Ferdinand Magellan's Circumnavigation
Age of ExplorationA Portuguese Captain in Spanish Service
Ferdinand Magellan—Fernão de Magalhães in his native Portuguese—was a seasoned soldier and sailor who had fought in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. When the Portuguese crown refused to fund his westward scheme, he turned to Spain. In 1518 the young King Charles I agreed to sponsor him. Magellan proposed reaching the Spice Islands, or Moluccas, by sailing west rather than east around Africa. The stakes were enormous: spices like cloves and nutmeg were worth fortunes in Europe, and both Iberian kingdoms had divided the unexplored world between them by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. Finding a western passage could hand Spain a legal claim to some of the richest trade on earth.
Five Ships into the Unknown
On 20 September 1519, a fleet of five ships—the Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria, and Santiago—set out from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with a crew of roughly 270 men drawn from several nations. Almost from the start, the voyage was troubled. Magellan's authority as a foreigner commanding Spanish captains bred resentment, and the fleet faced a serious mutiny while wintering along the coast of Patagonia in 1520. Magellan crushed the revolt harshly. The Santiago was later wrecked while scouting, reducing the fleet to four. Aboard was Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian scholar whose surviving journal is our fullest eyewitness account of the entire expedition.
Through the Strait and Across an Endless Ocean
In late October 1520, the fleet entered a twisting, storm-lashed channel near the southern tip of South America—today called the Strait of Magellan. Navigating its frigid waters took over a month. During the passage the San Antonio deserted and sailed home, taking much of the fleet's provisions. Emerging into a vast, calm sea, Magellan reportedly named it the Pacific, meaning 'peaceful.' But the crossing that followed was a nightmare of starvation. For roughly three months the crews saw almost no land. Pigafetta recorded men eating rats, sawdust, and leather stripped from the rigging, as scurvy killed many aboard. They had badly underestimated the ocean's size—the Pacific proved far wider than anyone in Europe imagined.
Death at Mactan
In March 1521 the survivors reached the islands now known as the Philippines. Magellan made alliances with local rulers and pressed them to accept Christianity and Spanish overlordship. Seeking to prove Spanish power to his new ally on Cebu, he led an attack on the island of Mactan. On 27 April 1521, in the shallows off the beach, Magellan and a small landing party were overwhelmed by the forces of the chieftain Lapulapu. Magellan was killed, never completing the circumnavigation he had begun. Leadership of the battered expedition passed through several hands as disease, conflict, and desertion continued to thin the ranks.
The Victoria Comes Home
After reaching the Moluccas and loading precious cloves, the expedition faced a hard choice. The Trinidad, needing repairs, tried to recross the Pacific and was eventually captured by the Portuguese. The Victoria, commanded by the Basque navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, chose to risk the long westward route across the Indian Ocean and around Africa—through waters Portugal claimed as its own. Battling hunger and Portuguese patrols, the single ship limped back to Spain, dropping anchor at Sanlúcar on 6 September 1522. Only eighteen emaciated survivors of the original crew completed the first known voyage around the world. Though Magellan himself had died halfway, the expedition proved that the globe could be circled and that its oceans were vastly larger than Europeans had believed.
Key Dates to Remember
- 1494 — The Treaty of Tordesillas divides newly explored lands between Spain and Portugal, setting the legal stage for Magellan's western route.
- 20 September 1519 — Magellan's fleet of five ships departs Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain.
- October–November 1520 — The fleet navigates the treacherous strait at South America's southern tip, later named the Strait of Magellan.
- 27 April 1521 — Magellan is killed at the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines by the forces of chieftain Lapulapu.
- 6 September 1522 — The Victoria, under Juan Sebastián Elcano, returns to Spain, completing the first circumnavigation of the globe.