One of the great nautical feats of all time was the circumnavigation of the globe by the Ferdinand Magellan expedition. It left port in Spain in 1519, returning to Spain (without Magellan, who died en route) in 1522 under the leadership of a Basque mariner named Juan Sebastian de Elcano. Of the five ships and 270 sailors who set sail in 1519, only one ship and twenty-two men made it home.
The most difficult part of the voyage came when attempting to find a passage from the South Atlantic to the Pacific. This occupied nearly all the year 1520—Magellan and crew did not make it through the Straits of Magellan until November, and Magellan had to put down a mutiny along the way.
The rest of the journey was comparatively fast, although not easy. The expedition crossed the Pacific Ocean in ninety-nine days (Magellan naming it Pacific because he found the waters unusually calm) and in March of 1521 it reached the island of Cebú.
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Juan Sebastian de Elcano Replaces Magellan
Many crew members had already died by this time, which makes Magellan’s next action seem a rather foolish one. One of the local kings on Cebú convinced Magellan to help him conquer a rival tribe in exchange for a commitment to convert to Christianity. Magellan died in the battle when hit by a poisoned arrow, and Juan Sebastian de Elcano took over leadership of the expedition from there.
After loading up on spices in the Molucca Islands, de Elcano and his handful of surviving crew members sailed into harbor in September of 1522, becoming the first recorded expedition to sail around the world. As a reward, Charles V of Spain gave him command of seven ships on a return voyage to the Moluccas. Sadly for de Elcano, he died of scurvy on the way.
Importance
The ways in which this expedition is important are so many, it’s hard to state them all, but here are a few. It improved geographic knowledge of the world. The voyage also proved that sailors could reach the islands of Southeast Asia (and obtain the spices that were so valuable in Europe) via an all-water route by going either east or west from Europe, though clearly going east was the quicker of the two. Magellan’s voyage also brought the world into closer contact, speeding up the exchange of people, plants, animals, and sadly, diseases that we know as the Columbian Exchange.
I think there’s a little more here, however. This also seems a classic story of hubris. Reread the first paragraph of this blog entry and look at the numbers. Fewer than 10% of those who set sail ever made it back to Spain. The expedition of Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian de Elcano achieved a great feat, no doubt, but the cost was horrific. Some other mariner could have achieved the same feat at some later time in history without sacrificing the lives of 90% of their crew to do it.
One might argue that’s a small price to pay for the immortality of the feat. For Magellan, perhaps, it’s true. Do we remember the names of the other 250 people who died for his hubris, however? Of course not.
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