As the crew forged across the Pacific Ocean, food spoiled and scurvy and starvation struck. The voyage got back on track and Magellan managed to navigate a treacherous passage that’s now named in his honor-the Strait of Magellan. He ordered some of the mutineers beheaded and quartered others were marooned or forced into hard labor. The captain struggled to regain control of his men, but once he did, the repercussions were swift and harsh. One ship wrecked another ditched the expedition altogether and headed back to Spain. “The Castilians resented sailing under a Portuguese commander and the Portuguese considered him a traitor,” writes historian Lincoln Paine.Īfter winter weather forced his ships to wait for months in what is now Argentina, Magellan’s crew mutinied. But he was in an awkward position when it came to his majority-Spanish crew and his royal mission. The captain stood to gain great wealth and status from the trip: Charles gave him a decade-long monopoly on any route he might discover, a cut of the profits, and a noble title to boot. So he abandoned his Portuguese loyalty and headed to Spain, where he gained both citizenship and Charles V’s blessing for a five-ship journey westward. Magellan was convinced that by sailing west instead of east and going through a rumored strait through South America, he could map a new route to Indonesia and India. But his days in service to Portugal were numbered: He was accused of illegal trading and fell out with Manuel I, who turned down his proposal to locate a new spice route. In 1505, Magellan joined the fight, traveling to India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. But the young man had a sense of adventure, and took part in a string of Portuguese voyages designed to discover and seize lucrative spice routes in Africa and India.Īt the time, Portugal and Spain were involved in an intense rivalry to see who could find and claim new territory where they could source the spices coveted by European aristocrats. As a page to queen consort Eleanor and Manuel I, he experienced court life in Lisbon. The Portuguese nobleman was born Fernão de Magalhães around 1480. “It sounded suicidal to do this,” says Bergreen. At the beginning of his journey, his contemporaries suspected it was impossible to sail around the entire globe-and feared that everything from sea monsters to killer fogs awaited anyone foolhardy enough to try. “That’s not hyperbole.”īrutal, bellicose, and brave, Magellan turned a commercial voyage into a hair-raising showdown with a wide world few Europeans could imagine. His journey was “the greatest sea voyage ever undertaken, and the most significant,” says historian Laurence Bergreen, author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. Nonetheless, it’s clear that Ferdinand Magellan’s 1519 expedition changed the world forever. First Voyage around the World (1519-1522) : An Account of Magellan's Expedition.Please be respectful of copyright. Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-192) and index. Hidden Bibliographic Details Other authors / contributors:Ĭachey, T. TRAVEL - Museums, Tours, Points of Interest. Voyages around the world - Early works to 1800. Pigafetta, Antonio, - approximately 1480/91-approximately 1534. Pigafetta, Antonio, - approximately 1480/91-approximately 1534 - Travel. Lorenzo da Ponte Italian library series Lorenzo da Ponte Italian library series. Toronto : University of Toronto Press, ©2007 (Saint-Lazare, Quebec : Gibson Library Connections, 2010)ġ online resource (lxiv, 203 pages : maps). Pigafetta, Antonio, approximately 1480/91-approximately 1534. Saved in: Bibliographic Details Author / Creator:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |