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Heading northwest, the crew reached the equator on 13 February 1521. On 6 March they reached the Marianas and Guam. Pigafetta described the "lateen sail" used by the inhabitants of Guam, hence the name "Island of Sails", but he also writes the inhabitants "entered the ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on", including "the small boat that was fastened to the poop of the flagship."[22]:129 "Those people are poor, but ingenious and very thievish, on account of which we called those three islands the islands of Ladroni."[22]:131 On 17 March Magellan reached the island of Homonhon in the Philippines, with 150 crew left. Members of his expedition became the first Spaniards to reach the Philippine archipelago, but they were not the first Europeans.[23] Magellan relied on Enrique, his Malay servant and interpreter, to communicate with the native tribes. He had been indentured by Magellan in 1511 after the colonization of Malacca, and had accompanied him through later adventures. They traded gifts with Rajah Siaiu of Mazaua[24] who guided them to Cebu on 7 April. Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly towards Magellan and the Spaniards; both he and his queen Hara Amihan were baptized as Christians and were given the image of the Santo Nino which along with a cross (Magellan's Cross) symbolizes the Christianization of the Philippines. Afterward, Rajah Humabon and his ally Datu Zula convinced Magellan to kill their enemy, Datu Lapu-Lapu, on Mactan. Magellan wanted to convert Lapu-Lapu to Christianity, as he had Humabon, but Lapu-Lapu rejected that. On the morning of 27 April 1521, Magellan sailed to Mactan with a small attack force. During the resulting battle against Lapu-Lapu's troops, Magellan was struck by a bamboo spear, and later surrounded and finished off with other weapons.[25] Magellan's voyage led to Limasawa, Cebu, Mactan, Palawan, Brunei, Celebes and finally to the Spice Islands. 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 water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred people. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly... Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... A native hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the native's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had 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 with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off.[25] Magellan provided in his will that Enrique, his interpreter, was to be freed upon his death. But after the battle, the remaining ships' masters refused to free the Malay. Enrique escaped his indenture on 1 May with the aid of Rajah Humabon, amid the deaths of almost 30 crewmen. Pigafetta had been jotting down words in both Butuanon and Cebuano languages – which he started at Mazaua on 29 March and his list grew to a total of 145 words. He continued communications with indigenous peoples during the rest of the voyage. "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 copper and iron for them but Datu Lapulapu refused. He intended to keep the body as a war trophy. Since his wife and child died in Seville before any member of the expedition could return to Spain, it seemed that every evidence of Ferdinand Magellan's existence had vanished from the earth."[26] Return The Magellan–Elcano voyage. Victoria, one of the original five ships, circumnavigated the globe, finishing 16 months after the explorer's death. The casualties suffered in the Philippines left the expedition with too few men to sail all three of the remaining ships. Consequently, on 2 May they abandoned and burned Concepción. Reduced to Trinidad and Victoria, the expedition fled westward to Palawan. They left that island on 21 June and were guided to Brunei, Borneo, by Moro pilots, who could navigate the shallow seas. They anchored off the Brunei breakwater for 35 days, where Pigafetta, an Italian from Vicenza, recorded the splendour of Rajah Siripada's court (gold, two pearls the size of hens' eggs, porcelain from China, eyeglasses from Europe etc.). In addition, Brunei boasted tame elephants and an armament of 62 cannons, more than five times the armament of Magellan's ships. Brunei people were not interested in the Spanish cargo of cloves, but these proved more valuable than gold upon the return to Spain. When reaching the Maluku Islands (the Spice Islands) on 6 November, the total crew numbered 115. They traded with the Sultan of Tidore, a rival of the Sultan of Ternate, who was the ally of the Portuguese. The two remaining ships, laden with valuable spices, tried to return to Spain by sailing westwards. However, as they left the Spice Islands, the Trinidad began to take on water. The crew tried to discover and repair the leak, but failed. They concluded that Trinidad would need to spend considerable time being overhauled, but the small Victoria was not large enough to accommodate all the surviving crew. As a result, Victoria with some of the crew sailed west for Spain. Several weeks later, Trinidad departed and tried to return to Spain via the Pacific route. This attempt failed. Trinidad was captured by the Portuguese and was eventually wrecked in a storm while at anchor under Portuguese control. Victoria set sail via the Indian Ocean route home on 21 December, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano. By 6 May the Victoria rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations. Twenty crewmen died of starvation before Elcano put into Cape Verde, a Portuguese holding, where he abandoned 13 more crew on 9 July in fear of losing his cargo of 26 tons of spices (cloves and cinnamon). On 6 September 1522, Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage arrived in Spain aboard the Victoria, almost exactly three years after the fleet of five ships had departed. Magellan had not intended to circumnavigate the world, but rather had intended only to find a secure route through which the Spanish ships could navigate to the Spice Islands. After Magellan's death, Elcano decided to push westward, thereby completing the first known voyage around the entire Earth. Maximilianus Transylvanus interviewed some of the surviving members of the expedition when they presented themselves to the Spanish court at Valladolid in the autumn of 1522. He wrote the first account of the voyage, which was published in 1523. Pigafetta's account was not published until 1525, and was not published in its entirety until 1800. This was the Italian transcription by Carlo Amoretti of what is now called the "Ambrosiana codex." The expedition eked out a small profit, but the crew was not paid full wages.[27] Four crewmen of the original 55 on Trinidad finally returned to Spain in 1522; 51 had died in war or from disease. In total, approximately 232 sailors of assorted nationalities died on the expedition around the world with Magellan.[28] Survivors When Victoria, the one surviving ship, returned to the harbor of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth, only 18 men out of the original 237 men were on board. Among the survivors were two Italians, Antonio Pigafetta and Martino de Judicibus. Martino de Judicibus (Spanish: Martín de Judicibus) was a Genoese or Savonese[29] Chief Steward.[30] His history is preserved in the nominative registers at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain. The family name is referred to with the exact Latin patronymic, "de Judicibus". Martino de Judicibus, initially assigned to the caravel Concepción, one of five ships of the Spanish fleet of Magellan, had embarked on the expedition with the rank of captain. 18 men returned to Seville aboard Victoria in 1522: Name Rating Juan Sebastián Elcano, from Getaria (Spain) Master Francisco Albo, from Rodas (in Tui, Galicia) Pilot Miguel de Rodas (in Tui, Galicia) Pilot Juan de Acurio, from Bermeo Pilot Antonio Lombardo (Pigafetta), from Vicenza Supernumerary Martín de Judicibus, from Genoa Chief Steward Hernándo de Bustamante, from Alcántara Mariner Nicholas the Greek, from Nafplion Mariner Miguel Sánchez, from Rodas (in Tui, Galicia) Mariner Antonio Hernández Colmenero, from Huelva Mariner Francisco Rodrigues, Portuguese from Seville Mariner Juan Rodríguez, from Huelva Mariner Diego Carmena, from Baiona (Galicia) Mariner Hans of Aachen, (Holy Roman Empire) Gunner Juan de Arratia, from Bilbao Able Seaman Vasco Gómez Gallego, from Baiona (Galicia) Able Seaman Juan de Santandrés, from Cueto (Cantabria) Apprentice Seaman Juan de Zubileta, from Barakaldo Page |
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