1.3 Europe’s Age of Discovery: A Narrative Overview
The Renaissance was the background upon which Europe struck out to "discover" other parts of the globe, including an entire hemisphere that heretofore had been unknown. The great names of European discovery include Columbus, da Gama, Balboa, Magellan – names we have known since grade school. But who were they? What motivated their interest in exploration? How were they able to undertake the long voyages of discovery? And what happened in the lands they discovered? This reading examines the scope of Europe’s 16th century age of exploration. But first, a brief consideration of what was “out there” beyond the immediate experience of Europe.
Through the Crusades and the reports of Marco Polo, Europe had a vague awareness of the civilizations of India and the Far East. Exotic goods (silks, spices) from these regions were available at prohibitively high costs in the caravan market centers of Constantinople, Antioch, and Damascus. Beyond the Arab fringes of the Mediterranean coasts, Europeans had no real knowledge of the region that was Africa and total ignorance of even the existence of the Americas. In both Africa and the Americas there existed a wide extent of human cultures with societies both primitive and civilized. A brief consideration of the civilized societies follows.
Along the Niger River in the savanna (Sahel) regions of the West African interior there had developed a succession of civilized states known respectively as Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. These African kingdoms were commercially wealthy and exercised widespread regional domination. (At the time of the Renaissance, Songhai dominated a region as large as France, Spain, and Italy combined.) Moving such commodities as salt, ivory, slaves, and gold, they controlled the Saharan trade routes to the Mediterranean coast. (Prior to 1500 West Africa produced most of the world’s supply of gold.) Their governments were monarchies with bureaucratic systems of administration. Their peoples were united in a common religion and culture, that of Islam. In fact, the university in the city of Tombouctou (Timbuktu) was a major center of Muslim theological study, attracting scholars from all parts of the Muslim world. Europeans had no real knowledge of the existence of these states. What little they did know they learned from Arab merchants who controlled the coasts. European imaginations were fired by unfounded rumors that deep in Africa was a gold-laden civilization living under the rule of a Christian king called “Prester John.”
Across the Atlantic, totally unknown to Europeans, were the highly sophisticated urban cultures that developed in what is known today as Mexico and Peru. By the mid-1400s the Indian cultures in these regions, primarily the Maya, Aztec and Inca, had evolved “proto-civilizations.” These were cultures that had all the characteristics of civilization (cities, bureaucratic governments, socio-economic classes, sophisticated arts and sciences such as monumental architecture) except written language. All three had developed means for mathematical calculation and account keeping, but only primitive pictographic writing systems. Had there not been the European intervention, the Aztec and Inca may have developed written language on their own. (The Aztec and Inca cultures will be considered below in the context of the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru.)
It is not our purpose here to examine these cultures in detail. Suffice it to say, they were theocratic monarchies with enough power to mobilize large masses of manpower for construction and warfare. They lived in large cities supported by sophisticated methods of farming. They had the mathematical knowledge to build massive stone pyramids, plazas, and temples. And, they were wealthy. Their wealth came from the mastery of slaves and the mining of gold and silver. As with Africa’s mythical kingdom of “Prester John,” the attraction of gold and easy wealth would prove a powerful motivation for European interest in the Americas.
Motivations for European Overseas Exploration and Expansion
The motivations for Europe’s expansion were both commercial and religious. Western European merchants were prevented from direct trade with the East. Ever since the beginning of the Crusades, the Italian cities of Genoa and Venice controlled Mediterranean commerce. European maritime trade, consequently, moved on Italian ships providing great profit for the Genoese and Venetians and at great and almost prohibitive cost for merchants of other countries. Arab merchants likewise controlled the overland caravan routes that linked Mediterranean ports to the markets in central Africa, the Middle East, Persia, India, and the East Indies. A simple example using 1490 figures reflects the economic reality of importing goods from the East. A hundred pounds of pepper purchased directly in the East Indies would have cost three Venetian ducats (one ducat in 1490 = $75 today). The same amount of pepper, once it had been moved by caravan and ship to the market in Venice would cost over 80 ducats ($6000+).
What did the Europeans want? They sought a piece of the financial action through direct access to the fabled wealth of the East. The Crusades had introduced Europe to the world beyond – a world of exotic peoples whose wealthy civilizations overflowed with all sorts of luxuries. These luxuries included silk and cotton textiles, carpets, jewelry, porcelains, sugar, fruits, and “spices.” The term spices was used to cover a wide range of commodities including pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, dyes, perfumes, cosmetic oils, and medicinal drugs. The Travels of Marco Polo, the account of the 13th century Venetian merchant’s 20 years of traveling in Persia, India, China, and Southeast Asia further stimulated the European imagination and intent to secure direct access to these fabled lands.
Religion also served as a compulsive force. The movement for overseas expansion would begin in the Iberian Peninsula where in the 1400s the legacy of the crusading spirit remained especially strong. Both Spain and Portugal had been conquered by the Muslim Moors in the 700s. For some seven centuries the Spanish and Portuguese Christians had been either coexisting with or resisting the Muslim presence. The final chapter of the Iberian Reconquista (Reconquest), the liberation of Spain from Moorish control, did not take place until 1492 when Spanish forces loyal to the monarchs of Aragon and Castile, Ferdinand and Isabella, drove the Moors from their last stronghold in Granada. Inspired by their victorious crusade, the Portuguese and Spanish sought to take Christianity beyond their boundaries to Muslim and other “heathen” peoples. Once a territory had been discovered and claimed, further expeditions, be they for trade or settlement, included priests and monks bent on converting the indigenous peoples to the Catholic faith.
Thus, a combination of spiritual and material factors explains the motivation for Europe’s overseas expansion. However, it is one thing to have the motivation but quite another to have the ability. What enabled Europe’s ability to expand?
Europe’s Ability to Expand
In 1400 Europe was politically at best a collection of small, feudal – and often feuding – states with little held in common except religion. Royal governments were relatively personal operations wherein kings exercised little sovereignty. Compared to China, then the world’s most powerful civilization, Europe was primitive and anarchistic. In fact, between 1405 and 1433 the Chinese emperor authorized a series of seven overseas expeditions. Involving up to 28,000 men and huge ships some 400 feet in length (in 1492 Columbus’ Santa Maria was only 75 feet in length), the Chinese fleets sailed through the Indies and across the Indian Ocean touching at the coasts of India, Arabia, and Africa. The African voyage in 1414 involved a run of 3700 miles across open sea. On these voyages the Chinese sought no commercial contact with the peoples they met. They did take home goods and other “curiosities” including a pair of giraffes for the imperial zoo, but the purpose of the Chinese expeditions was apparently no more than to demonstrate the power of the emperor. No European king in 1400 could even imagine an exercise of power on such scale. In fact, the Europeans did not even know of the Chinese expeditions. Yet by 1400 there were intellectual forces stirring that would energize European thought and stimulate its political, social, economic, and technological development. And there was one European ruler who did have both imagination and ambition to expand Europe’s horizons, a Portuguese prince named Henry.
Portugal was the initiator of European voyages of discovery largely because of Prince Henry (known to history as Henry the Navigator). Son of King Joao I (John I), Henry (1394 - 1460) took an active interest in promoting his country’s maritime development. His motivations were in part religious but primarily commercial. Henry wanted to win new lands and peoples for Christianity in Africa while at the same time outflanking the Muslims (who dominated northern Africa) by joining forces with “Prester John,” a mythical Christian prince whose wealthy kingdom was rumored to be somewhere in the African interior. Henry likewise wanted Portugal to acquire a share of the lucrative African slave, ivory, and gold trade (also controlled by the Muslims) and secure a direct sea route to the East. To this end Henry established in 1420 a unique school for navigators at Sagres. Geographical scholars, Muslim and Jewish as well as Christian, cartographers, and maritime engineers (ship designers) were encouraged to come to Sagres both to teach and to learn. At Sagres the Portuguese captains who would lead the later exploratory expeditions received their training in navigation. From Sagres, Henry financed expeditions to probe along and explore the western coasts of Africa claiming lands for Portugal and seeking new sources of wealth. Thus, it was that Bartolomeo Dias and Vasco da Gama, trained at Sagres and financed by the crown, reached the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 (Dias) and India in 1498 (da Gama).
There was a political factor underlying Europe’s ability to expand. Henry was reflective of what historians have come to call “New Monarchy”. The “New Monarchs” were rulers such as Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Henry VII of England, and Francis I of France. These were monarchs who actively sought to increase their sovereignty by reducing, or eliminating, the traditional feudal restraints on royal power. They recognized the connection between power and wealth. The wealthier the crown, the less dependent it would be on feudal institutions such as parliaments or the Church. Such monarchs generally (the exception being Spain) saw the value of encouraging the growth of commerce and promoted economic measures intended to increase their countries’ overall wealth. The middle class, through its involvement in trade, finance, and manufacturing, benefited from such policies and became a strong ally of the crown. Both monarchs and the middle class were interested in the overall expansion of wealth and both were attracted by the idea of overseas commercial voyaging as a new source of that wealth. This would lead to international competition as monarchs sought to enrich themselves and their states by seeking new sources of wealth. Enterprising mariners took advantage of royal competition to “sell” their services for voyages of discovery. If successful, both the mariner and monarch would win wealth and prestige. Such was the case of Christopher Columbus.
Columbus (1451 - 1506), a mariner from Genoa who had spent many years in Portugal, developed the idea that it would be more effective and easier to reach China and the East by sailing west rather than around Africa. His calculations showed that China was only 2400 miles west of Portugal. He offered his services to make the voyage – for a price, of course. Rejected by the King of Portugal, he made the same offer to the kings of England and France but pursued it vigorously with Isabella of Castile. The Spanish queen was skeptical but submitted his offer and his mathematical findings to a committee of experts for review. Because Spain was preoccupied with the expulsion of the Moors, it was six years before Columbus heard a response. His proposal was rejected – initially. Coming to the rescue was one of Ferdinand’s courtiers, Luis de Santángel, a man who Columbus had befriended, who persuaded Isabella and Ferdinand that a voyage could be funded with minimal cost to the royal treasury. Should Columbus be successful, Santángel advised, Spanish claims to new lands would serve as an outlet for the energies of restless hidalgos (young nobles who had fought the Moors) seeking to be paid for their services. Isabella agreed and Columbus was put in command of the “Enterprise of the Indies.” He would be provided with three ships, experienced crews, and supplied with trade goods (mostly cloth, beads, and trinkets) and enough provisions for a year. Should he prove successful, he would be awarded with the hereditary title of Viceroy and Governor of the territories he discovered, and made Admiral of the Ocean Sea. He would also receive a tenth share of all gold and silver acquired (the rest going to the crown), and an eighth share of all wealth made through future trade. Columbus’ little fleet sailed from the Spanish port of Palos in August 1492. The rest, as they say, is history!
Columbus’ voyage was financed largely with funds from private sources available to his courtier friend, but the outcome of his expedition (and subsequently of three others that he would lead) would secure Spain a colonial foothold in a “New World” that would yield its masters unimaginable wealth. By 1550 Spain would be the most powerful state in Europe and command a global empire. Columbus would die in 1506, stripped of his titles and disgraced.
As indicated above, economic conditions also contributed to Europe’s ability to expand. Europe in the 1400s was undergoing what historians now call the “Commercial Revolution.” In short the Commercial Revolution, which began with the Crusades and lasted into the 1700s, was characterized by the revival of trade and manufacturing, the rise of a money economy, and the rise of the middle class. By 1400 there were new sources of credit (banks) and investment (joint stock companies) with which to finance long voyages. Banks were mostly family businesses, such as those of the Medicis in Florence or the Fuggers in Augsburg, but other wealthy persons could join the banks as investors. Joint stock companies functioned as do modern corporations. A group of investors would join together and pool their money to form a business or other enterprise, such as a voyage of discovery. Each investor would hold shares of ownership called stocks and would receive a share of the business profits. Lacking national tax bases, kings often borrowed money for wars or other extraordinary expenses. Their ability to repay loans was risky and banks charged rates of high interest on such credit. Joint stock investors might form a company to finance a voyage of discovery and colonization. The Virginia Company (established in 1606), and the later Plymouth Company (1619) and Massachusetts Bay Company (1630) were all joint stock companies instrumental in the founding of England’s American colonies.
The Renaissance was also a factor explaining Europe’s ability to expand. As we have seen, the rediscovery of classical learning led to a new understanding of geometry and astronomy, both essential in navigation. Such information as well as mathematical and cartographic knowledge from Muslim sources provided the intellectual basis for the application of scientific and technical resources to both navigation and ship design.
Innovations in maritime technology likewise explain Europe’s ability to expand. Perhaps of greatest significance was the development of a vessel that could actually make long voyages. The caravel, a full-rigged ship, was first developed by Iberian shipbuilders in the 1400s. The caravel and its later descendants, the nao and carrack, combined cog and galley hull designs and lateen rigging with square rigging. The galley with its lateen rigged triangular sails had long been the premier ship design on Mediterranean waters. The galley had the advantage of being able to sail against the wind but was limited in the amount of cargo it could carry. The cog, used mostly in Atlantic coastal trade, had a deep hull and could carry a great deal of cargo, but its square sail made it difficult to maneuver into the wind. Iberian shipwrights, familiar with both Atlantic and Mediterranean shipping, simply combined the best of both ships into one full-rigged vessel. The caravel had a large hull and combination of lateen and square sails. By mounting the steering oar (previously on the side of the vessel) as a rudder in the center of the ship’s stern, effective maneuverability was guaranteed. The caravel was the prototype of all full-rigged tall ships ever since. At 75 feet in length and 150 tons, Columbus’ Santa Maria, was state of the art.
Chinese in origin but brought to the west by the Arabs, the magnetic compass became an essential instrument of maritime navigation. The compass determined a ship’s direction. It was not until 1514 that the Portuguese discovered the difference between true north and magnetic north (where the compass needle actually pointed) that compass navigation became more accurate. Other navigational instruments included the astrolabe and quadrant for determining a ship’s position. Cartography (map-making) became of essential importance as mariners probed along unknown coasts of Africa, India, the Indies, and the Americas. As more was learned, nautical charts became more sophisticated and accurate. Especially significant was the mapping of ocean currents and prevailing wind patterns. The ocean winds and currents have prevailing directions such as the clockwise circular pattern in the North Atlantic. These patterns would vary with the seasons and it took a great deal of trial and error before European navigators could chart them with reasonable accuracy.
In the two centuries (1420 and 1620) between Prince Henry’s founding his school at Sagres and the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth, European navigation and maritime technology had so advanced that Europe was well underway to its future domination of the globe. Portugal and Spain would lead the way in the 1490s, even dividing the world between them. But the Iberian domination of international commerce would prove only temporary. England, France, and the Netherlands would themselves become major maritime and colonial powers in the 1600s.
The Portuguese Pioneer the Way
Portugal was the first European country to actively seek a sea route to the Far East. While certainly interested in finding a direct sea route to the East, the Portuguese were also attracted to Africa. Fascinated by the alleged wealth of the great West African kingdoms, they sought a seas route that would circumvent the Muslim monopoly of the gold and slave trade. Beyond this they would hopefully find new markets for Portuguese goods and , of course, spread Christianity. Portuguese voyages of exploration were state-sponsored and initially inspired by Prince Henry “the Navigator” (1394 - 1460) whose school for navigators at Sagres attracted scholars and mariners from all over Europe.
In the late 1400s Portuguese expeditions sailed along the west coasts of Africa establishing slaving stations and trading posts but access to the interior wealth eluded them. In 1488 an expedition led by Bartolomieu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope. The Indian Ocean – and the East – was now accessible by sea and Portugal set its sights and priorities on Asia. Ten years later (1498), a modest expedition of four ships led by Vasco da Gama reached the Malabar Coast of India. Da Gama was the first European to reach India by sea. The initial contact between Europe and India was not comfortable, as Muslim merchants resented the intrusion by the foreign “infidels,” but da Gama was able to play off rival trading interests against each other and secure the valued trade goods that would assure the profitability of the voyage. He returned to Lisbon in triumph. In 1500 a second expedition to India, led by Pedro Cabral, overcame native resistance and established a trade station at Calicut. The Portuguese presence in India, however, was not secure and needed to be strengthened. In 1502 da Gama was sent back to India; this time with a fleet of 21 vessels including warships. Brutally crushing all resistance the Portuguese established themselves as a permanent presence in India.
In the following years the Portuguese established a fortified trade station at Goa from which Alfonso Albuquerque, as Governor-General, extended Portugal’s commercial reach to Hormuz on the Persian Gulf and Malacca in Malaya. In 1512 Portugal occupied the Molluca island group in the East Indies. Thus with these conquests began the expansion of a Portuguese commercial presence and influence in the Eastern Hemisphere. Over the next half century the Portuguese established trading stations along the eastern Africans coasts, on the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf coasts, on the coasts of India, Ceylon, Malaya, and in the islands of southeastern Asia, the East Indies (then identified as the “Spice Islands,” today Indonesia). While the Portuguese did not come as colonists intending to settle the lands they claimed, they did establish a military presence through which to protect and control regional trade. In the cities they controlled those Portuguese essential to the operations of trade and governance did take up permanent residence in fortified compounds. So successful were the Portuguese in Asia that as early as 1502 Portuguese merchants were able to set up a spice exchange in Antwerp in the Netherlands, from which they now replaced Venice as Europe’s spice merchants.
The exception to the rule for the developing Portuguese commercial empire was Brazil. In 1500, Pedro Cabral, commander of the second expedition to India, swung his fleet so wide to avoid storms that he arrived off the Brazilian coast of South America. He claimed the lands for Portugal and continued on to India. Under the conditions of the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas (see below) Brazil lay within the global sphere allotted to Portugal. The Portuguese would not begin active settlement of Brazil until 1532 but would establish plantation settlements along the coasts and into the interior, much as were the Spanish doing elsewhere in South America. Brazil would remain a Portuguese colony until 1822.
In 1505 the Portuguese claimed Mozambique on the eastern coast of Africa. While Portuguese colonists settled along the coasts, Portugal did not establish a colonial government there until 1752. In 1575 Portugal claimed Angola on Africa’s west coast and established a permanent colony at Luanda from which Portuguese slavers would provide slaves for the Brazilian plantations. Both Angola and Mozambique remained under Portuguese control until granted independence in 1975. In 1557 the Portuguese were granted a trade station in Macao in southern China. Portugal would hold Macao until 1999 when it was restored to Chinese sovereignty. In India the Portuguese would hold Goa until 1961 when the city was invaded and annexed by the Indian government.
Spanish Exploration and Conquest in the Americas
As we have seen, Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage marked the beginning of Spanish efforts to seek a sea route to the East. Sailing for the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus’ three-ship “Enterprise of the Indies” “arrived” in what he thought was the Indies on October 12, 1492. Actually, his landfall was on an island he called San Salvador (now Watling Island in the Bahamas). Thinking he had reached islands located off the coasts of China, Columbus then set about exploring the Caribbean region. The indigenous peoples, the Arawaks, treated the Spanish with curious hospitality. Columbus called them “Indians,” but was disappointed in that they did not show signs of being part of the great civilizations described by Marco Polo. In time it was clear to Columbus that he was not yet in Asia, but he was impressed with the beauty of the islands and, as some of the natives were wearing ornaments made with gold, he claimed the region for Spain. Of particular interest was the island he named “Española” (Hispaniola). When, on Christmas Day, the Santa Maria was wrecked on a coral reef on the island’s shore, Columbus ordered that its timbers be used to build a small fort called Navidad. Navidad would become the first European settlement in the New World. Leaving 39 of his crew at Navidad with orders to find the source of native gold, Columbus, aboard the Niña, departed for Spain in early January 1493.[1] He would receive a royal welcome and all the titles and rewards he had been promised. Spain now had claim to lands in “Asia” – or somewhere.
Columbus would make three more expeditions (1493 - 1496, 1498 - 1500, and 1502) to the Caribbean with larger complements of men and ships. He continued to explore in vain hopes that somehow he would reach China. In 1496 he founded a colony called Santo Domingo, which would become the oldest permanent Spanish settlement in the New World. On his third voyage in 1498 he explored along the coasts of the mainland (Venezuela) and became convinced that the land was a new continent heretofore unknown – perhaps the Terrestrial Paradise that for long had been a creative fiction on Medieval maps. As a mariner Columbus proved quite able; as an administrator, he came up short. Accusations of abuse of authority in Santo Domingo led to his dismissal as Governor General and the man sent to replace him sent him home in chains. Stripped of his titles, Columbus appealed to the crown for another chance. Ferdinand and Isabella allowed him a fourth voyage – that of 1502. On this last voyage he explored along the coasts of what is today Central America, thinking them to be stretches of Asia’s Malay Peninsula. By this time, however, another Italian mariner sailing for Portugal, had confirmed that the western land mass was indeed another continent, what he called a “new world.” His name was Amerigo Vespucci. In 1507 a German cartographer published a world map that included the coasts of a new continent labeled “America.” Columbus had died (1506) before this final indignity.[2]
The Portuguese had beaten the Spanish to the East, but, with Columbus, Spain had discovered a New World in the West. Spain would go on to make its claim to the Americas universal by continuing to explore and colonize. By 1600 Spanish America would extend from the regions that are today the southern United States, from Florida to California, all the way south across Mexico, Central America, and South America from Panama to the tip of Cape Horn. That the two Iberian states could do this without resorting to war, was due in part to the intervention of the Pope.
In 1493 Pope Alexander VI, realizing that Spanish and Portuguese discoveries and claims might lead to conflict between them, proclaimed a “Papal Line of Demarcation” that, in effect, divided the globe east-west into two hemispheres. Spain was allocated the lands west of the mid-Atlantic line and Portugal the lands to the east. In 1494 the two countries formalized the division through the Treaty of Tordesillas which adjusted the line slightly but preserved the hemispheric hegemonies. (Thus it was that land in Brazil, later claimed by Portugal, lay east of the line that allocated the rest of the Western Hemisphere to Spain, and, on the other side of the globe, the Philippines could legitimately be claimed by Spain.)
Neither country entered into this agreement in a spirit of Christian brotherhood. Each had its own interests. Portugal wanted to keep Spain out of the Indian Ocean and East Indies. Spain, still enticed by the promise of the riches of direct contact with China (there was gold in the Caribbean Indians’ ornamentation), wanted to keep Portugal out of its way west.
Finding the way west continued to dominate Spanish interest in the New World. While certainly rich in land resources compatible for large-scale farming, the Caribbean islands were not proving to be sources of the great and immediate wealth that could be derived from direct contact with the East. The Spanish quest for a water passage through the western lands continued.
In 1513 an expedition led by Vasco Balboa landed in Panama. Striking inland, Balboa climbed the mountain spine that paralleled the coast, and for the first time, a European saw in the distance another vast ocean stretching to the western horizon. Arriving at its shoreline, Balboa, in full armor and carrying the Castilian flag, waded into the surf and claimed the ocean and all its shores for Spain. He named it El Mar del Sur, the South Sea. Thus, it became clear that Spain now faced the reality of another ocean to be crossed in order to reach Asia.
That ocean would be crossed in 1520. In 1518 Ferdinand Magellan, an unemployed Portuguese mariner, proposed to King Charles I (soon to be also Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) that if given the ships, men, and supplies, he could do for Spain what da Gama did for Portugal in rounding the Cape of Good Hope to reach India. Magellan would sail southward along the coasts of the New World until he reached the cape that would take him westward into the South Sea and then on to Asia. Charles was somewhat skeptical of Magellan’s scheme but was willing to agree to it. As the Spanish crown at the time was suffering financially, Charles was unable to advance a great deal of money for the expedition. However he did provide Magellan with five aging ships with crews of some 280 derelict sailors largely conscripted from waterfront saloons. In September 1519 Magellan’s fleet sailed from Spain.
Magellan’s expedition would, as we all know, travel around the world – the first such circumnavigation of the globe made by human beings to that time. Magellan’s name is celebrated today as one of the greatest explorers in all of history. An unmanned spacecraft called Magellan was landed on the surface of Venus in 1989. Yet Magellan did not actually survive the expedition and, consequently, did not himself go around the world. In fact, the expedition was constantly fraught with hardship, misfortune, and disappointment. And, when its survivors made it back to Spain, it was not Magellan but another mariner who was welcomed and rewarded as a hero.
The story of Magellan’s voyage is much too complex to be detailed here, so what follows is a most abbreviated account. As Magellan probed along the Atlantic coasts of Brazil, he followed two false leads (one up the Rio de Janeiro Bay and the other up the estuary of the Rio de La Plata) thinking them both water routes west and disappointedly learning they were not. While wintering in a bay off the coast of Patagonia (Argentina), one ship was wrecked and another deserted the expedition and returned to Spain. The crew of Magellan’s flagship, the Victoria, attempted mutiny. In October 1520 he reached the strait that now bears his name. It took his ships 38 days to move through the 320 miles of the twisting, rock-strewn, and stormy passage into the South Sea. Following the violence and tension of moving through the strait, the ocean seemed a placid and welcome refuge. Magellan called it “Mar Pacifico” and the name stuck. The three ships moved up the western coast of South America (today Chile) and then struck west across the Pacific. Their first landfall came in March 1521 at the island now called Guam. Ten days later they sailed into a large archipelago (group of islands) inhabited by seemingly friendly natives. Thinking he was in the Spice Islands, Magellan claimed them for Spain. They would later be named the Philippines for Charles’ son and heir Prince Philip.[3] In late April 1521 Magellan unwisely allowed himself to take sides in a quarrel between rival native chiefs and was killed in a battle between the two tribes. His body was never found and was believed to have been torn apart and cast into the sea. [4]
The two remaining ships then attempted to return to Spain. One sailed east intending to reach Panama but was forced by weather to turn back. On its way through the East Indies, it was captured by the Portuguese and its crew was imprisoned. The other, the Victoria, having picked up a cargo of cloves and other spices, sailed across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived in Spain in September 1522. The sale of its cargo yielded such profits that the full costs of the entire expedition were exceeded. Sebastian del Cano, captain of the Victoria, was celebrated as a national hero and knighted as a hereditary nobleman by a grateful King Charles. Ironically, Cano had been leader of the attempted mutiny against Magellan in 1519. Of Magellan’s original complement of 280 men only 35 survived the voyage. Discredited as a failure, Magellan faded from public memory. Voyages from Spain to Asia by crossing the South Atlantic, passing through the Strait of Magellan, and then crossing the vast Pacific, were simply unrealistic. They would take too long, were too dangerous, and too expensive. If Spain were to benefit financially from the discovery of the New World, it would have to find its wealth in the New World. It did. As Magellan’s ships struggled towards Asia, the Spanish were conquering Mexico.
Sources for Europe’s Age of Discovery are at the end of Section 1.6.
[1] On Columbus’ return to Hispaniola later in 1493 he found the fort in ruins and his men killed by the Indians.
[2] His name, of course, continues to live well on the map – Columbia, Columbia River, Columbus, the District of Columbia, Colombia (the country), Colon (a major city in Panama) etc., and as a period of history: Pre-Columbian – the cultural experience of the Western Hemisphere before October 12, 1492.
[3] The Philippines were within the hemispheric bounds recognized as Spanish by the Treaty of Tordesillas and thus could legitimately be claimed by Spain. (Remember, of course, that only Portugal and Spain regarded the world as theirs. The indigenous peoples of Africa, India, the rest of Asia, and the Americas certainly did not share the Iberian concept of “legitimate” claim to their lands. )
[4] History attributes the first European circumnavigation of the globe to Magellan but often overlooks the fact that he never made it beyond the Philippines. The honor of being the first person in recorded history to go around the world goes to Magellan’s servant, a Filipino given the Christian name “Enrique” (Henry). Enrique was a native Filipino who as a youngster had been sold into slavery in Malaya where Magellan had bought him in 1512. Knowledgeable in several Asian island languages, Enrique served his master as both servant and advisor. When in the Philippines with Magellan in 1521 Enrique was able to converse in his native language with other islanders, confirming to Magellan that the expedition had indeed reached the region of the East Indies. Magellan was ecstatic. Spain was now where Columbus had hoped to be - in the Spice Islands; and it had been proved that the world was indeed a globe. Enrique did not continue on with the expedition following Magellan’s death.