When men first went to the moon, they planned with mathematical precision where they were going and how they were going to get there. And they could communicate with home. But when Ferdinand Magellan’s five small wooden ships, most of them about 70 feet [21 m] long, comparable in length to a modern semi-trailer that left Spain in 1519, they sailed into the unknown. And they were completely alone.
Among the most daring and courageous feats of navigation of all time, Magellan’s voyages are a monument to the Great Age of Exploration, an age of courage and fear, exhilaration and tragedy, God and Mammon. Let’s go back, then, to 1480, when Ferdinand Magellan was born in northern Portugal, and take a look at the remarkable man who opened the world and his epic journeys.
From court page to intrepid sailor
Magellan’s family are members of the nobility, so, as is customary, when Ferdinand is still a young boy, he is called as a page of the royal court. Here, in addition to training, he knows first-hand the exploits of men like Christopher Columbus, who has just returned from America after having sought a western sea route to the legendary Spice Islands (Indonesia). Young Ferdinand soon dreams of the day when he, too, can hear the tarp slapping over his head and feel the spray of uncharted oceans on his face.
Sadly, in 1495 his patron, King John, is assassinated and Duke Manuel, fond of wealth but not of exploration, ascends the throne. For some reason, Manuel doesn’t like the 15-year-old Ferdinand and for years ignores his requests to go to sea. But when Vasco da Gama returns from India, laden with spices, Manuel smells great wealth. Finally, in 1505, he gives Magellan permission to go to sea. Magellan sets out for East Africa and India in a Portuguese navy to help wrest control of the spice trade from Arab merchants. Thereafter he sails further east to Malacca with another military expedition.
During a skirmish in Morocco in 1513, Magellan is seriously injured in the knee. As a result, he limps for the rest of his life. He asks Manuel for an increase in his pension. But Manuel’s animosity is not diminished in the least by Magellan’s recent exploits, sacrifice, and valor. He sends him on his way with barely enough to live in sweet poverty.
At this lowest point in Magellan’s life, he receives a visit from an old friend, the famous navigator João de Lisboa. The two discuss ways to get to the Spice Islands by going southwest, through the pass, a strait rumored to run through South America, and then across the ocean that Balboa recently discovered when he crossed the Panamanian Isthmus. They believe that on the other side of this ocean are the Spice Islands.
Magellan is now striving to do what Columbus failed to do: find that western route to the East, which he believes is shorter than the eastern route. But you need financial backing. So, still smarting from the heat of Manuel’s anger, he does what Columbus himself did some years before: he seeks the patronage of the king of Spain.
Will the King of Spain listen?
With his cards open, Magellan presents his arguments to the young sovereign of Spain, Carlos I, who is more interested in Magellan’s western route to the Spice Islands, since this would prevent trespassing the Portuguese sea routes. What’s more, Magellan tells him that the Spice Islands may actually be in Spanish territory, not Portuguese! See the box “The Treaty of Tordesillas”.
Carlos is conquered. He gives Magellan five old ships to fit out for the expedition, makes him captain general of the fleet, and promises him a share of the profits from the spices brought home. Magellan immediately goes to work. But because King Manuel cunningly tries to sabotage the project, it takes over a year for the fleet to finally be ready for their epic journey.
“The Greatest Sailing Feat in History”
On September 20, 1519, the San Antonio, the Concepción, the Victoria, and the Santiago, from largest to smallest, follow Magellan’s flagship, the Trinidad, the second largest ship, as they sail to South America. On December 13 they arrive in Brazil and under the majestic gaze of the Pão de Açúcar, or Sugar Loaf, they enter the beautiful bay of Rio de Janeiro for repairs and provisions. Then they continue south into what is now Argentina, always on the lookout for the pass, the slippery passageway to another ocean. Meanwhile, the days get colder and icebergs appear. Finally, on March 31, 1520, Magellan decides to spend the winter in the cold port of San Julián.
The voyage has now taken six times longer than Columbus’s first Atlantic crossing and there is still no strait! Morale is as frigid as St Julian’s weather, and the men, including some of the captains and officers, are desperate to get home. It’s no surprise when the riot breaks out. But through quick and decisive action on Magellan’s part, it fails and two of the ringleaders are killed.
The presence of strange ships in the port naturally arouses the curiosity of the strong and great local inhabitants. Feeling like dwarfs next to these giants, visitors call that land Patagonia from a Spanish word meaning “big feet,” its name to this day. They also see ‘fur seals that resemble calves in size, and black and white geese that swim underwater, eat fish and have raven-like beaks.’ Yes, you guessed it, seals and penguins!
The polar latitudes are prone to sudden and violent storms, and before winter is over, the fleet suffers its first casualty, tiny Santiago. Fortunately, however, the crew is rescued from the shipwreck on land. Thereafter, the remaining four ships, like little winged moths enslaved by incessant icy gales, make their way south into ever-colder waters through October 21. Through the spray and sleet, all eyes are fixed on an opening to the west. Step? Yes! They finally turn around and enter the strait that will later be known as the Strait of Magellan! Yet even this moment of triumph is tarnished. The San Antonio deliberately disappears into the labyrinth of the strait and returns to Spain.
The three remaining ships, flanked by desolate fjords and snow-capped peaks, doggedly make their way through the tortuous strait. To the south they see innumerable campfires, possibly from indigenous camps, which is why they call that land Tierra del Fuego, “Land of Fire”.
the pacific test
After five harrowing weeks, they sail into an ocean so peaceful that Magellan calls it the Pacific. The men pray, sing hymns and salute their conquest with their cannons. But his euphoria is short-lived. Pain awaits them beyond anything they have experienced so far, for this is not the little sea they expected, it goes on and on, and men grow hungrier, weaker, and sicker.
Antonio Pigafetta, a tough Italian, keeps a diary. He writes: “Wednesday, November twenty-eighth, 1520, we… entered the Pacific Sea, where we remained three months and twenty days without taking provisions… We only ate old biscuit reduced to powder, and full of maggots and stinking from the filth that rats had made in it…and we drank smelly yellow water.We also ate the oxhides…and the sawdust from the wood, and-a-crown each, besides, they couldn’t get enough from them “. So, while the new trade winds fill her sails and the clear water slides under her keel, the men lie rotting with scurvy. Nineteen die when they reach the Mariana Islands, on March 6, 1521.
But here, due to hostilities with the islanders, they only manage to get a little fresh food before setting sail. Finally, on March 16, they sight the Philippines. Finally, all men eat well, rest and regain their health and strength.
Tragedy A dream collapses
A deeply religious man, Magellan converts many local inhabitants and their rulers to Catholicism there. But his zeal is also his undoing. He gets involved in an intertribal dispute and, with just 60 men, attacks about 1,500 Indians, believing crossbow, musket, and God will assure him victory. Instead, he and several of his men are killed. Magellan is about 41 years old. Loyal Pigafetta laments: ‘They killed our mirror, light, consolation and true guide’. A few days later, some 27 officers who had done nothing but keep watch from the safety of their ships are assassinated by once-friendly bosses.
When Magellan died, he fell into familiar waters. A little to the south are the Spice Islands and to the west, Malacca, where he had fought in 1511. If, as some historians think, he sailed to the Philippines after the battle of Malacca, then, in fact, he turned to the world. although not, of course, in a single trip. He had come to the Philippines from the east and the west.
Disaster plagues the race home
Since there are so few men left now, it is impossible to work with three ships, so they sink the Concepción and sail the remaining two ships to their final destination, the Spice Islands. Then, having loaded up with spices, the two ships part ways. However, the crew of the struggling Trinidad is captured by the Portuguese and imprisoned.
But the Victoria, commanded by former mutineer Juan Sebastián de Elcano, escapes. Avoiding all but one port, they risk the Portuguese route around the Cape of Good Hope. However, not stopping to buy groceries is an expensive strategy. When they finally arrive in Spain on September 6, 1522, three years after their departure, only 18 sick and emaciated men have survived. Still, they are the first undisputed circumnavigators of Earth. And De Elcano is a hero. Incredibly, the Victoria’s 26 tons of spices pay for the entire expedition!
Magellan’s name lives on
For years Magellan was denied his true place in history. Influenced by the reports of the mutinous captains, the Spanish slandered his name, saying that he was harsh and incompetent. The Portuguese label it as a provider. Unfortunately, the record of him disappeared when he died, probably destroyed by those he would expose. But thanks to the indomitable Pigafetta, one of the 18 circumnavigators, and 5 other members of the expedition, we have at least some record of this tragic but extraordinary journey.
Over time, history revised his judgment, and today Magellan’s name is duly honored. A strait is named after him, as are the Magellanic Clouds, two fuzzy southern galaxies first described by his crew and the Magellan space probe. And, of course, the name of the largest ocean in the world, the Pacific, we owe to Magellan.
In fact, “no human voyage of such importance would take place until Apollo 11 landed on the Moon 447 years later,” writes Richard Humble, in Magellan’s Voyage. Why was the trip so important? First, he showed that the Americas were not part of or close to Asia, as Columbus had thought. Second, at the end of the voyage, a one-day discrepancy in the dates signaled the need for an international date line. And finally, as the science writer Isaac Asimov said, he proved that the earth is a sphere. Yes, in this last aspect, Magellan demonstrated in a practical way what the Bible itself had been saying for 2,250 years. (Isaiah 40:22; compare Job 26:7.) Surely the religious man who opened the world would have liked that very much.