<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Part 1, we looked at how Ferdinand Magellan (born Fernao de Magalhaes in Portugal) was able to convince King Charles I of Spain to appoint him the Captain General of an expedition to the Spice Islands.\u00a0 Magellan was convinced one could sail west, find a strait that would deposit his ships at the Spice Islands, and thus open a lucrative trade route for Spain.\u00a0 Maps had hinted that a strait to the Western Sea existed, although some placed it as far north as Panama.\u00a0 Is it possible that Magellan had access to the secret navigation charts given to European kings by the fabled Chinese Treasure Fleet that is said to have visited in the early 1400s?\u00a0 Judging by (Portuguese) King Manuel\u2019s attempt to track Magellan down in the Canary Islands (after he set off on his Spanish supported voyage), some now feel that Magellan\u2019s unfettered faith in finding a strait was based on knowledge he had obtained from Chinese navigation charts held by the Portuguese.\u00a0 It also indicates King Charles knew nothing of these coveted Chinese charts.\u00a0 Most importantly, Magellan convinced young King Charles that such a voyage was possible.\u00a0 A full fourteen months after departing Seville, Spain, the Armada de Moluccas entered the strait at the southern tip of South America that now bears Magellan\u2019s name.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The word \u2018strait\u2019 should not be confused with the word \u2018straight\u2019 because the body of water Magellan\u2019s armada began exploring was indeed the former, definitely not the latter.\u00a0 It took 38 days for them to find the right channel that would deposit them in the Western Sea (as the Pacific Ocean was called at the time).\u00a0 The southern tip of South America and Tierra del Fuego comprise a confusing network of channels, fiords, strong currents, and blasting wind storms called \u2018williwaws\u2019.\u00a0 Had it been a straight shot, they could have navigated the whole distance in about the same amount of time it takes a Great Lakes freighter to travel from Sault Ste. Marie to Duluth and back. The strait\u2019s twisted channels earned it the nickname \u2018The Dragon\u2019s Tail\u2019. \u00a0 Magellan approached the exploration in the correct manner:\u00a0 he sent long boats into some of the fiords and one or two of the larger boats on reconnaissance runs.\u00a0 The long southern days gave them additional time to seek the main passage and to make up some of the time lost during their winter stay at Port Saint Julian.\u00a0 When he gathered his officers to discuss the next stage, the captain of the <\/span>San Antonio<\/span><\/i> argued that it was time to return to Spain.\u00a0 Captain Estavao Gomes reasoned that, \u201cWe have found the strait, now let us return to Spain and mount a voyage with better provisions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Captain Gomes, was also an expatriate Portuguese like his Captain General, but he had no love for Magellan.\u00a0 He was on the verge of being appointed the Captain General of his own armada to the Spice Islands.\u00a0 When Magellan convinced King Charles to fund his voyage instead, he took away Gomes\u2019 opportunity to command his own armada.\u00a0 Gomes signed on as a pilot, but still seethed with resentment.\u00a0 Magellan refused to turn back so Gomes engineered a much less bloody mutiny than the one that had taken place at Port Saint Julian the previous Easter.\u00a0 Gomes simply convinced the crew of the <\/span>San Antonio<\/span><\/i> to not return from one of their recon missions in the strait.\u00a0 They took the <\/span>San Antonio\u2019s <\/span><\/i>captain prisoner and turned the largest ship in the fleet homeward without so much as a \u2018Dear Ferdinand\u2019 note.\u00a0 In that they also carried a fair amount of the armada\u2019s provisions, Magellan found his expedition in jeopardy once again.\u00a0 When polled, the two remaining captains agreed that they should continue exploring the strait until mid-January.\u00a0 If they were not successful in finding the Western Sea by then, they would turn for home before the weather changed for the worse.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thirty eight days into the strait, they finally found the opening they were seeking.\u00a0 Magellan reasoned they still had provisions for three months so there were no more discussions about going back from whence they came.\u00a0 Their maps and charts were useless now because all the land masses were <\/span>terra incognito<\/span><\/i> – lands unknown.\u00a0 Magellan was optimistic that they had put the worst behind them, and maybe they had.\u00a0 What he hadn\u2019t counted on was the sheer size of the Pacific Ocean:\u00a0 it was twice as wide as the Atlantic and they were sailing by instinct alone at this point.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After cruising north along the western coast of South America, the armada took a more westerly track.\u00a0 Unlike the storm tossed south Atlantic, they found the Pacific quite calm in comparison.\u00a0 Catching the Southeast Trades (the wind belt caused by the sun\u2019s unequal heating of the equatorial region.\u00a0 The Trades is bent in a SE to NW direction due to the Coriolis Effect imparted by the\u00a0 Earth spinning on its axis), they made an astounding amount of distance each day.\u00a0 They observed many new fish species.\u00a0 Finding flying fish landing on their deck (their wing-like fins allow them to take flight if they generate enough speed while trying to elude their pursuers) helped supplement their depleted rations.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Scurvy began to take hold of the crew and at least twenty nine had died before they were half way across the Pacific.\u00a0 European voyagers in the Indian Ocean had been offered oranges by Arab traders who already knew they helped combat the symptoms of scurvy.\u00a0 The common notion was that scurvy was caused by \u2018bad air\u2019.\u00a0 Magellan and his officers had their own store of quince preserves and this periodic ration gave them enough vitamin C to keep them healthy.\u00a0 Had they understood the connection, they may well have been able to help more of their afflicted crew.\u00a0 The British Navy began requiring daily doses of lemon or lime juice in 1795 (thus the term \u2018limeys\u2019 being applied to British sailors – both lemons and limes were called \u2018limes\u2019).\u00a0 It would not be until 1932 that science was able to isolate and synthesize ascorbic acid and confirm the true connection between vitamin C deficiency and scurvy.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Viewing their trek across the Pacific on a map, it almost appears like they were trying to avoid any islands.\u00a0 Had they deviated a few degrees north or south, they would have run into the Marquesas, the Marshall Islands, Easter Island, the Society Islands, or Tahiti.\u00a0 When the fleet finally sighted a single atoll on January 24, 1521,\u00a0 the named it San Pablo.\u00a0 Ironically, it would be the same first land sighting that Thor Heryerdahl\u2019s <\/span>Kon Tiki<\/span><\/i> raft encountered centuries later.\u00a0 Lack of resources and a safe harbor to drop anchor made it useless to both expeditions.\u00a0 On February 4, they approached Caroline Island and again could not find a place to land.\u00a0 As they resumed course, Magellan was so distraught from not having already reached the Spice Islands, he tossed his charts overboard, exclaiming, \u201cWith the pardon of the cartographers, the Moluccas are not to be found in their appointed place!\u201d\u00a0 When they crossed the equator on February 13, Megellan realized that they would not be able to claim the Spice Islands for Spain as they were certainly going to reside well into the \u2018Portuguese sphere\u2019 outlined by Pope Alexander\u2019s 1494 \u2018Line of Demarcation\u2019.\u00a0 They were also running out of provisions and fresh water;\u00a0 without a safe harbor to resupply, the Armada de Moluccas was doomed to failure.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On the ninety eighth day after leaving the strait, the armada finally made landfall on Guam.\u00a0 They had traveled more than seven thousand miles without interruption (the longest ocean voyage recorded until then).\u00a0 The island of Guam offered them shelter and helped ease the misery Magellan\u2019s crew had endured in the long Pacific crossing.\u00a0 There was no indication they were anywhere near their intended destination.\u00a0 Guam and the Marianas lie some three thousand miles west of the Hawaiian Islands.\u00a0 The befuddled Magellan finally began to realize exactly how big the Western Sea was.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On entering a peaceful lagoon at Guam, the Europeans found themselves surrounded by swift dugout canoes manned by a taller, stronger race of people called the Chamorro.\u00a0 Not familiar with the European concept of ownership, they took whatever wasn\u2019t nailed down.\u00a0 Magellan\u2019s crew over reacted, drew first blood, and a short battle ensued.\u00a0 Strangely enough, more island natives arrived bearing food which they gave to their new acquaintances.\u00a0 When the battle was rejoined, Magellan wisely decided they were outnumbered.\u00a0 He ordered his men to stop firing arrows and both sides engaged in friendly trade.\u00a0 When the Chamorros made off with Magellan\u2019s personal skiff (the one object on board that resembled their own canoes), he sent forty men ashore where they killed seven, wounded more, and burned forty or fifty dwellings.\u00a0 The Chomorros were stunned at the rampage and offered no resistance.\u00a0 After recovering Magellan\u2019s boat, the Europeans hastily returned to their ships.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Antonio Pigafetta, whose chronicles of the voyage provide historians with much information about the Armada de Moluccas, wrote descriptions of the Chomorros dwellings and their matriarchal societal structure.\u00a0 His accounts provide evidence that the Europeans spent time ashore after the initial \u2018battle\u2019.\u00a0 It became apparent that what had been perceived as \u2018threatening gestures\u2019 made by the islanders were more ritualistic than warlike.\u00a0 Their only weapons were poles with fish bones attached which were used primarily for catching flying fish.\u00a0 Three days after they arrived, the fleet set sail again on their previous course.\u00a0 Pigafetta noted their departure upset the islanders. Thus, another first contact between European voyagers and a race previously unknown to them ended in needless bloodshed and misunderstood intentions.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the armada entered the Philippine archipelago in mid-March, they found the people on these islands were more advanced than those encountered on Guam.\u00a0 Centuries of trade with both Arab and Chinese mariners had produced a sophisticated trade network with the Philippine natives.\u00a0 Magellan named the islands after Lazarus, but the name that stuck would come from Lopez de Villalobos who reached the Philippines twenty two years later in the name of King Phillip of Spain.\u00a0 Perhaps Magellan had learned his lesson about meeting new races and indeed his first contacts with the Phillippine locals were friendly.\u00a0 He made it a point to impress them with his weaponry by having a gunner discharge an arquebus, startling them immensely.\u00a0 He also had one of his sailors don armour to demonstrate how swords and knives could not hurt them.\u00a0 Whether he was just showing off or trying to send a message, we can only speculate, but this display of power would come back to haunt Magellan.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Magellan\u2019s final mistake was getting involved in local politics.\u00a0 He offered to \u2018help\u2019 the king of Cebu by using his armour clad sailors to set things right with a belligerent king (Lapu Lapu) on nearby Mactan Island.\u00a0 In the shallow Bay of Mactan, the voyage\u2019s ships had to anchor too far offshore to be of any help with the ensuing battle.\u00a0 While he expected \u2018fifty or sixty\u2019 island warriors to flee before them, they instead encountered 1500 well armed Mactans bent on protecting their turf.\u00a0 Of the eight sailors killed along with him, Magellan\u2019s was a most gruesome death.\u00a0 The islanders hacked him to bits in the shallow waters as he tried to buy time for his sailor\u2019s to retreat.\u00a0 The Mactans lost only fifteen in the battle.\u00a0 Magellan\u2019s bravado cost him his life and his remaining crew were angry with him.\u00a0 This senseless battle could also have scuttled the fleet\u2019s chance to make it home.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By the time the Armada de Moluccas regrouped, elected new leaders, and resumed their quest for the Spice Islands, they were down to three ships and half their original crew.\u00a0 With a depleted crew, they later burned the <\/span>Concepcion<\/span><\/i> and pressed on with the <\/span>Victoria<\/span><\/i> and the flagship <\/span>Trinidad<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 The noble cause on which the armada had originally embarked descended into acts of piracy, kidnapping, bloodshed, and shady deals made with island kings they encountered.\u00a0 After they had landed on the Spice Islands, they found that the Portuguese had already been trading there for more than a decade.\u00a0 They also learned the Portuguese were still hunting for them.\u00a0 What was left of the armada finally loaded their ships for the last ten thousand mile leg home via the Cape of Good Hope.\u00a0 Unfortunately, they discovered the <\/span>Trinidad<\/span><\/i> leaking badly from lack of proper upkeep.\u00a0 The flagship remained at the Spice Islands and part of the crew faced the frightening task of attempting the last leg of the journey solo with the <\/span>Victoria<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 They kidnapped local pilots to help them weave through the confusion of islands and reefs.\u00a0 The rest of the crew remained in the Spice Islands to try and get <\/span>Trinidad <\/span><\/i>seaworthy again.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As noted in the introduction to Part 1, only eighteen of the original crew complement of 260 made it back to Spain.\u00a0 When repaired, the <\/span>Trinidad<\/span><\/i> attempted to sail across the north Pacific.\u00a0 They were forced to return only to be taken into custody by the Portuguese who were waiting for them at the Spice Islands.\u00a0 They asked for mercy but were shown little.\u00a0 The armada\u2019s own logs showed they had violated the Portuguese territories.\u00a0 The <\/span>Trinidad<\/span><\/i> was stripped of its riggings and eventually wrecked at anchor in a storm (including the load of spices it was laden with).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The crew of the <\/span>San Antonio <\/span><\/i>(who had turned for home from the straits earlier) had been acquitted from charges of mutiny after\u2019 adjusting\u2019 the facts of the voyage.\u00a0 They gave the impression that Magellan was being disloyal to King Charles (who later profited greatly from the cargo returned aboard the <\/span>Victoria<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 The King did reward the survivors by not taxing their share of the cargo and even donated some of his profits in recognition of their complete circumnavigation of the globe. The <\/span>San Antonio\u2019s <\/span><\/i>captain, who remained loyal to Magellan, was not released from prison until the <\/span>Victoria<\/span><\/i> crew confirmed his account of the last mutiny in the straits.\u00a0 Magellan\u2019s voyage was historic, indeed, but the legacy of his voyage with the Armada de Moluccas varies widely.\u00a0 The accounts published in Portugal, Spain, or Indonesia differ with all giving a decidedly nationalistic spin to version.\u00a0 The Indonesians portray his fleet as vanquished invaders.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How difficult was Magellan\u2019s voyage?\u00a0 Spain made several more attempts to recreate this voyage before King Charles could no longer justify the cost.\u00a0 It would be 58 years after <\/span>Victoria<\/span><\/i> returned to Seville until Sir Francis Drake accomplished the second successful circumnavigation of the globe in 1580.\u00a0 Magellan\u2019s name remains attached to both the Strait and to our Milky Way\u2019s two smaller companion galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, visible in the southern hemisphere.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video – after such a harrowing tale, I thought perhaps a calmer\u00a0Sailing<\/em> song by Christopher Cross would be more appropriate – it is also tough to find songs about sailing around the world in the Age of Discovery!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Part 1, we looked at how Ferdinand Magellan (born Fernao de Magalhaes in Portugal) was able to convince King Charles I of Spain to appoint him the Captain General of an expedition to the Spice Islands.\u00a0 Magellan was convinced one could sail west, find a strait that would deposit his ships at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}