The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #224 ｜ Magellan - Part V

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to another episode of Epochs, where I shall be continuing the story,

00:00:18.720 the narrative all about Magellan's terrifying circumnavigation of the globe. If you remember

00:00:23.220 last time we left off, I was just about to tell you the story of the great mutiny at Port St. Julian.

00:00:30.000 Remember that? It was the winter in the Southern Hemisphere, so the summer months for us in the

00:00:35.160 Northern Hemisphere, but it's actually winter down there because they're off to the coast of Argentina,

00:00:40.300 essentially. So the weather's so bad, there's so many storms, terrible, terrible storms, that their

00:00:45.320 tiny little wooden ships just will get battered to pieces eventually. So they have to winter,

00:00:50.540 in inverted commas, in a safe harbour or a safe inlet. And Magellan, the scientists found one,

00:00:58.420 they call it, Port St. Julian. And it's over those winter months that there is a mutiny, or the main

00:01:05.040 big mutiny. And this is one of the set-piece moments in the three-year voyage, one of the really big

00:01:13.640 events. If you have just a 10 or a 15-minute overview of Magellan's voyage, this will get

00:01:19.580 mentioned. Okay, so it's a big thing. If you remember before, earlier in the voyage,

00:01:24.880 there had been a type of aborted mutiny. Shortly after they left, some of the other captains,

00:01:32.760 some of the Castilian, Spanish captains, were unhappy with Magellan, and they started being a

00:01:37.600 bit insubordinate. But it never really turned into a full mutiny, and Magellan sort of quashed it.

00:01:43.380 And yeah, it never became a full thing. But here, it does. So we'll get into that.

00:01:50.100 Um, I'm going to be reading from, uh, Lawrence Burgreen's Over the Edge of the World, once again,

00:01:55.760 because it is one of the very, very best books, and goes into loads of detail. So, um,

00:02:00.160 and it's well written. So I like it. All right, let's pick up the, uh, let's pick up the narrative.

00:02:04.640 He tells us, quote,

00:02:05.380 Anticipating a long, drooling winter in Port St. Julian, Magellan placed his crew on short rations,

00:02:11.700 i.e. giving them less food, which never goes down well. You know, they're living an extremely harsh

00:02:16.900 life, as it is already. And the only thing they've really got to look forward to in any way is, is the

00:02:22.620 crappy food they're given. So to even put them on short rations, to even ration that, that one thing,

00:02:29.220 we're told again and again and again that that's what made, one of the main reasons that made the normal,

00:02:33.520 average sailor, extremely unhappy. Uh, but Magellan wouldn't have done it for no reason. He obviously

00:02:38.800 felt like he needed to. He's not like, he's not that cruel and unusual. He's not deliberately

00:02:43.320 sadistic for no reason. He wouldn't, he wouldn't want to undermine his own authority like that for

00:02:48.300 no reason. So he obviously felt he needed to do it. Nonetheless, it's extremely unpopular. Even

00:02:53.480 though the ships groaned with the butchered meat of geese and, quote, sea wolves, you know,

00:02:58.620 these geese, penguins, almost certainly penguins, we think, and the sea wolves,

00:03:03.200 some type of walrus, it seems. So they had, they had geese and sea wolves and fish. Fish abounded

00:03:11.140 in the harbour. Nonetheless, Magellan puts them on short rations. As I say, he must have felt he

00:03:16.300 needed to do that. But the men aren't happy. We're told, after the unbroken succession of

00:03:21.440 life-threatening ordeals they had faced over the previous seven weeks, the seamen expected to be

00:03:26.520 rewarded for their courage and perseverance. Not punished. See, they saw it as a punishment.

00:03:31.300 Outraged by the rationing, they turned insubordinate. Some insisted that they return

00:03:35.980 to full rations, while others demanded that the fleet, or some part of it, sail back to Spain.

00:03:41.200 So that's quite serious. If people are even murmuring that they should sail back to Spain,

00:03:46.320 well, that's really bad. That can and did or could undermine the whole thing. Wouldn't talk like that.

00:03:52.300 Nobody would talk like that if they were, you know, completely on board within their own minds,

00:03:57.160 within their own soul. If they were on board with the project of getting to the Spice Islands,

00:04:02.620 or at least rounding South America, or finding a strait through South America. It just seems it's

00:04:07.560 sort of undeniable, isn't it? That some men, a fair few of the men, they're not up for this.

00:04:13.700 They're not truly, truly up for it. Which is a worry, isn't it? Green continues saying,

00:04:17.660 they did not believe the strait existed. They had tried again and again to find it, risking death,

00:04:23.000 while coming up against one dead end after another. If they kept going, they argued,

00:04:27.520 they would eventually perish in one of the cataclysmic storms afflicting the region,

00:04:31.880 or simply fall off the edge of the world when the coastline finally ended. Surely King Charles did

00:04:36.360 not mean for them all to die in the attempt to find a water route to the Spice Islands. Surely human

00:04:42.020 life had some value. Magellan obstinately reminded them that they must obey their royal commission,

00:04:47.120 and follow the coastline wherever it led. The king had ordered this voyage, and Magellan would

00:04:51.980 persist until he reached land's end, or find the strait. How astounded he was to see bold Spaniards 1.00

00:04:57.740 so faint-hearted, or so he said. As far as their provisions were concerned, they had plenty of wood

00:05:03.340 here in Port St. Julian, abundant fish, fresh water and fowl. Their ships still had adequate stores of

00:05:09.240 biscuit and wine, if they observed rationing. Consider the Portuguese navigators, he exulted them,

00:05:14.480 who had passed 12 degrees beyond the Tropic of Capricorn without any difficulty, and here they

00:05:20.100 were, two full degrees above it. What kind of sailors were they? Magellan insisted he would

00:05:25.080 rather die than return to Spain in shame, and he urged them to wait patiently until winter was over.

00:05:30.920 Yeah, Magellan couldn't really return without having done a lot more than what he's done so far.

00:05:36.980 The idea that he would get, you know, a bit of the way down the Argentinian coastline,

00:05:41.560 and then turn back, it's sort of not good enough. He would certainly be in trouble if he did that.

00:05:46.860 There would be some sort of investigation or inquiry, some sort of commission to find out,

00:05:51.880 and everyone questioned, to find out exactly what was done. And if during that investigation it was

00:05:56.080 found that Magellan had got this far, and then there was a few murmurings from the men,

00:06:00.540 so he just turned around and left, that wouldn't be good enough. He'd be failing in his orders if he did

00:06:05.960 that. So for Magellan, there's just no question. And as we go further in the story, we'll see that

00:06:10.520 Magellan's will to carry on is, you know, basically cast iron. In much, much more hazardous, much,

00:06:18.100 much more perilous straits than this, he still refuses to turn around and go back. So the idea

00:06:24.460 that he might turn around and go back at this stage, no, no, no, no, that would be humiliating and

00:06:29.280 perhaps even dangerous for him. You know, goes back to Spain, he might get tortured for that,

00:06:32.860 or even perhaps executed. Certainly his entire reputation would be ruined. Certainly he would

00:06:38.740 never get to be the captain of an armada or a ship ever again, you would think. So it's a no

00:06:44.900 from Magellan. The more they suffered, the greater reward they might expect from King Childs,

00:06:50.300 Magellan argued. They should not question the king, he advised, but discover a world not yet known,

00:06:55.800 filled with gold and spices to enrich them all. This eloquent speech to the vacillating crew members

00:07:01.460 brought Magellan a few days' respite, but only a few. His stern words had confirmed their worst fears

00:07:07.180 about his behaviour and his do-or-die fanaticism. See, some see it as not just following your orders,

00:07:13.160 but you're being fanatical about it. That's what a lot of the guys on the voyage that survived said

00:07:18.320 of him, that he was a fanatic. You can make up your own mind on that once you've heard the whole

00:07:24.000 story, but I don't think you... Certainly at this stage, this decision-making tree at this point,

00:07:28.960 it's not fanatical. It's just having the courage of your convictions. It's just, you know, not giving

00:07:34.520 up needlessly. It would be sort of giving up almost needlessly if they did turn around at this stage.

00:07:40.400 Okay. Bergerine says, on the most basic level, they believed he considered their lives expendable.

00:07:45.400 In the following days, the men began to bicker. National prejudices suddenly flashed like well-oiled

00:07:50.720 swords drawn from scabbards to cut and slash, usually at Magellan himself. Once again, the Castilians 1.00

00:07:57.620 argued that Magellan's insistence that he intended to find the straight or die was proof that he

00:08:03.660 intended to subvert the entire expedition and get them all killed in the process. All this talk of

00:08:08.960 glorifying King Charles, they felt, was merely a stratagem to trick them into going along with

00:08:14.000 Magellan's suicidal scheme. Anyone doubting Magellan's intention to subvert the expedition had only to

00:08:19.760 examine the course they had been following. Southward, ever southward, into the eternal cold,

00:08:24.880 whereas the Spice Islands and the Indies lay to the west. It was warm and sunny and where luxury

00:08:29.920 surely abounded. In the midst of this turmoil, the officers and crew observed the holiest day of

00:08:34.940 the year, Easter Sunday, April the 1st. Yeah, one thing to mention, if people might not know,

00:08:39.800 in the medieval world, the late antiquity, Easter is much more important, much more religious than

00:08:45.420 Christmas. You know, in our day and age, or certainly in England, where I was raised,

00:08:49.720 Christmas is much more important. If anyone who doesn't particularly go to church, if you're ever

00:08:54.520 likely to go to church, you'll be much more likely for a Christmas mass than Easter. But, you know,

00:09:01.080 for those that are religious will already know this. Those people will know that Easter is much more

00:09:06.920 important. Obviously, the resurrection of Christ rather than his birth. And this was certainly the 0.84

00:09:11.500 case in the 17th century. If you're Castilian or Portuguese or European at all, Easter is the big one.

00:09:18.700 Easter, not Christmas. At this moment, Magellan had one paramount concern. Who was loyal to him

00:09:24.160 and who was not? With a sufficient number of loyal crew members, he would be able to withstand this

00:09:28.880 latest and most serious challenge to his authority. Without them, he might be imprisoned, impaled on a

00:09:34.780 halbard, or even hanged from a yard arm by hell-bent mutineers. To assess the extent of danger he faced,

00:09:41.300 he carefully interviewed each member of the crew. With sweet words and big promises, Jean de Maffra recalled,

00:09:47.440 Magellan told them the other captains were plotting against him and he asked them to advise him what

00:09:52.360 to do. So he's got his one, he's got his ship, the Trinidad. There's four other ships. Some seems like

00:09:58.480 they might be loyal to him, some seem like they might not. So Magellan's making sure that all the

00:10:03.020 men aboard his ship, the flagship Trinidad, are completely loyal first and foremost, right? Because

00:10:08.200 if he hasn't got their backing, then it's probably all over already. So where these sweet words and big

00:10:14.720 promises, that was to his own crew, a bull Trinidad, right? And he's telling them that he's got, 0.97

00:10:19.720 he's heard that some of the other ships, a captain by Spaniards or Castilians anyway, that they might

00:10:24.580 not be loyal and have they got his back. They replied that their only advice was that they were

00:10:29.760 willing to do as he commanded. Magellan openly told the crew that the conspirators had resolved to kill

00:10:36.140 him on Easter day while he attended mass ashore, but that he would feign ignorance and go to mass all

00:10:41.700 the same. This he did and secretly armed, went to a small sandy islet where a small house had been

00:10:47.940 built to accommodate the ceremony. So quite brave of Magellan to sort of do that, sort of deliberately

00:10:53.060 put himself in danger, effectively. Bergreen now. Magellan expected to see all four captains at Easter

00:10:59.420 mass, but only one, Louis de Mendoza of Victoria, arrived. The air crackled with tension. Both conversed,

00:11:06.380 Demafra says, concealing their emotions under blank countenances, and attended mass together.

00:11:12.320 At the end of the ceremony, Magellan pointedly asked Mendoza why the other captains had defied

00:11:16.960 his orders and failed to attend. Mendoza replied, lamely, that perhaps the others were ill. Still

00:11:22.900 feigning bon ami, you know, that he's happy. Magellan invited Mendoza to dine at the Captain General's

00:11:29.240 table, a gesture that would force him to proclaim his loyalty to Magellan. But Mendoza coolly declined the

00:11:35.120 request. Magellan appeared unfazed by Mendoza's insubordination, but the Captain General now knew

00:11:40.640 that Mendoza was a conspirator. Mendoza returned to Victoria, where he and the other captains

00:11:45.900 resumed plotting against Magellan, sending messages by longboat from one ship to another. So, you know,

00:11:51.660 straight away, this is quite serious, this mutiny. You know, it doesn't sort of, seems like anyway,

00:11:56.060 from the accounts we've got, a few accounts, it didn't sort of build up slowly, although you can

00:12:00.640 imagine that the reality of it sort of did over weeks. By the time they're at St. Julian and the

00:12:06.080 rations are cut, it seems like it's in full swing sort of right away. Again, the real, real reality is

00:12:11.940 that these things would ramp up over many days or weeks. But by this stage, it's sort of, it's in

00:12:17.880 full swing, basically, isn't it? After mass, only Magellan's cousin, Alvaro de Masquita, the recently

00:12:24.060 appointed captain of San Antonio, came aboard Trinidad to dine at the Captain General's table.

00:12:29.160 Magellan realised that the empty chairs made for an ominous sign. At the moment, Magellan capitalised

00:12:34.900 on a piece of luck. The longboat belonging to Concepcion's captain, Gaspar de Cuesada,

00:12:40.860 lost its way in the strong current while ferrying conspiratorial messages between the rebel ships and,

00:12:46.660 to the dismay of the men aboard, found itself drifting helplessly towards the flagship and Magellan

00:12:51.660 himself, the one individual they did not want to encounter at that moment. To their surprise,

00:12:56.180 the crew of Trinidad, at Magellan's direction, rescued them from the runaway longboat. Even

00:13:01.580 more amazing, Magellan welcomed them aboard the flagship and provided them with a lavish

00:13:05.840 meal, which included plenty of wine. At dinner, the band of would-be mutineers drank a great 1.00

00:13:11.480 deal and decided that they had nothing to fear from the Captain General after all. They even

00:13:15.800 revealed the existence of the plot to Magellan. They confided that if the plot succeeded, he

00:13:20.220 would be captured and killed that very night. That's an odd thing, isn't it, that these

00:13:24.260 men decided to do that. Perhaps their heart wasn't particularly in the mutiny either. People

00:13:31.220 have poured over this mutiny, exactly what was going on. A lot of the men's hearts obviously

00:13:37.040 weren't in the mission to begin with, otherwise there wouldn't have been any sort of mutiny.

00:13:41.460 But then it seems like the mutineers, a lot of them, their heart wasn't in that either. 0.97

00:13:46.100 Because if you're going to do something like this, it's got to be all or nothing. It's got

00:13:49.820 to be a hundred percent if you're going to pull off a successful mutiny. So it seems

00:13:54.600 like at least that one rescued longboat of sailors from Concepcion, it seems like they

00:14:00.900 weren't necessarily a hundred percent on board with the mutiny. It is odd to see what's going

00:14:05.640 on, the way this mutiny plays out and it ebbs and flows.

00:14:10.060 Hearing this, Magellan lost all interest in his visitors and busied himself readying the

00:14:15.980 flagship against attack. Once again, he questioned his crew to see who was loyal to him and who was

00:14:21.080 not, and satisfied that Trinidad's men would take his side when the mutiny inevitably erupted,

00:14:26.580 awaited the inevitable assault. So he's waiting to be attacked by his own men. It's very serious

00:14:32.760 very quickly, it's seen, isn't it? That's the impression we get, whether that was how it really,

00:14:37.440 really played out in reality. We don't know. Pigafetta, the main chronicler, says very little

00:14:43.580 about all of this because he's an extremely pro-Magellan man, extremely, a hundred percent

00:14:49.200 loyalist to Magellan. And this whole episode doesn't make Magellan look good. One, that there

00:14:54.760 would be a mutiny in the first place. That speaks volumes about your leadership. If you were a good,

00:14:59.960 solid, strong, loved, adored leader, there would never, ever be a mutiny. Then, as you'll find out,

00:15:06.660 the way Magellan ultimately deals with it all also doesn't make Magellan put him in the best

00:15:13.640 possible light, shall we say. So Pigafetta decides to say very, very, very little about it all. So we

00:15:20.600 have to get the details from some of the other sources, a few of the other men that survived,

00:15:25.060 and what they said about it. Berggren continues,

00:15:27.140 Late that night, Conception stirred with wrath. The captain, Cuesada, lowered himself into a long

00:15:32.740 boat and quietly made his way to San Antonio. He was joined there in the dark water lapping at the

00:15:37.560 ship's hole by Juan de Cartagena, former captain, bishop's unacknowledged son and frustrated mutineer.

00:15:44.420 Juan Sebastian Elcano, a veteran Basque mariner who served as Conception's master and a corps of 30

00:15:50.340 armed seamen. So just to say, during this episode, there'll be a fair few names. I introduced you to

00:15:56.680 a few of them in, I think, episode one or two. So I hope you can sort of keep in mind who's who.

00:16:03.040 Usually we're reminded if someone's a captain or something. One person there, or two people,

00:16:07.660 actually, that we must mention, there's a Carter Jenner, Juan de Cartagena. He was the one that sort 0.99

00:16:13.460 of thought that his authority was sort of above Magellan's in some way, that he was the Cassa's

00:16:20.980 man on the voyage and thus his authority was in some senses above Magellan's. So, and he's already

00:16:29.240 been demoted. So he's extremely unhappy. And the other one to mention is Elcano, Juan Sebastian Elcano.

00:16:36.100 So just to cut to the end, I think you already know this. He is the one, one of the main men that

00:16:41.620 survives. When that one ship turns up back in Seville three years later, with only about 18

00:16:47.420 men aboard, he's the most senior person. He's basically the captain. It's Elcano. You know,

00:16:52.260 some people call it the Magellan Elcano expedition. So he's an important character who will crop up in

00:16:58.500 the story from time to time. Anyway, at this stage, he's part of the mutiny. Okay, the story goes on.

00:17:03.640 Under cover of darkness, they boarded San Antonio and rushed to the captain's cabin,

00:17:08.120 entering with a flourish of steel, rousting the hapless Mosquita out of his bunk, who's loyal to 1.00

00:17:14.100 Magellan. This had once been Cartagena's ship, and in his mind, it still was. Mosquita offered little

00:17:20.200 resistance as the party of mutineers clapped him into irons and led him to the cabin of Geronimo 0.61

00:17:25.840 Guerrera, where he was placed under guard. By this time, word of the uprising had spread throughout the

00:17:31.020 ship and the crew sprang to life. Juan de Eloriega, the ship's master and a Basque, valiantly tried to

00:17:37.340 dismiss Casada from San Antonio before any blood was shed, but Casada refused to stand down,

00:17:43.440 whereupon Eloriega returned to his bosun, Diego Hernandez, to order the crew to constrain Casada

00:17:49.640 and quash the mutiny. We cannot be foiled in our work by this fall, Casada shouted, knowing that

00:17:55.340 there could be no turning back, and he ran Eloriega through with a dagger again and again, four times in

00:18:00.880 all, until Eloriega, bleeding profusely, collapsed. Casada assumed Eloriega was dead,

00:18:06.740 but the loyal master was still alive, though perhaps he would have been better off if he

00:18:10.740 had died on the spot. Instead, he lingered for three and a half months until he finally died from the

00:18:16.320 wounds he received that night at Casada's hands. As the two struggled, Casada's guard took Hernandez

00:18:21.300 hostage, and suddenly the ship was without officers. The bewildered crew, without anyone to give them

00:18:26.620 orders and fearing for their lives, gave up their arms to the mutineers. Remember, these mutineers have 1.00

00:18:31.520 got 30 armed men with them, so a ship not prepared for something like that. Yeah, they're outgunned.

00:18:36.980 One of their number, Antonio de Cocca, the fleet's accountant, actually joined the insurgents,

00:18:42.500 who stored the confiscated weapons in his cabin. The first phase of the mutiny had gone off as planned.

00:18:48.280 Pigafetta, normally a thorough chronicler of the voyage, offers little guidance to the mutiny.

00:18:52.860 In this case, he was close, too close, to Magellan to be helpful. As a Magellan loyalist, he resisted

00:18:58.980 the temptation to hear or repeat any ill concerning his beloved captain. He eloquently presented the

00:19:04.880 Magellanic myth of the Great and Wise Explorer, but at the same time, he turned a blind eye to the

00:19:10.440 scandals and mutinies surrounding Magellan throughout the voyage. In his one cursory mention of the drama

00:19:15.380 at Port St. Julian, Pigafetta even confuses the names of the principal actors, the chronicler who

00:19:20.920 could be extremely precise when he wished. He likely got around to mentioning the mutiny only after the

00:19:25.460 voyage, when he felt safe enough to discuss the bloody deeds happening all around him.

00:19:29.920 The mutineers, in control of San Antonio, swiftly converted her into a battleship. Elcano, the Basque 0.93

00:19:35.920 mariner, took command and immediately ordered the imprisonment of two Portuguese who appeared loyal to

00:19:41.080 Magellan, Antonio Fernandez and Goncalo Rodriguez, as well as a Castilian, Diego Diaz. Casada's servant

00:19:48.740 raided the ship's doors, filling their hungry bellies with bread and wine. Remember, they'd been on short

00:19:53.620 rations, so they're quite literally hungry. Anything that they could lay their hands on, and they

00:19:57.840 endeared themselves to their followers by allowing them to partake of the forbidden food. Father

00:20:02.620 Valderrama, preoccupied with administering last riots to El Oriega, watched all and vowed to report the

00:20:08.900 evil deeds to Magellan if he ever got the chance. Meanwhile, Elcano ordered firearms to be prepared,

00:20:14.840 the aquabuses and crossbows, powerful state-of-the-art weapons, were broken out. Anyone attempting to

00:20:20.680 approach the renegade ship would face a barrage of lethal arrows and muzzles belching fire. Within 0.98

00:20:26.280 hours, the mutiny spread like a contagion to two other ships. Victoria, whose captain, Luis de Mendoza,

00:20:32.600 had resented Magellan from the day they left San Luca de Barrameda, i.e. Spain, i.e. from the beginning.

00:20:38.460 They'd hated Magellan from the beginning. And the Concepción. It was only a matter of time until

00:20:42.600 Cartagena, Quesada, and the supporters came after Magellan himself. Only Santiago, under the command

00:20:48.900 of Juan Serrano, a Castilian, remained neutral. Quesada, for the moment, decided to leave Santiago

00:20:55.160 alone. It was a decision that would later haunt the mutineers. So already, within a few hours, 0.88

00:21:01.380 it seems, that the entire armada is completely split, or if anything, slightly more of them have

00:21:07.800 joined this mutiny, whether against their will or not. Like, three of the five ships are against

00:21:13.360 Magellan, and one is, we're told, neutral. So not even completely on Magellan's side. And the

00:21:20.100 mutineers are arming themselves. They are getting ready to attack Trinidad, take it by force, by main 1.00

00:21:26.580 force, and, you know, kill Magellan if they can. It's, yeah, it's full, full bore, Bergring continues. 0.98

00:21:33.180 The sun rose over Port St. Julian on the 2nd of April to reveal a scene of deceptive calm. The

00:21:39.380 five ships of the Armada de Moluca rode quietly at anchor, their crew members sleeping off the

00:21:44.620 previous night's excesses. So we've had a whole bunch of wine. For the moment, the Captain General

00:21:49.440 remained secure in his stronghold, Trinidad. As a test of loyalty, he dispatched a longboat to San

00:21:55.040 Antonio, where Quesada and Elcano held sway, to bring soldiers ashore to fetch fresh water. As

00:22:01.560 Trinidad's longboat approached, the mutineers waved the sailors away and declared that San

00:22:06.040 Antonio was no longer under the command of Mosquita or Magellan. She now belonged to the

00:22:10.900 mutineer, Gaspar Quesada. When the longboat brought this disturbing news back to Magellan,

00:22:16.160 he realized he faced a grave problem. But he remained oblivious to the full extent of the

00:22:20.180 mutiny. He believed he had to contend with only one rebellious ship, not three, until he sent the

00:22:25.760 longboat to pole the other ships and determine their loyalty. From his stronghold aboard San Antonio,

00:22:30.980 Quesada replied, for the king and for myself. And Victoria and Concepcion followed suit.

00:22:36.960 So a mutiny can't get much more serious than this. It really is life and death for both parties,

00:22:43.220 both factions. To make his point, Quesada audaciously sent a list of demands by longboat

00:22:48.180 to the flagship. Quesada believed, with good reason, that he had Magellan boxed in and he tried

00:22:53.500 to force the Captain General to yield to the mutineers. In writing, Quesada declared that he was now in

00:22:58.900 charge of the fleet, and he intended to end the harsh treatment Magellan had inflicted on the officers

00:23:04.200 and crew. He would feed them better, he would not endanger their lives needlessly, and he would

00:23:09.040 return to Spain. If Magellan acceded to these demands, said Quesada, the mutineers would yield 0.80

00:23:14.260 control of the armada to him. To Magellan, these demands were outrageous. To comply meant ignominy in

00:23:20.340 Spain, disgrace in Portugal, years in a prison cell, and even death. Under these circumstances,

00:23:25.900 he might have been expected to launch a full-scale attack on San Antonio, but for once, Magellan

00:23:30.940 restrained his need to assert his authority, because everything's so in the balance. You know,

00:23:36.200 usually Magellan's the type that would sort of go berserk at that and just start firing cannons

00:23:40.900 and stuff, but he realises that he's in a, he is a bit boxed, he is boxed in, right? It's three ships

00:23:46.520 against one. They've got more men, and even though Trinidad is the biggest ship, most powerful, still,

00:23:51.280 three against one, he would probably lose if it came to an all-out, you know, naval engagement,

00:23:57.100 essentially. He would probably lose, so he can't do that, or he feels he can't do that. He sent back

00:24:02.360 word that he would be pleased to hear them out, aboard the flagship, of course. The mutineers were 0.99

00:24:07.040 hesitant to leave their base. Who knew what awaited them aboard Trinidad? They replied that they would

00:24:11.980 meet him only aboard San Antonio. To their astonishment, Magellan agreed. Having lulled Quesada and his

00:24:17.940 followers into a sense of full security, Magellan quietly went on the offensive. By any objective

00:24:23.300 measure, he operated at an enormous disadvantage. The mutineers controlled three out of the fleet's 0.95

00:24:28.820 five ships and most of the captains and the crews. They had popular sentiment on their side and weapons

00:24:34.060 to back up their demands. In his diminished position, Magellan did not attempt to meet force

00:24:38.740 with force. Instead, he sought to dismantle their revolt piece by piece without placing himself in

00:24:43.920 more peril than he already was. He began his attempt to recover his fleet by claiming the

00:24:48.560 longboat carrying Quesada's communique. With this equipment in hand, he turned his attention to

00:24:53.760 recapturing at least one ship and then he would go after the others. He decided not to attempt to

00:24:59.080 reclaim San Antonio, where the mutineers were deeply entrenched, but Victoria, where support for

00:25:04.500 the rebels might be softer and where he would be most likely to summon support. Victoria became the

00:25:09.620 key to the whole plan. And to get her back, he resorted to a ruse. He filled the captured longboat

00:25:14.900 with five carefully selected sailors and instructed them to appear sympathetic to the mutineers,

00:25:20.480 at least at a distance. But beneath their loose clothing, they carried weapons, which they intended

00:25:25.300 to use. Their ranks included Gonzalo Gomez de Espinoza, the captain at arms. So, you know, a badass,

00:25:32.400 a man whose whole job it was to be like a policeman or a marine, right, an actual soldier. His job is to

00:25:40.180 be an enforcer or a killer, even. So, Espinoza was with them, the master at arms, which automatically

00:25:45.540 lent authority to their mission. Magellan gave the men a letter addressed to Louis de Mendoza,

00:25:51.100 Victoria's captain, ordering him to surrender immediately aboard the flagship. If Mendoza resisted,

00:25:56.480 they were to kill him. As soon as the longboat moved out of sight to begin its mission,

00:26:00.180 the captain general sent a second skiff into the water, filled with fifteen loyal members of the

00:26:05.080 flagship's crew, under the command of Durante Barbosa, Magellan's brother-in-law. So, a total

00:26:11.040 loyalist. When the first longboat pulled up to Victoria, Mendoza allowed the party to board his

00:26:16.040 ship. De Maffra, the best eyewitness to the unfolding mutiny, relates. Mendoza, a daring man when

00:26:21.480 it came to the evil deeds, but too rash to take advice, told them to come aboard and give him the

00:26:26.720 letter, which he set about reading in a careless manner, and not as befits a man involved in such

00:26:32.380 a serious business. According to other witnesses, Mendoza responded to the letter with mockery and

00:26:37.840 laughter, crumpled the orders into a ball, and carelessly tossed it overboard. At that, Espinoza,

00:26:43.560 the military officer, grabbed Mendoza by the beard, violently shook his head, and plunged a dagger into

00:26:49.140 his throat, as another soldier stabbed him in the head. Spurting blood, Victoria's captain slumped to

00:26:54.580 the deck, lifeless. So they just, they just murdered him right there and then. With Mendoza dead, Magellan

00:26:59.800 held the advantage in the life and death contest. No sooner had the captain breathed his last, than the

00:27:05.340 second longboat rode into position beside Victoria, discharging its complement of loyalists, who stormed the

00:27:11.340 ship. Still, only fifteen men, but, you know, the element of surprise. And perhaps the crew were, you know,

00:27:17.140 their hearts might not have been in the mutiny in the first place. So, there you have it. As Magellan

00:27:21.760 had calculated, his guard met with little or no opposition. Stunned by the death of their captain,

00:27:27.480 the crew meekly submitted to Magellan's men. As if the sight of the dead officer was not insult

00:27:31.780 enough to the other Castilians, Magellan later paid off Espinoza and his henchmen for this bloody deed,

00:27:38.160 in plain view of everyone. For this action, the captain general gave twelve ducats to Espinoza,

00:27:42.880 were called Sebastian Elcano, one of the mutineers. And to the other six, ducats each for Mendoza's

00:27:48.540 and Corsada's savings. Was this the price of their lives? The Castilians asked themselves,

00:27:53.540 a few ducats. If you enjoyed that preview, please consider heading over to lotusseaters.com

00:27:59.380 to watch the full Unabridged video.

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 17, 2025

PREVIEW： Epochs #224 ｜ Magellan - Part V

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