MAGELLAN, Ferdinand (1480?-1521)

The first European to sail across the Pacific Ocean and the first to discover a route by which ships could sail a complete circle around the world, Ferdinand Magellan was the Portuguese navigator for whom the Strait of Magellan is named. The strait, located at the southern tip of South America, proved to be the long-sought connection between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Sailing for the Spanish king Charles I (later Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), Magellan showed in his explorations that the Earth is round. He also established a new route to the riches of the East, a route that involved sailing to the west. Fernao de Magalhaes was born in about 1480, probably in Oporto, Portugal. (Ferdinand Magellan is the English spelling of his name.) The son of a Portuguese nobleman, he served with distinction in the Indies and Morocco during his youth. He felt that he was not sufficiently rewarded for these services, and the Portuguese king advised him to offer his services elsewhere. He therefore gave up his nationality and offered his services to the ruler of Spain in 1517. The Portuguese claimed that all the islands of the Far East lay in the portion of the Earth assigned to Portugal by Pope Alexander VI. Magellan claimed that many of them, including the rich Spice Islands, or Moluccas, actually lay in Spain's territory. He said that the Portuguese maps had been falsified to conceal this fact. Magellan offered to use his knowledge of Portuguese secrets to prove his claim. He planned to reach the Spice Islands by sailing westward through a strait that he hoped to discover at the southern tip of America. The Spanish king finally accepted Magellan's proposal. On Aug. 10, 1519, Magellan set sail from Seville in command of five small vessels. He sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and down the coast of South America until cold weather and winter storms forced him to seek winter quarters. A mutiny was put down by force. Sailing again in September of 1520 (spring in the Southern Hemisphere), Magellan's fleet rounded a promontory, and on October 21 he sighted what he guessed to be the sought-for strait. Two ships went ahead and reported that the strait led to an ocean beyond. The fleet proceeded. What they had thought to be the ocean, however, proved to be only a large bay in the strait. At a council with his navigators Magellan decided to go on. For more than a month he battled his way through the stormy 360-mile (580-kilometer) passage that now bears his name. One vessel was wrecked, and another sailed back to Spain. Nevertheless, Magellan insisted on going ahead. On November 28 he reached the ocean that Balboa had discovered seven years before. Because the ocean now looked so calm, Magellan named it the Pacific. At first the voyage on the Pacific went well. After a month of sailing, however, terrible hardships struck the fleet. The food ran low, and the sailors were reduced to eating the leather fittings of the ship. There was a scarcity of drinking water, and many of the crew died of scurvy. The fleet sailed about 100 days before arriving at the islands that are now called the Philippines. At Massava Magellan negotiated Spain's first alliance in the Pacific. At Cebu he converted the king and his chief followers to Christianity. Magellan sailed from Cebu to the neighboring island of Mactan. There he and his men became involved in a fight with the natives, and Magellan was killed on April 27, 1521. Under the leadership of Juan Sebastian del Cano, the sailors burned one of the three remaining vessels and sailed to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. Another ship started to leak and had to be abandoned. The last remaining vessel, the Victoria, commanded by Del Cano, set out for home. Leaky but laden with spices, the Victoria rounded the Cape of Good Hope and dropped anchor in the harbor of Seville on Sept. 9, 1522. After a voyage of nearly four and a half years, it had circled the globe. Contrary to popular belief, Magellan succeeded in sailing around the world before his death. He did not encompass the globe on a single voyage, however. On a previous eastbound voyage to the East Indies, he had gone beyond the longitude of the Philippines. Thus, at the time he was killed, he had already overlapped his earlier course. In the history of discovery no name ranks higher than that of Magellan. He opened the Pacific Ocean to new exploration and trade. John Fiske, the American historian, says: "The voyage thus ended was doubtless the greatest feat of navigation that has ever been performed, and nothing can be imagined that would surpass it except a journey to some other planet."