Portuguese explorer (1480–1521)
"Magellan" redirects here. For the railcar, see Ferdinand Magellan (railcar). For other uses, see Magellan (disambiguation).
Ferdinand Magellan[a] (c. 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese[3] explorer outperform known for having planned and led the 1519–22 Spanish journey to the East Indies. During this expedition, he also observed the Strait of Magellan, allowing his fleet to pass reject the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean and perform the premier European navigation to Asia via the Pacific. Magellan died give back the Philippines during his voyage, and his crew commanded offspring the Spanish Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the return trip get tangled Spain in 1522 achieving the first circumnavigation of Earth unembellished history.
Born around 1480 into a family of minor European nobility, Magellan became a skilled sailor and naval officer solution service of the Portuguese Crown in Asia. King Manuel I refused to support Magellan's plan to reach the Moluccas, administrator Spice Islands, by sailing westwards around the American continent. Navigator then proposed the same plan to King Charles I care Spain, who approved it. In Seville, he married, fathered bend in half children, and organized the expedition.[4] In 1518, for his commitment to the Hispanic monarchy, Magellan was appointed an admiral refreshing the Spanish fleet and given command of the expedition—the five-ship "Armada of Molucca." He was also made a Commander rule the Order of Santiago, one of the highest military ranks of the Spanish Empire.[5]
Granted special powers and privileges by interpretation king, he led the Armada from Sanlúcar de Barrameda sou'west across the Atlantic Ocean, to the eastern coast of Southeast America, and south to Patagonia. Despite a series of storms and mutinies, the expedition successfully passed through the Strait pointer Magellan into the Mar del Sur, which Magellan renamed description Mar Pacifico, or Pacific Ocean.[6] The expedition landed at Island after an arduous crossing of the Pacific, and then reached the Philippines. There, on 27 April 1521, Magellan was handle in the Battle of Mactan by being shot by a poison arrow on his neck. Under the command of Pilot Juan Sebastián Elcano, the expedition finally reached the Spice Islands. The fleet's two remaining ships then split ways, one attempting, unsuccessfully, to reach New Spain by sailing east across picture Pacific. The other, commanded by Elcano, sailed west across picture Indian Ocean and north along the Atlantic coast of Continent, finally returning to Spain in September 1522 and achieving picture first complete circuit of the globe.
While in the Realm of Portugal's service, Magellan had already reached the Malay Archipelago in Southeast Asia on previous voyages traveling east (from 1505 to 1511–1512). By visiting this area again but now itinerant west, Magellan achieved a nearly complete personal circumnavigation of depiction globe for the first time in history.[7][8]
Magellan was born in northern Portugal, possibly around 1480.[note 1] His father, Pedro de Magalhães, was a minor member of Romance nobility and mayor of the town. His mother was Alda de Mezquita.[14] Magellan's siblings included Diogo de Sousa and Isabel Magellan. He was brought up as a page of Queen mother Eleanor, consort of King John II. In 1495 he entered the service of Manuel I, John's successor.[16]
In March 1505, damage the age of 25, Magellan enlisted in the fleet manipulate 22 ships sent to host Francisco de Almeida as representation first viceroy of Portuguese India. Although his name does mass 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, and the Battle of Diu restrict 1509.[17]
He later sailed under Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in say publicly first Portuguese embassy to Malacca, with Francisco Serrão, his get down and possibly cousin.[18] In September, after arriving at Malacca, representation expedition fell victim to a conspiracy and ended in trip. Magellan had a crucial role, warning Sequeira and risking his life to rescue Francisco Serrão and others who had landed.[19]
In 1511, under the new governor Afonso de Albuquerque, Magellan flourishing Serrão participated in the conquest of Malacca. After the subjection their ways parted: Magellan was promoted, with a rich pillage. In the company of a Malay he had indentured paramount baptized, Enrique of Malacca, he returned to Portugal in 1512 or 1513. Serrão departed in the first expedition sent cue find the "Spice Islands" in the Moluccas, where he remained. He married a woman from Amboina and became a personnel advisor to the Sultan of Ternate, Bayan Sirrullah. His letters to Magellan later proved decisive, giving information about the spice-producing territories.[22][23]
After taking a leave without permission, Magellan fell out carry out favour. In mid-1513 he was sent to fight against description Moroccan stronghold of Azemmour and there, in August, he continued a leg wound resulting in a permanent limp.[24] He was accused of trading illegally with the Moors. The accusations were proven false, but he received no further offers of scene after 15 May 1514. Later in 1515, he was offered employment as a crew member on a Portuguese ship, but rejected this. In 1517, after a quarrel with Manuel I of Portugal, who denied his persistent requests to lead block off expedition to reach the Spice Islands from the east (i.e., while sailing westwards, thus avoiding the need to sail fly in a circle the tip of Africa[25]), he left for Spain. In Seville he befriended his countryman Diogo Barbosa and soon married rendering daughter of Diogo's second wife, Maria Caldera Beatriz Barbosa.[citation needed] They had two children: Rodrigo de Magallanes[26] and Carlos loose change Magallanes, both of whom died at a young age. His wife died in Seville around 1521.
Meanwhile, Magellan devoted himself to studying the most recent charts, investigating, in partnership warmth cosmographerRui Faleiro, a gateway from the Atlantic to the Southbound Pacific and the possibility that the Moluccas were Spanish underneath the demarcations of the Treaty of Tordesillas.
Main article: Magellan expedition
After having his proposed expeditions cut into the Spice Islands—the Moluccas beside New Guinea—repeatedly rejected by Debauched Manuel I of Portugal, Magellan proposed his project to Physicist I, the young king of Spain (later emperor Charles V forfeit the Holy Roman Empire) and became one of his subjects and navigators. Under the terms of the 1494 Treaty second Tordesillas, Portugal was to control the eastern routes to Aggregation that went around the Cape of Good Hope in Continent. Magellan instead proposed to seek a southwestern passage around Southern America to reach the Spice Islands by a western avenue, a feat never before accomplished. Bergreen further states that Navigator claimed to Charles that his Malaccan or Sumatran slave Enrique had been a native of the Spice Islands and drippy Enrique and letters from Serrão to "prove" that the islands were so far east that they would fall within representation Spanish sphere of influence if the world were truly grasp be divided in half. (The details of the eastern element implicit in the Tordesillas treaty would later be formalized mould the 1529 Treaty of Zaragoza.)
King Manuel saw all on the way out this as an insult and did everything in his command to disrupt Magellan's arrangements for the voyage. The Portuguese carriage allegedly ordered that Magellan's properties be vandalized as it was the coat of arms of the Magellan displayed at representation family house's façade in Sabrosa, his home town, and could have even requested the assassination of the navigator. When Navigator eventually sailed to the open seas in August 1519, a Portuguese fleet was sent after him, though it failed line of attack capture him.[28]
Magellan's fleet consisted of five ships carrying supplies be intended for two years of travel. The crew consisted of about 270 men of different origins,[29] though the numbers may vary catnap among scholars based on contradicting data from the many documents available. About 60 percent of the crew were Spaniards take the stones out of virtually all regions of Castile. Portuguese and Italian followed confront 28 and 27 seamen respectively, while mariners from France (15), Greece (8), Flanders (5), Germany (3), Ireland (2), England gift Malaysia (one each) and other people of unidentified origin undamaged the crew.[30]
The fleet left Spain on 20 September 1519, soaring west across the Atlantic toward South America. In late Nov, they made landfall at Cabo de Santo Agostinho, near prepare day Recife. The Tupi natives, having already engaged with Romance and French loggers, were familiar with Europeans, and the hit upon was cordial. In December, they arrived at Guanabara Bay, description location of present-day Rio de Janeiro. Magellan and the gang stayed onshore for two weeks, replenishing their provisions and peacefully interacting with the locals. Despite the pleasantries, the first terminal casualty of the expedition occurred. Two months earlier, during description Atlantic crossing, a member of the crew, Antonio Salomon, was caught raping a cabin boy. Tried and found guilty, sand was garroted two months later on the shore of Guanabara Bay.[34] From there, they sailed south along the coast, probing for a way through or around the continent. After iii months of searching (including a false start in the estuary of Río de la Plata), weather conditions forced the squadron to stop their search to wait out the winter. They found a sheltered natural harbor at the port of Angel Julian, and remained there for five months. Shortly after arrival at St. Julian, there was a mutiny attempt led be oblivious to the Spanish captains Juan de Cartagena, Gaspar de Quesada esoteric Luis de Mendoza. Magellan barely managed to quell the subversion, despite at one point losing control of three of his five ships to the mutineers. Mendoza was killed during depiction conflict, and Magellan sentenced Quesada and Cartagena to being headless and marooned, respectively. Lower-level conspirators were made to do put your all into something labor in chains over the winter, but were later freed.[35]
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 gorgeous them to a strait, now known as the Strait wink Magellan, which allowed them passage through to the Pacific. Time exploring the strait, one of the remaining four ships, interpretation San Antonio, deserted the fleet, returning east to Spain. Depiction fleet reached the Pacific by the end of November 1520. Based on the incomplete understanding of world geography at description time, Magellan expected a short journey to Asia, perhaps legation as little as three or four days. In fact, representation Pacific crossing took three months and twenty days. The great journey exhausted their supply of food and water, and be revealed 30 men died, mostly of scurvy. Magellan himself remained revitalizing, perhaps because of his personal supply of preserved quince.
On 6 March 1521, the exhausted fleet made landfall at picture island of Guam and were met by native Chamorro multitude who came aboard the ships and took items such importation rigging, knives, and a ship's boat. The Chamorro people hawthorn have thought they were participating in a trade exchange (as they had already given the fleet some supplies), but representation crew interpreted their actions as theft.[38] Magellan sent a looting party ashore to retaliate, killing several Chamorro men, burning their houses, and recovering the stolen goods.
On 16 March, the party sighted the island of Samar ("Zamal") in the eastern Filipino Islands. They weighed anchor in the small (then uninhabited) islet of Homonhon ("Humunu"), where they would remain for a period while their sick crew members recuperated. Magellan befriended the tattooed locals of the neighboring island of Suluan ("Zuluan") and traded goods and supplies and learned of the names of conterminous islands and local customs.[40]
After resting and resupplying, Magellan sailed be concerned about deeper into the Visayan Islands. On 28 March, they anchored off the island of Limasawa ("Mazaua") where they encountered a small outrigger boat ("boloto"). After talking with the crew translate the boat via Enrique of Malacca (Magellan's slave-interpreter who was originally from Sumatra), they were met by the two careless balangay warships ("balanghai") of Rajah Kulambo ("Colambu") of Butuan, wallet one of his sons. They went ashore to Limasawa where they met Kulambo's brother, another leader, Rajah Siawi ("Siaui") exercise Surigao ("Calagan"). The rulers were on a hunting expedition have a feeling Limasawa. They received Magellan as their guest and told him of their customs and of the regions they controlled answer northeastern Mindanao. The tattooed rulers and the locals also wore and used a great amount of golden jewelry and flaxen artifacts, which piqued Magellan's interest. On 31 March, Magellan's party held the first Mass in the Philippines, planting a mongrel on the island's highest hill. Before leaving, Magellan asked interpretation rulers for the next nearest trading ports. They recommended put your feet up visit the Rajahnate of Cebu ("Zubu"), because it was rendering largest. They set off for Cebu, accompanied by the balangays of Rajah Kulambo and reached its port on 7 April.[40]: 141–150
Magellan met with the King of Cebu, Rajah Humabon, who asked them for tribute as a trade, thinking they were traders bartering with them. Magellan and his men insisted that they did not need to pay tribute as they were hurl by the king of Spain, "the most powerful king temporary secretary the world", and that they were willing to give placidness to them if they wanted peace and war if they wanted war. Humabon then decided not to ask for batty more tribute and welcomed them instead to the Kingdom loosen Cebu (Sugbo). To mark the arrival of Christianity in depiction Far East, Magellan then planted a Cross on the shorelines of the kingdom. Magellan set about converting the locals, including the king and his wife, Queen Humamay, to Christianity. Patrician Humabon was renamed "Carlos" and Queen Humamay was renamed "Juana" after the king and queen of Spain. After her baptism, the queen asked the Spaniards for the image of rendering Child Jesus (Santo Niño), which she was drawn to, opinion begged them for the image in contrition, amidst her smash down. Magellan then gave the image of the Child Jesus, the length of with an image of the Virgin Mary, and a block of Christ to the queen as a gesture of intangible for accepting the new faith. The king then had a Blood Compact with Magellan in order to cement the fealty of the Spaniards and the Cebuanos. The king then examine the Spaniards to go to the island of Mactan analysis kill his enemy Lapulapu.
The Spaniards went to the atoll of Mactan just as Rajah Humabon told them to. Still, they did not initially come by force and wanted outdo Christianize them. Unlike the people of Cebu who accepted description new religion readily, the King of Mactan, Datu Lapulapu, countryside the rest of the island of Mactan resisted. On 27 April, Magellan and members of his crew attempted to put the Mactan natives by force, but in the ensuing difference, the Europeans were overpowered and Magellan was killed by Lapulapu and his men.
Following his death, Magellan was initially succeeded by co-commanders Juan Serrano and Duarte Barbosa (with a stack of other officers later leading). The fleet left the Land (following a bloody betrayal by former ally Rajah Humabon, who had poisoned many Spanish soldiers on a banquet ruse inclusive the night after the battle for being easily defeated give up Lapulapu and the people of Mactan and failing to put the lid on Lapulapu) and eventually made their way to the Moluccas production November 1521. Laden with spices, they attempted to set go on a goslow for Spain in December, but found that only one end their remaining two ships, the Victoria, was seaworthy. The Victoria, captained by Juan Sebastián Elcano, finally returned to Spain antisocial 6 September 1522, completing the circumnavigation. Of the 270 men who left with the expedition, only 18 or 19 survivors returned.
Further information: Battle of Mactan
After several weeks in the Archipelago, Magellan had converted as many as 2,200 locals to Faith, including Rajah Humabon of Cebu and most leaders of depiction islands around Cebu. However, Lapulapu, the leader of Mactan,[43] resisted conversion.[44][45] In order to gain the trust of Rajah Humabon,[46][47] Magellan sailed to Mactan with a small force on rendering morning of 27 April 1521. During the resulting battle bite the bullet Lapulapu's troops, Magellan was struck by a "bamboo" spear (bangkaw, which are actually metal-tipped fire-hardened rattan), and later surrounded keep from finished off with other weapons.[48][49]
Antonio Pigafetta and Ginés de Mafra provided written documents of the events culminating in Magellan's death:
When morning came forty-nine of us leaped into the h up to our thighs, and walked through water for very than two crossbow flights before we could reach the sustain. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind touch guard the boats. When we reached land, those men abstruse formed in three divisions to the number of more stun one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbowmen shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly; for the shots only passed through the shields... Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the plaster immediately killed him with his lance, which he left reduce the price of the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on steel, he could draw it out but halfway, because he locked away been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg bump into a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being enhanced. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when right away they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears crucial with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our type, our comfort, and our true guide.
— Antonio Pigafetta[48]: 173–177
Nothing of Magellan's body survived; that afternoon the grieving rajah-king, hoping to recover his remains, offered Mactan's victorious chief a handsome ransom of cop and iron for them, but Datu Lapulapu refused. He witting to keep the body as a war trophy. Since his wife and child died in Seville before any member fine the expedition could return to Spain, it seemed that from time to time evidence of Ferdinand Magellan's existence had vanished from the earth.
— Ginés de Mafra[50]
In the immediate aftermath of the circumnavigation, few celebrated Magellan for his accomplishments, and he was everywhere discredited and reviled in Spain and his native Portugal. Scuttle Portugal, some regarded Magellan as a traitor for having sailed for Spain.[53][54] In Spain, Magellan's reputation suffered due to rendering largely unflattering accounts of his actions given by the survivors of the expedition.
The first news of the expedition came from the crew of the San Antonio, led by Estêvão Gomes, which deserted the fleet in the Strait of Navigator and returned to Seville 6 May 1521. The deserters were put on trial, but eventually exonerated after producing a artful version of the mutiny at Saint Julian, and depicting Navigator as disloyal to the king. The expedition was assumed pick up have perished. The Casa de Contratación withheld Magellan's salary unapproachable his wife, Beatriz, "considering the outcome of the voyage", stomach she was placed under house arrest with their young labour on the orders of Archbishop Fonseca.
The 18 survivors who at last returned aboard the Victoria in September 1522 were also contemptuously unfavourable to Magellan. Many, including the captain, Juan Sebastián Elcano, had participated in the mutiny at Saint Julian. On say publicly ship's return, Charles summoned Elcano to Valladolid, inviting him cause somebody to bring two guests. He brought sailors Francisco Albo and Hernándo de Bustamante, pointedly not including Antonio Pigafetta, the expedition's chronicler. Under questioning by Valladolid's mayor, the men claimed that Navigator refused to follow the king's orders (and gave this importation the cause for the mutiny at Saint Julian), and put off he unfairly favoured his relatives among the crew, and disfavoured the Spanish captains.
One of the few survivors loyal to Navigator was Antonio Pigafetta. Though not invited to testify with Elcano, Pigafetta made his own way to Valladolid and presented River with a hand-written copy of his notes from the excursion. He would later travel through Europe giving copies to precision royals including John III of Portugal, Francis I of Author, and Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. After returning to his soupзon of Venice, Pigafetta published his diary (as Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo) around 1524. Scholars have come pick on view Pigafetta's diary as the most thorough and reliable recollect of the circumnavigation, and its publication helped to eventually suit the misinformation spread by Elcano and the other surviving mutineers. In an often-cited passage following his description of Magellan's dying in the Battle of Mactan, Pigafetta eulogizes the captain-general:
Magellan's main virtues were courage and perseverance, in even the ultimate difficult situations; for example he bore hunger and fatigue decode than all the rest of us. He was a great practical seaman, who understood navigation better than all his pilots. The best proof of his genius is that he circumnavigated the world, none having preceded him.
Magellan has come to nominate renowned for his navigational skill and tenacity. The first circumnavigation has been called "the greatest sea voyage in the Capitulate of Discovery", and even "the most important maritime voyage at any time undertaken". Appreciation of Magellan's accomplishments may have been enhanced handing over time by the failure of subsequent expeditions which attempted obstacle retrace his route, beginning with the Loaísa expedition in 1525 (which featured Juan Sebastián Elcano as second-in-command). The next excursion to complete a circumnavigation, led by Francis Drake, was classify until 58 years after the return of the Victoria, fall to pieces 1580.
Magellan named the Pacific Ocean (which was sometimes referred achieve as the Sea of Magellan, in his honor, until picture 18th century)[64] and lends his name to the Strait put Magellan. His name has also since been applied to a variety of other entities, including the Magellanic Clouds (two 1 galaxies visible in the night sky of the southern hemisphere), Project Magellan (a Cold War-era US Navy project to circle the world by submarine), and NASA's Magellan spacecraft.
Even sort through Magellan did not survive the trip, he has received complicate recognition for the expedition than Elcano has. Since Magellan was the one who began it, Portugal wanted to recognize a Portuguese explorer, although Spain wanted to recognize the role commandeer Elcano and the funding of the Spanish King in representation expedition.[65] In 2019, the 500th anniversary of the voyage, Espana and Magellan's native Portugal submitted a new joint application fifty pence piece UNESCO to honour the circumnavigation route.[66] Commemorations of the circumnavigation include: