Magellan
In the early 1500’s, almost four and a half
centuries before men first orbited
the earth; an expedition completed and led
by Ferdinand Magellan performed a
task of comparable significance for that
time period. Magellan, a Portuguese
navigator for Spain, sailed westward with
a fleet of five ships from the port of
Sanlucar de Barrameda in
September, 1519. Nearly three years later one ship
returned, having
circumnavigated the globe and crossed its largest ocean. A
Philippine
battle is where Magellan died and only left his crew to tell about
the
voyage. Maximilian of Transylvania, a native of Brussels, was present
when
the only one of Magellan’s ships reached Sanlucar }. Maximilian assisted
with
the interrogations of the expedition survivors. Besides taking part in
the
official interviews, he questioned the returned mariners, quickly
digested their
accounts, and then rushed to get his letter off to
Cardinal-Archbishop Lang of
Salzburg who was also his father. Initially,
Maximilian wrote the letter to
practice his Latin and enhance his own fame.
The document is important not only
for the valuable information it contains,
but also because it was the first
account released to the European public of
the great voyage. Maximilian was the
secretary to Charles V and made a
lifelong study of overseas affairs. He is
credited with having made a
terrestrial globe, surpassing all others of the
time, and which the precision
of the map was proved by Magellan. His letter is
undeniably one of the most
valuable sources of information about the Magellan
voyage. In fact, it was
the only printed account of the expedition for some
time. Magellan’s voyage
set sail on the 10th of August, 1519, with five ships
from Seville, Spain.
Three moths later, Maximilian tells how Magellan’s crew
was forced to seek
shelter for the winter at Port San Julian which is on the
eastern coast of
South America. In September 1520, he again sets sail after
loosing one vessel
to a storm. One month later, Magellan sights the straight
that was later
named after him and proceeds to cross into the ocean that he
named "Pacific"
because of its calmness. He reached the Ladrone, Islands on
March 6,
1521, and ten days later discovered the Philippines, landing on the
island of
Cebu on April 7. There he made an alliance with the ruler of the
island and
agreed to aid him in an attack on the natives of the neighboring
island of
Mactan. Magellan was killed on April 27,1521 during the Mactan
expedition.
Following Magellan's death, one of the vessels in his fleet was
burned, but
the other two escaped and reached the Moluccas on November 6, 1521.
One
of the vessels, the Victoria, commanded by the Spanish navigator
Juan
Sebastián del Cano, completed the circumnavigation of the globe,
arriving in
Seville on September 6, 1522. Although Magellan did not live
to complete the
voyage, he did circumnavigate the globe by passing the
easternmost point he had
reached on an earlier voyage. The cargo of spices
carried back to Spain by the
Victoria alone paid for the expenses of the
expedition. The passage through the
Strait of Magellan was too long and
difficult to be a practical route from
Europe to the Moluccas.
Nevertheless, the voyage laid the foundation for trade
in the Pacific between
the New World and the East. Although Spain did not
immediately recognize the
importance of the Philippines, they had become the
greatest Spanish trading
center in the East. Magellan’s voyage would have
never received the
recognition that it deserved if citizens such as Maximilian
didn’t properly
document it. Magellan’s accomplishments in his three-year
voyage were
countless and forever will be remembered. It is because of explorers
and
historians like these, that we have the geological perfection of our
globe
today.