its coastline and gauging its size for all the world’s map-makers. Then they set out westwards across the yawning chasm of the Pacific Ocean.

No one could guess what lay ahead. Perhaps all were now too occupied by their present perils to care much. The ships were leaking. The provisions were exhausted.

No word of complaint was permitted by Magellan now. “Anyone who talks about the grimness of our position will be executed,” he declared fiercely.

Ironically, if he had sailed a course farther south he would probably have sighted Tahiti or Fiji, where he could have had plenty of food, so saving his crew the three months of hunger and hardship which caused the deaths of 19 of them.

At last, though, they reached the Philippines. On the island of Cebu, Magellan’s men received the rapid submission of the local king. But the neighbouring island of Mactan refused to acknowledge the King of Spain or of any other foreign country. Magellan and sixty of his men resolved to test their obstinacy in battle – with disastrous results. The natives slaughtered the Spaniards, and among those who fell was Magellan himself.

Pigafetta recorded his death: “He, with a few of us, remained at his post, without choosing to retreat farther. Thus we fought for more than an hour, until the Indians succeeded in thrusting a cane lance into the captain’s face. He then, being irritated, pierced an Indian’s breast with his lance, and left it in his body. The enemy, seeing this, all rushed upon him, and one of them with a great sword gave him a blow on the left leg and brought the captain down on his face. Then the Indians ran him through with lances and scimitars and all the other arms which they had, so that they deprived of life our mirror, light, comfort and true guide.”

The tragedy for Magellan was that he was denied the glory of being the first captain to sail around the world – although that honour is accorded to his expedition. Nor did he live to know that he had succeeded where Columbus had failed, in showing that elusive westward way to the Indies.

Sebastian del Cano, captain of the Victoria, took over the rest of the expedition which now limped painfully home. The Concepcion was burned and the Trinidad was seized by the Portuguese in Indonesia.

Only the Victoria was left, manned by a scurvy-stricken crew and continually assailed by storms. On 7th September, 1522, after a voyage lasting three years, she sailed triumphantly into Spain’s River Guadalquivir, near Seville. On board were 18 men – all that was left of the 270 who had set sail under Magellan.

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