Over the Edge of the World

About the Author Q&A with Laurence Bergreen

What prompted you to write about a 500-year-old voyage around the world?

Ocean voyages have fascinated me since childhood, and I have been contemplating a book about one since 1980, when I started spending part of each summer on Nantucket. About eight years ago, my son became enthralled with competitive sailing, which kept the subject at the forefront of my mind. Things finally crystallized during the research of my previous book, Voyage to Mars (2000), about NASA’s exploration of the Red Planet. I was struck by how NASA scientists kept citing the exploits of Ferdinand Magellan’s “intelligent” approach to discovery in the Renaissance as a precedent for their exploration of the solar system in the twenty-first century. By “intelligent,” they meant he used navigation and had a plan, rather than just bumping into distant shores, the way the Vikings did. I realized that Magellan’s circumnavigation would make an excellent vehicle for a book. When I realized how violent Magellan’s voyage actually was, that no one had written about it authoritatively since 1890, and that a great deal of unexpurgated primary sources were available, I realized that I simply had to do this book.

How did you research such a complex subject?

Researching this book has been a great challenge and a joy. I traveled to Spain several times. There I did research in the Archive of the Indies in Seville, the world’s leading research facility for the Spanish conquest of the New World. In Spain, I also spent time in places familiar to Magellan and important to his voyage, the Seville shipyards, Sanlúcar de Barrameda (his port of embarkation), and Cadíz (another important Spanish port). My most dramatic research occurred in the Strait of Magellan, in southern Chile, just 500 miles above the Antarctic Circle. I spent an arduous but amazing week there in January 2002, retracing Magellan’s route through the strait, and taking many photographs, movies, and notes. The strait is virtually unchanged since Magellan first explored it five centuries ago. I tried to capture some of the exhilaration of wandering through this magnificent, brooding landscape in the book.

What will readers find in this book about Magellan’s voyage that they might not find elsewhere?

It seems to me that the real story of this expedition has never been fully told until now. Interweaving a variety of candid, first-person accounts (some of them specially translated for this book), I take readers into the ships beside Magellan and his crew as they explore, navigate, mutiny, suffer, and die during this epic journey. We meet his loyal young aide Antonio Pigafetta, whose shockingly graphic and candid diary serves as our best record of the voyage. Pigafetta’s detailed descriptions of the sexual behavior of the crew and of the

exotic sexual customs among the tribes they visited are vivid, X-rated, and, until recently, they have been censored. And we get to know the wily Juan Sebastián Elcano, who, at the journey’s end, claimed all the honors that should have gone to Magellan. Through the eyes of these and other participants, readers see the exotic lands and feel the conflicting passions that drove these men as they explored the entire world for the first time. These first-person accounts humanize the ancient mariners and turn them into recognizable people driven by greed, passion, and even, at times, a sense of honor. As I write in this book, this was not only an expedition to the ends of the earth; it was also a voyage into the darkest recesses of the human soul.

Can you tell us more about your visit to the Strait of Magellan?

In January 2002, as part of the research for this book, I retraced the highlight of Magellan’s voyage, his first-ever navigation of the strait that bears his name. The Strait of Magellan, in Patagonia, not far from Antarctica, passes through some of the wildest and most picturesque landscapes on the planet. Glaciers, seals, and penguins mingle with lush green plains and gloomy swamps. Mountains loom over the twists and turns of the strait, and williwaws—sudden, violent storms—emerge from nowhere with destructive force and subside as quickly as they came. In the course of retracing Magellan’s route, I could only marvel at how he and his crew managed to thread their way through 320 miles of nautical hell—false channels, dead ends, shallows, and unpredictable weather.

This voyage took place five centuries ago. What sources did you use?

As it turned out there was a tremendous amount, and one could re-create the voyage from them on a nearly day-by-day basis. I relied especially on royal documents, sailors’ diaries, and contemporaneous accounts. They often tell a tragic story of mutinies, cruelty, and shipwrecks. Keep in mind that 260 men set out from Seville in five ships, yet only one ship bearing eighteen men returned to that city after circling the globe, and demonstrating for once and all that it was round. But it was also a voyage of heroism, courage, and an extraordinary battle against the elements to survive. Magellan’s voyage, the first circumnavigation of the globe, is considered the greatest ocean voyage in history.