Over the Edge of the World

Notes on Sources

Ferdinand Magellan remains controversial even today, considered a tyrant, a traitor, a visionary, and a hero by various chroniclers. As befits an explorer who led a multinational crew on a voyage around the world, accounts of his life and circumnavigation have been heavily influenced by divergent manuscript traditions arising from a rich store of primary and important secondary sources in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Latin, and Italian. In re-creating Magellan’s epic voyage, I have generally relied on these diverse primary sources—diaries, journals, contemporaneous accounts, royal warrants, and legal testimony. Some important early Magellan sources have been translated into English for the first time for use in this book. These include a lengthy memoir by Ginés de Mafra, who was one of the survivors; early histories by João de Barros, António de Herrera y Tordesillas, and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdez; and legal documents pertaining to the voyage now archived at Brandeis University, in Massachusetts.

The most important (though not the only) source of primary information about the voyages of Magellan and other explorers is the Archive of the Indies in Seville. Martín Fernández de Navarrete edited a multivolume compilation of the archive’s chief holdings, published in Spanish in 1837, which advanced understanding of Magellan and his era; most of the archive’s records pertaining to Magellan’s voyage are in Volume 4.

As a result of this wealth of primary sources, Spanish historians have tended to feed off earlier works in Spanish, but they are not the only important Magellan chroniclers. Portuguese historians have emphasized Portuguese sources and attitudes, often sharply critical of Magellan. More recently, English-language historians, who generally portray Magellan in a heroic light, have drawn on a wider variety of sources and languages; but as the decades have passed, they, too, have become another manuscript tradition. In particular, the naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote several heavily documented chapters on Magellan in his classic work, The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages (1974), to which I happily acknowledge my debt. Curiously, F.H.H. Guillemard’s Life of Ferdinand Magellan (1890) remains the standard biography more than one hundred years after its publication; since then, new sources and approaches to the era have emerged, making it possible to give a more three-dimensional account of the voyage, including graphic and intimate details that custom prevented Guillemard from mentioning, except, perhaps, in a Latin whisper. Also worthwhile is Tim Joyner’s Magellan (1992), a concise biography buttressed by a generous selection of primary sources. Martin Torodash’s “Magellan Historiography,” published in The Hispanic American Historical Review, surveys the entire field, offering reliable if occasionally heavy-handed assessments.

The best and most affecting eyewitness account of Magellan’s circumnavigation was written by Antonio Pigafetta, the young Venetian scholar and diplomat who was among the handful of survivors. His chronicle remains one of the most significant documents of the Age of Discovery. The best and fullest English translation, by James A. Robertson, an American scholar, was published in three substantial volumes in 1906. Robertson worked from a Portuguese translation of the original, which meant the occasional blurring of Pigafetta’s distinctive humor and irony. In 1969, R. A. Skelton’s new translation managed to convey a sense of Pigafetta’s voice and sensibility, and includes a facsimile of the Pigafetta manuscript in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. I am indebted to both of these scholars for their diligent work, as is anyone who wants to learn more about Magellan and Pigafetta. My quotations from Pigafetta’s diary are drawn largely from Robertson’s translation, but where possible I have checked it against the original and other sources, and silently corrected a number of slips and euphemisms.

Pigafetta was not a disinterested source. He was, touchingly, a Magellan loyalist, and as a result, made only the briefest mention of the various mutinies during the voyage and Magellan’s drastic efforts to quell them. To present a fuller account of these events, I have turned to the testimony of other sailors who witnessed or participated in them, including de Mafra and Vasquito Gallego. In addition to the diaries, Francisco Albo’s pilot’s log gives a day-by-day record of the voyage.

CHAPTER I: THE QUEST

Concerning the Treaty of Tordesillas, Samuel Eliot Morison’s The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages and Tim Joyner’s Magellan both contain valuable analyses of the treaty as it affected Magellan’s proposed expedition, as does Jean Denucé’s Magellan: La Question des Moluques et la Première Circumnavigation du Globe (pp. 46–47).

Pedro de Medina’s A Navigator’s Universe, ed. Ursula Lamb, sheds light on the subject of Renaissance cosmology, as does Alison Sandman’s accomplished thesis, Cosmographers vs. Pilots. Pablo Pérez-Malláina’s Spain’s Men of the Sea mentions “coarse” pilots (p. 233).

For more on spices and the spice trade throughout history, see notes to chapter 13. Maximilian of Transylvania’s remark about spices comes from Charles E. Nowell’s Magellan’s Voyage Around the World (p. 275), a convenient if not definitive anthology of several accounts.

Prince Henry the Navigator’s remark about peril and reward can be found in John Noble Wilford’s The Mapmakers (pp. 67–69). And J. H. Parry’s The Discovery of the Sea contains a sweeping summary of Portuguese ocean exploration.

For extended discussions of Magellan’s ancestry, see Manuel Villas-Boas, Os Magalhães; Joyner (p. 309); and Morison (pp. 327–329).

The lives and influence of Spanish and Portuguese Jews have been written about by many scholars, including Jane Gerber, The Jews of Spain; Frederic David Mocatta, The Jews of Spain and Portugal and the Inquisition; and Ruth Pike, Linajudos and Conversos in Seville.

Among the many accounts of Magellan’s early career are those by Morison; Charles Parr, So Noble a Captain; and F.H.H. Guillemard. Joyner’s Magellan (pp. 33–57) is especially robust.

Leonard Y. Andaya’s The World of Maluku mentions the extreme sensitivity of Portuguese maps (p. 9). Magellan’s dealings with the Barbosa clan are described by Morison (p. 333) and Denucé (p. 168). Roger Craig Smith’s thesis, Vanguard of Empire, offers background about the Casa de Contratación (pp. 32–33), and Denucé (p. 175) quotes Peter Martyr, as well as describing Ruy Faleiro’s decline (pp. 169–171).

Guillemard’s assessment of Adrian (p. 101) is quoted.

Donald Brand’s articles in the The Pacific Basin and Mairin Mitchell’s Elcano (p. 69) discuss Serrão, whose correspondence with Magellan was lost in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755; all that survives is accounts of it in the records of early Portuguese historians.

Las Casas’s account of Magellan’s plan can be found in Morison (p. 319), and the royal replies come from Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Colección de los viajes y descubrimientos que hicierón por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV (vol. 4, pp. 11–12, 113–116), which are available in an English translation in Rodrigue Lévesque’s History of Micronesia (vol. 1, pp. 119–121, 123–125).

Denucé (pp. 172, 210, 214–218) describes Haro’s financial arrangements for Magellan’s voyage.

Navarrete (vol. 4, pp. 121–122) contains the document formally authorizing Magellan. An English translation can be found in Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands: 1493–1898 (vol. 1, pp. 271–275).

CHAPTER II: THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

Magellan’s distraught letter to King Charles can be found in Licuanan and Mira, The Philippines Under Spain (pp. 11–13). The original mentions placing four flags on the capstan, but it was unlikely that piece of machinery would be used for that purpose. A mast was far more likely. For more, see Morison (pp. 340–341).

King Charles’s correspondence about Magellan’s voyage is reproduced in Blair and Robertson (vol. 1, pp. 277–279 and 280–292). For Magellan’s sailing orders, see Navarrete (vol. 4, pp. 130–152), and Blair and Robertson (vol. 1, pp. 256–259).

Documents pertaining to Ruy Faleiro’s role in the expedition are reproduced in Navarrete (vol. 4, p. 497) and in Ignacio Vial and Guadalupe Morente, La Primera Vuelta al Mundo: La Nao Victoria (pp. 44–45).

The list of navigational supplies carried by the fleet comes from Vial and Morente (pp. 85–86).

Morison (pp. 338–339) is particularly blunt on the subject of Fonseca, as is Joyner, passim. Documents concerning Fonseca’s dealings with the armada are contained in Navarette (vol. 2). Although it lacks source notes, Charles Parr’s biography, So Noble a Captain(p. 230), is strong on preparations for the voyage, including Fonseca’s machinations.

Vial and Morente (pp. 95–96) discuss the Seville waterfront and the armada’s provisions (p. 128).

The Casa de Contratación’s efforts to reign in Magellan are detailed in Vial and Morente (p. 51) and documented in Navarrete (vol. 5). Denucé discusses Magellan’s packing the roster with his relatives (pp. 236–239) and the solemn mass at Santa María de la Victoria (pp. 241–246).

Joyner (pp. 286–287) has the complete text of Magellan’s will, and Denucé (p. 255) tells of Sabrosa’s sad decline after Magellan fled Portugal.

CHAPTER III: NEVERLANDS

The prayerful commands are recorded by Pérez-Mallaína (p. 69).

The literature of early cartography is vast. A good place for general readers to start is Lloyd A. Brown’s The Story of Maps, along with Rodney Shirley’s The Mapping of the World: Early Printed World Maps, 1472–1700. John Noble Wilford’s The Mapmakers, now in a revised edition (2000), is another valuable summation.

Stephen Frimmer’s Neverlands offers a diverting introduction to the subject of mythical kingdoms. The quotations from Pliny the Elder are found in the Penguin edition of Natural History (pp. 76, 81). John Livingston Lowes’s The Road to Xanadu (pp. 117–118) catalogs some colorful monsters of the deep. Accounts of the Prester John phenomenon are drawn from Robert Silverberg’s The Realm of Prester John (pp. 41–45, 63). Marco Polo’s words come from the Penguin edition of The Travels (pp. 96, 106), and Mandeville’s fanciful descriptions can be found in the Penguin edition of Sir John Mandeville (pp. 117, 122, 129, 130). John Larner’s Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (p. 166) has also been consulted. Finally, Rabelais’s satirical skewering of Hearsay can be found in the Penguin edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel (p. 679).

CHAPTER IV: “THE CHURCH OF THE LAWLESS”

Details of the contretemps concerning the proper form of address to Magellan come from Morison (p. 358), and the incident involving António Ginovés is told most persuasively by Vial and Morente (p. 111).

For more on the social and political aspects of homosexuality in Spain, see Roger Bigelow Merriman, The Rise of the Spanish Empire (p. 53). It was common practice for homosexuals and even those suspected of homosexual practices to be denounced and punished in public. In August 1519, at the time of Magellan’s departure from Spain, a clergyman in Valencia used the public punishment of a number of homosexuals as the occasion for a hysterical sermon condemning the accused, and his listeners cried out for the death of those who had escaped with lesser punishments. The hysteria boiled along as the populace took up arms; the uprising appeared to end when the authorities confiscated the weapons and demanded that the protestors confine themselves to their homes, but even then the controversy continued as the protestors formed a fraternity and insisted on bearing arms.

Albo’s account of the fleet’s arrival in Rio de Janeiro can be found in Lord Stanley, First Voyage (p. 212), and Morison (p. 299) discusses early Portuguese efforts to exploit the region’s natural resources. Joyner (p. 125) offers details of Carvalho’s past.

Vespucci’s ripe description of Brazilian Indians is reproduced by Morison (pp. 285–286).

Morison (p. 362) discusses Magellan’s efforts to calculate latitudes.

Details of the sailor’s existence aboard ship are drawn from Pérez-Malláina (pp. 135–159) and Morison (pp. 165–171). Joyner (p. 250) has an interesting discussion of the ampolletas. And only Morison (p. 171), it seems, would trouble to explain the difficulties sailors faced when they had to relieve themselves at sea. Roger Craig Smith’s thesis (pp. 175–176) and the Colección General de Documentos Relativos a las Islas Filipinas Existentes en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla (vol. 2, pp. 165–168) describe Bustamente’s limited store of medical supplies.

Information about the saints in the ships’ rosters comes from Pérez-Malláina (p. 238) and from Louis Reau, Iconographie de l’Art Chrétien (vol. 3, pp. 115–122, 169–177, 804).

For more on the Consulado, see Paul S. Taylor, “Spanish Seamen in the New World During the Colonial Period,” The Hispanic American Historical Review.

Early conceptions of the strait are discussed by Guillemard (pp. 191–193), who quotes Galvão about the “Dragon’s taile”; by Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America (p. 107); and by Morison (pp. 301–302). See also Mateo Martinic Beros, Historia del Estrecho de Magallanes (1977).

CHAPTER V: THE CRUCIBLE OF LEADERSHIP

The quotation from Albo’s diary is drawn from Stanley (p. 217). Morison (p. 365) provides details of Magellan’s reconnaissance during the waning days of February. Guillemard, normally scrupulous, mentions only one island discovered on February 27, but as Pigafetta makes clear, there were two. See Skelton’s translation of Pigafetta’s Magellan’s Voyage (p. 46).

The actual animals that Magellan and his crew saw in this part of the world are open to debate because Pigafetta did not provide enough details for exact identification. Guillemard and his followers labeled the “sea wolves” that Magellan’s men saw as “fur seals,” but that is probably not correct. In general, fur seals do not live in this part of the world, but are found in Australia or more northerly waters, around the Bering Strait, for example. It is more likely that Pigafetta was describing the sea lion or sea elephant (sometimes called elephant seal), which is far more common in these latitudes.

The case for Magellan’s deliberately obscuring the location of Port Saint Julian is made by Denucé, whose Portuguese sources might have imputed sinister motives to Magellan and his pilots where none existed. Nevertheless, there are a number of strong hints that as the voyage proceeded Magellan came to realize he had sailed into Portuguese waters, and it was too late for him to do anything about it except hope he was not caught.

Accounts of Magellan’s motivational speech are found in Guillemard (p. 163) and Antonio Herrera, The General History (vol. 2, pp. 357ff, and vol. 3, p. 14).

Since Pigafetta is silent on the subject of the mutiny out of loyalty to his Captain General, de Mafra’s recollections, found in his Relation, are particularly useful, but he was not writing about events at the time they occurred; rather, he was reminiscing—to a scribe—some years after the fact. Nevertheless, de Mafra, unlike Pigafetta, was able to speak freely about controversial matters. See Blázquez and Aguilera’s Descripción for the complete de Mafra account. The translation is by Víctor Ubéda. Useful, if predictable, eyewitness accounts of the mutiny in Port Saint Julian can also be found in Navarrete (vol. 4); Elcano’s comment can be found on p. 288. See also Joyner (pp. 284, 291). Finally, Gaspar Correia’s brief but jumbled account of the voyage (found in Lord Stanley of Alderly, ed., The First Voyage Round the World and in Charles E. Nowell, ed., Magellan’s Voyage Around the World) supplies details of Magellan’s use of trickery in regaining control over his ships. Unfortunately, Correia, one of the earliest historians of the voyage, confuses Cartagena with Quesada and relates that Magellan had Cartagena drawn and quartered, when it was Quesada who suffered that fate. Guillemard (pp. 165–170) makes sense of the chaotic set of events surrouding the mutiny.

Descriptions of torture procedures are drawn from Henry Lea, Torture (p. 116); Philippus Limborch, The History of the Inquisition (vol. 1, pp. 217–220); and John Marchant et al., A Review of the Bloody Tribunal (pp. 357–358). The final stage of the strappado can be found on pp. 219–220 of Limborch. The punctuation has been modernized. Denucé names the victims of torture and declares Magellan’s deeds to be illegal (pp. 272–280).

CHAPTER VI: CASTAWAYS

Morison (p. 374) quotes praise for Serrano’s industriousness. An account of Santiago’s ill-fated reconnaissance mission appears in Stanley (p. 250), presenting Correia, who appears to confuse Santiago’s final voyage with the crew’s subsequent journey over land. (Correia states that the ship returned “laden with the crew,” which was not the case.) For Charles Darwin’s description of the Santa Cruz region, plus many other detailed natural descriptions, see Voyage of the Beagle (p. 167).

Pigafetta’s sketchy description of Santiago’s crew efforts to survive the trek back to Port Saint Julian is ably supplemented by Guillemard and especially Herrera (pp. 17–18), who writes about the frozen fingers.

Concerning the first signs of Indians in Port Saint Julian, Pigafetta describes the unexpected appearance of a “giant” on the beach, but de Mafra more plausibly recalls the appearance of smoke prior to the giant’s arrival. Pigafetta’s account of these Indians and guanacos appear in Skelton’s translation (pp. 47–50), Guillemard (p. 183), and Herrera (p. 19).

Ginés de Mafra recalled that first encounter with the Indians of the region quite differently. In de Mafra’s unsentimental account, no friendly giant danced on the shore and pointed heavenward, no religious conversion occurred, and no banquet for the Indians took place aboard the flagship.

After two months in Port Saint Julian, he wrote, “One night the night watchman said there were fires on shore.” On hearing the news, Magellan sent a party ashore to find them and, if they were fortunate, a new source of food beyond their steady diet of salted sea elephant and shellfish. He forbade his men to harm the Indians, if they found any. When the men reached the fires, de Mafra recalled, they “found a hut that was like the small lean-to of a wine grower, covered with animal skins. Our men surrounded the lean-to so carefully that none of the seven people inside left.” The Europeans saw that the lean-to was divided into two sections, one for men, the other for women and children. Just outside the lean-to were “five sheep of a very good size and shape never seen before.” These were guanacos. The landing party camped near the lean-to, the sailors shivering under the borrowed skins and maintaining a vigil over the Indians in case they attacked in the dead of night, but the precaution was unnecessary because the Indians slept deeply and snored loudly until the morning.

The next day, the Europeans feasted on tough, stringy, and relatively tasteless guanaco meat with the Indians. Only drink was missing; the thirsty sailors craved wine, or even water, to chase the sinewy guanaco meat.

When the landing party returned to the flagship and told Magellan of their find, the Captain General sent them back ashore with orders to return with an Indian, but the crew members found the huts deserted, apparently on short notice. “Our men spotted the tracks in the abundant snows and followed them,” said de Mafra. “It was late when they found them in another hut erected in a different valley.” The Indians fled, the Europeans gave chase, and a skirmish ensued. “Our men tried to capture them, and when they rushed at them, the Indians wounded a certain Barassa”—an apprentice seaman aboard Victoria—“in his groin, as a result of which he later died. The Indians escaped, and our men could do nothing to prevent them.”

The crew members spent the night ashore, “Where they made a fire and roasted some of the meat that they had taken and drank melted snow from bowls, and with no protection other than their spears, they passed the night, even though it was very cold.” In the morning, they broke camp and returned to the waiting ships, where they made their report. Magellan “ordered thirty men to go ashore and kill whomever they found to avenge for the dead one, and since the first men had not buried him, to bury him.” As ordered, the war party went ashore and buried their fallen comrade, but they failed to find “anybody on whom to avenge their anger and rage.” After a fruitless search lasting eight days, they returned to the ships, exhausted and frustrated.

Joyner (p. 150) describes the plight of Cartagena and Pero Sánchez de la Reina, as does Morison (p. 375).

CHAPTER VII: DRAGON’S TAIL

The original details concerning the eclipse most likely came from the fleet’s astronomer, San Martín, whose records are described by Guillemard (p. 187). He draws on Herrera, who had access to the actual papers, which are lost.

Gallego’s remarks are from the Leiden Narrative, translated by the indefatigable Morison (p. 12) and Albo’s entry about the strait appears in Stanley (pp. 218–219). The “later explorer” is quoted by Morison (p. 380). For an analysis of Pigafetta’s use of the word carta, see Morison (p. 382), and for early misconceptions of the strait, see Parry, The Discovery of the Sea (p. 248) and Morison (pp. 382–383). Guillemard cites “terra ulterior incog.” on p. 192.

Although Magellan staked the success of the expedition on navigating the strait, he reluctantly revealed that he had an alternate plan. “Had we not discovered the Strait,” Pigafetta informs us, “the Captain General had determined to go as far as seventy-five degrees toward the Atlantic Pole. There in that latitude, during the summer season, there is no night, or if there is any night it is but short, and so in the winter with the day.”

Albo is quoted in Stanley (p. 219), and Francis Pretty in Charles William Eliot, ed., Voyages and Travels. Other descriptions of the strait are drawn from Morison (pp. 390–391), Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle (pp. 196–197, 203), and Herrera (chap. 14). Parr (pp. 317–318) relates a dramatic encounter between “a half dozen naked Indians” paddling a canoe and Magellan’s fleet. But none of the diarists mention it (Pigafetta, fascinated by indigenous tribes, surely would have); nor do other historians. In the absence of sources, this incident lacks a basis in fact.

Magellan’s desire to persist in the voyage is related by Denucé (p. 288) and by Herrera (chap. 15). Joyner (p. 276) discusses Gomes’s resentment. Denucé (pp. 287–288) provides details concerning the supposed placement of papers in the strait. Herrera says the mutineers killed Mesquita, but as numerous other accounts demonstrate, that was not the case.

Magellan’s and San Martín’s important missives appear in João de Barros’s Da Asia: Decada Terceira, translated for this book by Víctor Úbeda. See also Stanley (pp. 177–178). Barros retrieved the documents from the papers of San Martín, later seized by the Portuguese. In Barros’s words, “We do not deem it unfitting to include here the contents of such orders, as well as San Martín’s reply, so that it can be seen, not by our words, but by their own, the condition in which they found themselves, and also Magellan’s purpose with regard to the route that he planned to follow in case the way he wished to find should fail him.”

Pigafetta and Albo disagree on the precise date the armada sailed from the western mouth of the strait. Pigafetta gives the date as November 28, and Albo the twenty-sixth. The discrepancy could be explained in various ways; for example, Pigafetta and Albo could have selected different landmarks to mark the strait’s end. See Morison (pp. 400–401).

CHAPTER VIII: A RACE AGAINST DEATH

For more on Setebos in the English literary tradition, see Robert Browning’s long poem “Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island” (1864), a philosophical rumination by Caliban on his plight.

Magellan’s failure to make a landfall in the Pacific before Guam has long prompted questions. One school of thought holds that he was actually farther north than his chroniclers indicated, and distant from all islands. Although all the eyewitnesses—Albo, Pigafetta, and de Mafra—agree that the armada headed west into the Pacific at the approximate latitude of Valparaiso, Chile, others have suggested that the diarists falsified their accounts to conceal the true location of the Spice Islands, in case they were found in the Portuguese part of the world rather than the Spanish. The assumption makes little sense because they wrote their accounts for different purposes; Pigafetta wrote to glorify Magellan and ingratiate himself with European nobility, Albo to keep track of their whereabouts, and de Mafra dictated his account years later, when the location of the Spice Islands was no longer controversial.

Information on little San Pablo is drawn from Samuel Eliot Morison’s unpublished Life article (February 24, 1972).

CHAPTER IX: A VANISHED EMPIRE

Much of the information in this chapter is drawn directly from Pigafetta’s account, which eloquently describes the armada’s Pacific passage.

For an extended and valuable discussion of Magellan’s first landfall in the Pacific, see Robert F. Rogers and Dirk Anthony Ballendorf, “Magellan’s Landfall in the Mariana Islands,” in the Journal of Pacific History (vol. 24, October 1989). The authors re-created the landfall to be precise about the fleet’s movements; however, alterations wrought by erosion can compromise the value of such exercises. Also worth consulting is Rogers’s book Destiny’s Landfall for details of Chamorran culture. Guillemard (p. 226) and Joyner (p. 269) discuss Master Andrew.

For a fascinating account of island navigation systems in theory and practice, see Ben Finney, Voyage of Rediscovery, especially pp. 56–64.

Louise Levathes’s When China Ruled the Seas (1996) is the one reliable guide to the subject written in English. Also eminently worthwhile is Ma Huan’s diary of one expedition, The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores (1433). Gavin Menzies’s recent book 1421 suggests that the Treasure Fleet reached the Caribbean and perhaps completed a circumnavigation one hundred years before Magellan. However, hard evidence to prove these tantalizing assertions is still lacking.

As his candidate for the first person to complete a circumnavigation, Morison (p. 435) nominates Magellan’s slave Enrique. Morison argues that Magellan’s voyage brought Enrique back to his point of origin. Even if this assumption is correct, Enrique traveled around the world only because Magellan took him along.

For a discussion of the armada’s weaponry, see Charles Boutell, Arms and Armour (p. 243) and Parr (p. 383). Roger Craig Smith’s 1989 thesis, Vanguard of Empire: 15th- and 16th-Century Iberian Ship Technology in the Age of Discovery: offers more specialized information on the subject. Also recommended are Courtlandt Canby’s A History of Weaponry (vol. 4) and John Hewitt’s Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe (vol. 3), as well as The Penguin Encyclopedia of Weapons and Military Technology.

Guillemard (p. 235) mentions the bats seen by the sailors. Albo’s description of Cebu comes from Navarrete (vol. 4, pp. 219–221).

CHAPTER X: THE FINAL BATTLE

Two very different facets of Pigafetta’s wide-ranging interests are on display in his account of Magellan’s visit to Cebu. As a former papal diplomat, he was duty-bound, but also genuinely moved, by the Captain General’s efforts to convert the Filipinos. In addition, Pigafetta is virtually the only source on the subject. See Robertson’s translation of Pigafetta (pp. 133–169) for more details of Magellan’s religious convictions.

Pigafetta also dwells at length on palang, which fascinated him. The subject frequently appears in accounts of Pacific and Eastern cultures during the Age of Discovery, and even the Chinese sailors with the Treasure Fleet came across a variant of palang, and, like Magellan’s men, were both fascinated and appalled by the practice. In this instance, palang took the form of small sand-filled beads inserted into the scrotum, and when men who were thus adorned moved or walked, they made a faint noise, reminiscent of bells ringing. It was, said Ma Huan, “a most curious thing.”

In his assessment of palang, Pigafetta was unusually tolerant, at least by European standards. Other European visitors wrote about palang in censorious tones. Andrés Urdaneta, the capable Spanish navigator, visited the region several times, beginning in 1525, four years after the Armada de Molucca, and he left an account of palang in which the Indians of Borneo fasten a “few small round stones” to the penis with a leather sleeve, while others are pierced with “a tube of silver or tin . . . and on those tubes, they put thin sticks of silver or gold at the time they want to engage with women in coitus.” In practice, the bearer of palang often inserted a range of objects into the tube; pig’s bristles were employed, as were bamboo shavings, beads, and even shards of glass. Urdaneta was appalled, and missionaries in the Philippines preached against it.

Antonio de Morga, a Spanish historian who wrote one of the first accounts of the Philippines, was also revolted by the practice, which he considered highly immoral, but he provided a detailed description of palang as practiced elsewhere in the Philippine archipelago. By the time Morga got around to describing palang, in 1609, it was clearly a practice on the way out, thanks to the strenuous efforts of the Catholic clergy to discourage it: “The natives . . . especially the women, are very vicious and sensual, and their wickedness has devised lewd ways of intercourse between men and women, one of which they practice from their youth onwards. The men skillfully make a hole near the head of the penis into which they insert a small serpent’s head of metal or ivory. Then they secure this by passing a small peg of the same material through the hole, so that it may not work loose. With this device they have intercourse with their wives and for long after the copulation they are unable to withdraw. They are so addicted to this, and find such pleasure in it, that although they shed a great deal of blood, and receive other injuries, it is a common practice among them. These devices are known as sagras, and there are very few of them left, because after they become Christians, care is taken to do away with such things and not permit their use.”

For more on the subject, see Morison (p. 435). The two articles by Tom Harrison listed in the bibliography contain the quoted descriptions.

Juan Gil, in his recent Mitos y Utopiás del Descubrimiento (1989), is one of the few commentators to consider the possibility that Magellan’s disaffected officers let the Mactanese slaughter him.

Simon Winchester describes the reenactment of the battle between Magellan and Lapu Lapu in “After Dire Straits, an Agonizing Haul Across the Pacific,” Smithsonian (pp. 84–95).

CHAPTER XI: SHIP OF MUTINEERS

In addition to Pigafetta and other accounts mentioned in the text, details concerning Enrique’s treachery are drawn from Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdez’s Historia General y Natural de las Indias (pp. 13ff). Denucé (pp. 323–326) adds to the picture of the massacre’s aftermath. See also Morison (pp. 438–441) and Navarrete (vol. 4).

Concerning San Antonio’s return to Spain, Guillemard (p. 215) remarks that Argensola, an early and occasionally inaccurate historian, states that Cartagena and the priest were rescued by San Antonio, but no records support this claim. Although Guillemard (p. 216) believes San Antonio ran low on food during the return journey, that was likely not the case, for she carried the entire fleet’s provisions. It is possible that those aboard San Antonio invented this story to gain sympathy. Skelton provides the date of the ship’s arrival (p.156).

The official reports and orders concerning the mutiny of San Antonio and her paltry contents can be found in Licuanun and Mira, The Philippines Under Spain (pp. 17, 24–28, 43–44). See also Denucé (p. 293). Joyner (p. 159) says Mesquita had to pay for his trial-related costs.

Roger Merriman offers much more on King Charles’s astonishing ascent to power in The Rise of the Spanish Empire (vol. 3, 1925).

For accounts of daily life in sixteenth-century Seville, see Pike’s “Seville in the Sixteenth Century,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 41, no. 3, August 1961.

CHAPTER XII: SURVIVORS

Elcano’s ascent and the problems facing the Armada de Molucca after Magellan’s death are ably set forth in Mitchell. See especially pp. 42–48 and 63–64.

Robertson’s translation of Pigafetta carries forward into vol. 2 at this point in the narrative.

Morison’s description of Palawan appears on p. 442, and Albo’s exasperation while trying to reach Brunei can be found in Stanley (pp. 226–227).

Jones’s 1928 translation of The Itinerary of Ludovico de Varthema of Bologna has been quoted. Varthema’s description of the Spice Islands (pp. 88–89) offers a fairly exact preview of scenes the armada later encountered. And for more on the Bajau, see Harry Nimmo’s The Sea People of Sulu (1972).

Argensola’s description of the Moluccas comes from Stevens’s 1708 translation of The Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands (p. 7).

The quotation of The Lusíads comes from Landeg White’s translation (p. 223).

CHAPTER XIII: ET IN ARCADIA EGO

Barros’s harsh view of the inhabitants of the Spice Islands is cited in Charles Corn’s charming and evocative study, The Scents of Eden (p. 58), and in Andaya (p. 16). Given the reputation of the Spice Islands’ inhabitants, it is surprising that the armada treated them with as much civility as they did.

António Galvão’s useful and vivid description of the Spice Islands’ volcanoes and rainfall can be found in his Treatise on the Moluccas, tr. Hubert Jacobs (1971), and The Discoveries of the World, tr. Richard Hakluyt (1862, originally published in 1601). Barbosa’s descriptions of cloves and Almanzor’s family are drawn from his Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar, tr. Henry E. J. Stanley, 1866 (pp. 201–202). Andaya discusses the primacy of oral over written agreements (p. 61).

On the subject of Serrão’s curious odyssey in the Spice Islands, Guillemard offers several unsubstantiated theories. According to one scenario, he was “poisoned by a Malay woman who acted under Portuguese orders.” But Guillemard also cites Argensola’s assertion that Serrão was not poisoned at all; rather, he was sent back to India and he died aboard ship (p. 281).

Anyone wanting to learn more about cloves should start by consulting Frederic Rosengarten’s Book of Spices (rev. ed., 1973), especially pp. 200–204. Much of the information about spices in this chapter is drawn from this comprehensive and entertaining reference work. Other useful works on the subject include Parry’s The Story of Spices (1953) and Larioux Bruno’s “Spices in the Medieval Diet: A New Approach,” Food and Foodways, vol. 1, no. 1, 1985. Also of interest is M. N. Pearson, ed., Spices in the Indian Ocean World (1996).

CHAPTER XIV: GHOST SHIP

It is still possible that syphilis in Timor—if that was what the sailors saw—originally came from Portugal, because the Portuguese went to China as early as 1513; the Chinese might then have carried it to Timor.

Pigafetta’s elaborate account of China relies on stories he gathered in Indonesia from a well-traveled Arab merchant. Pigafetta sketched a convincing description of the emperor’s seat, Peking: “Near his palace are seven encircling walls, and in each of those circular places are stationed ten thousand men for the guard of the place [who remain there] until a bell rings, when ten thousand other men come for each circular space. They are changed in this manner each day and night. Each circle of the wall has a gate. At the first stands a man with a large hook in his hand, called satu horan with satu bagan; in the second, a dog, called satu hain; in the third, a man with an iron mace, called satu horan with pocum becin; in the fourth, a man with a bow in his hand, called satu horan with anat panam; in the fifth, a man with a spear, called satu horan with tumach; in the sixth, a lion, called satu horiman; in the seventh, two white elephants called gagua pute.

“The palace has seventy-nine halls which contain only women who serve the king. Torches are always kept lighted in the palace, and it takes a day to go through it. In the upper part are four halls, where the principal men go sometimes to speak to the king. One is ornamented with copper, both below and above; one all with silver; one all with gold; and the fourth with pearls and precious gems. When the king’s vassals take him gold or any other precious things as tribute, they are placed in those halls, and they say, ‘Let this be for the honor and glory of our Santhoa Raia.’”

Concerning the Cape of Good Hope: in Canto Five of The Lusíads, Luis de Camões personified it as a mighty giant named Adamastor, who resented the intrusion of mere humans, even audacious Portuguese navigators, into his domain.

I am that vast, secret promontory

You Portuguese call the Cape of Storms,

Which neither Ptolemy, Pompey, Strabo,

Pliny, nor any authors knew of.

Here Africa ends. Here its coast

Concludes in this, my vast, inviolate

Plateau, extending southwards to the Pole

And, by your daring, stuck to my very soul.

Espinosa’s sad comment about turning back is in Lévesque (p. 306).

Much of what is known about Trinidad’s tragic end comes from Barros, whose account is skewed in favor of the Portuguese. Barros (Chapter 10) states that Brito discovered the armada’s attempts to alter the locations of various lands, and Guillemard (p. 303) approvingly quotes Brito’s callous report to the Portuguese crown about the armada’s survivors. Trinidad’s tragic end inspired Barros to twist events so that Brito emerges as the savior of Magellan’s men, when in fact he was happy to let them die. “The first thing he did,” Barros writes of Brito, “on request of a certain Bartolomé Sánchez, clerk of that ship, whom Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa had sent for help due to their sorry condition, was to dispatch a caravel with plenty of provisions and anchors for the ship. . . . António de Brito had the crew cured and tended as carefully as they had been natives of this kingdom, and not gone to those lands to cause us trouble.” In conclusion, Barros writes, “We are free of any suspicion.”

The description of Espinosa’s travails in the Portuguese penal colony is drawn from Lévesque (p. 306), Guillemard (p. 304), and Navarrete (vol. 4, pp. 378ff).

The vignette of Victoria’s encountering an indifferent Portuguese vessel at the Cape of Good Hope is related by Joyner (p. 231), and Morison (p. 461) mentions Victoria’s multiple crossings of the equator. Joyner (p. 234) explores Burgos’s character and motives for betraying his crew members.

CHAPTER XV: AFTER MAGELLAN

The full text of Elcano’s evasive letter to King Charles is reprinted by Morison (pp. 471–473).

Mitchell (pp. 178–182) provides the relevant documents pertaining to the subsequent inquiry into the expedition, and Joyner (p. 242) tells of Juan Rodríguez’s fate. Espinosa’s last days are accounted for by Joyner (pp. 265, 277–278) and Morison (p. 456). Morison (p. 477) also discusses the ill-fated Guadiana River conference. Those seeking still more detailed information on lawsuits arising from the loss of the armada’s ships should consult the Special Collections Department of the Brandeis University Libraries; documents there shed light on Cristóbal de Haro’s efforts to recover the cost of backing the expedition.

Accounts of Elcano’s last voyage and death can be found in Mitchell (pp. 148–157), Morison (pp. 475–483), Parry, The Discovery of the Sea (p. 257), and Nowell (p. 338).

Lawrence C. Wroth’s Early Cartography of the Pacific (pp. 149–150) details the ultimate outcome of the struggle between Spain and Portugal for the control of the Spice Islands.

The mournful tale of Victoria’s final voyage is told by Parry (p. 261), Joyner (p. 243), and Mitchell (pp. 106–107).