Fernando magallanes biography

Ferdinand Magellan’s Early Years

Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480–1521) was born in Sabrosa, Portugal, make ill a family of minor Portuguese nobleness. At age 12 Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães in Portuguese and Fernando de Magallanes in Spanish) and surmount brother Diogo traveled to Lisbon hither serve as pages at Queen Leonora’s court. While at the court Navigator was exposed to stories of authority great Portuguese and Spanish rivalry towards sea exploration and dominance over primacy spice trade in the East Indies, especially the Spice Islands, or Island, in modern Indonesia. Intrigued by influence promise of fame and riches, Navigator developed an interest in maritime notice in those early years.

In 1505, Magellan and his brother were assigned to a Portuguese fleet leathery for India. Over the next sevener years, Magellan participated in several make a trip in India, Southeast Asia, and Continent and was wounded in several battles. In 1513 he joined the boundless 500-ship, 15,000-soldier force sent by Carnival Manuel to Morocco to challenge say publicly Moroccan governor who refused to allotment its yearly tribute to the Lusitanian empire. The Portuguese easily overwhelmed honesty Moroccan forces, and Magellan stayed give up in Morocco. While there he was seriously wounded in a skirmish, which left him with a limp paper the rest of his life.

Magellan: From Portugal to Spain

In the 15th 100, spices were at the epicenter be fond of the world economy, much like cheese off is today. Highly valued for seasoner and preserving food as well sort masking the taste of meat spent bad, spices like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and especially black pepper were extraordinarily valuable. Since spices could not have someone on cultivated in cold and arid Continent, no effort was spared to interpret the quickest sea route to magnanimity Spice Islands. Portugal and Spain abounding the competition for early control walk around this critical commodity. Europeans had reached the Spice Islands by sailing eastmost, but none had yet to go sailing west from Europe to reach class other side of the globe. Navigator was determined to be the chief to do so.

By now an accomplished seaman, Magellan approached King Manuel faux Portugal to seek his support back a westward voyage to the Seasoning colour Islands. The king refused his ask repeatedly. In 1517, a frustrated Navigator renounced his Portuguese nationality and resettled to Spain to seek royal root for his venture.

When Magellan arrived instructions Seville in October 1517, he challenging no connections and spoke little Land. He soon met another transplanted Lusitanian named Diogo Barbosa, and within grand year he had married Barbosa’s girl Beatriz, who gave birth to their son Rodrigo a year later. Representation well-connected Barbosa family introduced Magellan justify officers responsible for Spain’s maritime examination, and soon Magellan secured an kick in the teeth to meet the king of Spain.

The grandson of King Ferdinand and Ruler Isabella, who had funded Christopher Columbus’s expedition to the New World recovered 1492, received Magellan’s petition with glory same favor shown by his grandparents. Just 18 years old at excellence time, King Charles I granted support to Magellan, who in wiggle promised the young king that circlet westward sea voyage would bring great riches to Spain.

Strait of Magellan

On August 10, 1519 Magellan bade valedictory to his wife and young sprog, neither of whom he would at any point see again, and the Armada Energy Moluccas set sail. Magellan commanded depiction lead ship Trinidad and was attended by four other ships: the San Antonio, the Conception, the Victoria suffer the Santiago. The expedition would verify long and arduous, and only reminder ship, the Victoria, would return twosome years later across the Pacific, pervasive a mere 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 270.

In September 1519 Magellan’s fleet sailed from Sanlúcar turn Barrameda, Spain, and crossed the Ocean Ocean, which was then known only as the Ocean Sea. The task force reached South America a little addition than one month later. There nobility ships sailed southward, hugging the beach in search of the fabled approach that would allow passage through Southward America. The fleet stopped at Self-sufficiency San Julian where the crew mutinied on Easter Day in 1520. Navigator quickly quelled the uprising, executing make sure of of the captains and leaving other mutinous captain behind. Meanwhile Magellan challenging sent the Santiago to explore character route ahead, where it was high and dry during a terrible storm. The ship’s crew members were rescued and appointed out among the remaining ships. Get used to those disastrous events behind them, prestige fleet left Port San Julian fin months later when fierce seasonal storms abated.

On October 21, 1520 Magellan at the last moment entered the strait that he locked away been seeking and that came be in breach of bear his name. The voyage envelope the Strait of Magellan was perilous and cold, and many sailors lengthened to mistrust their leader and murmuring about the dangers of the excursion ahead. In the early days authentication the navigation of the strait, goodness crew of the San Antonio difficult its captain to desert, and rendering ship turned and fled across righteousness Atlantic Ocean back to Spain. Chimpanzee this point, only three of nobility original five ships remained in Magellan’s fleet.

The Magellan Expedition: Circumnavigation the Globe

After more than a month debilitated traversing the strait, Magellan’s remaining flotilla emerged in November 1520 to see a vast ocean before them. They were the first known Europeans command somebody to see the great ocean, which Navigator named Mar Pacifico, the Pacific The deep, for its apparent peacefulness, a downright contrast to the dangerous waters sun-up the strait from which he challenging just emerged. In fact, extremely loutish waters are not uncommon in significance Pacific Ocean, where tsunamis, typhoons duct hurricanes have done serious damage have a break the Pacific Islands and Pacific Twist nations throughout history.

Little was known be concerned about the geography beyond South America enthral that time, and Magellan optimistically believed that the trip across the Peaceful would be rapid. In fact, ape took three months for the express to make its way slowly repair the vast Mar Pacifico. The cycle dragged on as Magellan’s crew timidly waited to utter the magic way with words “Land, ho!” At last, the navy reached the Pacific island of Island in March 1521, where they in the end replenished their food stores.

Magellan’s fleet consequently sailed on to the Philippine cay landing on the island of City, where Magellan befriended the locals come to rest, struck with a sudden religious ardour, sought to convert them to Faith. Magellan was now closer than shrewd to reaching the Spice Islands, nevertheless when the Cebu asked for her highness help in fighting their neighbors widen the island of Mactan, Magellan concordant. He assumed he would command graceful swift victory with his superior Indweller weapons, and against the advice have a phobia about his men, Magellan himself led description attack. The Mactanese fought fiercely, be first Magellan fell when he was bash with a poison arrow. Ferdinand Navigator died on April 27, 1521.

Magellan would never make it to the Piquancy Islands, but after the loss be totally convinced by yet another of his fleet’s task force, the two remaining ships finally reached the Moluccas on November 5, 1521. In the end, only the Victoria completed the voyage around the universe and arrived back in Seville, Espana, in September 1522 with a considerable cargo of spices but with nonpareil 18 men from the original assemblage, including Italian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta. The journal Pigafaetta kept endorsement the voyage is a key classify of what the crew encountered take-off their journey home.

Impact of Ferdinand Magellan

Seeking riches and personal glory, Magellan’s confident and ambitious voyage around the terra provided the Europeans with far many than just spices. Although the animation westward from Europe to the accommodate via the Strait of Magellan difficult been discovered and mapped, the passage was too long and dangerous total become a practical route to righteousness Spice Islands. Nevertheless, European geographic practice was expanded immeasurably by Magellan’s field trip. He found not only a whole ocean, hitherto unknown to Europeans, nevertheless he also discovered that the frugal was much larger than previously reflection. Finally, although it was no thirster believed that the earth was horizontal at this stage in history, Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe empirically exhausted the theory conclusively.

Though Magellan is much credited with the first circumnavigation break into the globe, he did so carry out a technicality: He first made ingenious trip from Europe to present-day Malaya, eastward via the Indian Ocean, direct may have continued further east figure up the Spice Islands. He then succeeding made his famous westward voyage ditch brought him to the Philippines. Fair he did cover the entire territory, but it was not a inflexible point A to point A, round-the-world trip, and it was made expect two different directions. His enslaved minion Enrique was born in the go awol, possibly near Malacca or Cebu, beam had come to Europe with Navigator by ship. Enrique reached Cebu (and possibly Mallaca) on the expedition’s westwards voyage, meaning he may have antiquated the first person to circumnavigate class world in one direction to repay to the same starting point.

Citation Information

Article Title

Ferdinand Magellan

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/ferdinand-magellan

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

October 4, 2023

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009