PREVIEW： Epochs #227 ｜ Magellan： Part VIII
Episode Stats
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Summary
The story of Magellan's first circumnavigation of the globe, the story of how he and his crew managed to get across the Atlantic Ocean and reach land, and how they managed to survive the hardships of the voyage.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome back to Epochs where I shall be continuing the story of Magellan's
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terrific, fantastic, terrible voyage around the world, the first circumnavigation of the
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globe. As you might have noticed, I'm in Studio One today because of some timing and scheduling
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issues which I shan't bore you with, but we're in the first studio today with the Epochs specific
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video wall. But anyway, enough of that, let's just continue with the story. If you remember last time
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Magellan had lost his second ship out of the Armada of Five, it's not a great Armada is it,
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five ships, it's not really, usually when you hear the word Armada you think dozens or hundreds even,
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but anyway, it was five ships and one had been wrecked hadn't it, and then he'd lost the second
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one or say lost, it had been sort of mutinied and then just sailed home back to Spain. So he's down
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to three ships and that was the last sort of thing, the last big event that just happened in the story
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that I'm telling here. So there's still the three remaining ones are still in the strait, what comes
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to be called the Strait of Magellan, that sort of maze of waterways and fjords that cut through the
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bottom of South America and the cut through the land of Tierra del Fuego. So they're still
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in the middle of that really. So I'll let Lawrence Burgreen pick up the story, a great book, one of
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the best books there is on Magellan, although there are many, there are loads in fact. This story has
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been picked through over the centuries again and again and again. People have found it fascinating
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ever since it happened, as do I and I hope you do. Okay, so after that second ship just sailed back
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to Spain, the San Antonio, it does seem that that did sort of knock Magellan's confidence a little bit.
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I mean, how could it not that they were prepared, or at least some men on board that ship were prepared
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to do such a drastic action? Because it is quite drastic, isn't it? Just to sail away, just to mutiny and
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just simply sail away. It would be difficult not to knock his confidence. It speaks volumes that they,
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they must have hated you, they must have hated your leadership, really hated it, you know, at risk of
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being tortured or executed if and when they got back home and were found to have done something
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wrong. That's how much they hated you. So okay, Burgreen says this, quote, once Magellan became
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resigned to the loss of the ship, the three remaining vessels of the Armada de Maluca pressed on.
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After the hardships they had endured at bleak Port St. Julian, the crew came to welcome the variety
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and natural majesty the strait afforded them. As they plied its fields, they marvelled at the dolphins
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that swam beside their ships and jumped in agile arcs. Sailor's law had it that when dolphins jumped
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straight ahead, good weather was approaching, and when they jumped to one side or the other, the weather
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would be foul. The marvellous but hazardous strait still lacked a name. At first, the men called it simply
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the strait. Pigafetta took to referring to the waterway as the Patagonian strait, while San Martin,
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the astrologer pilot, preferred the name strait of all saints. Still others referred to it as
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Victoria strait after the first ship to enter its waters. By 1527, six years after the expedition's
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conclusion, the waterway had earned the name by which it is now known, the strait of Magellan. For all
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his pride, Magellan never dared to name the strait after himself. The names he did confer during his
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journey were either descriptive, Patagonia, or religiously inspired, Cape of the Eleven
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Thousand Virgins. As one mountainous prospect gave way to another, Pigafetta wrote glowingly
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of the strait's natural splendour and sustaining food. And these are Pigafetta's words. He said,
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One finds the safest of ports every half league in it. Water, the finest of wood, but not of cedar,
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fish, sardines, and mizigiloni, which is a sweet herb. We ate of it for many days, as we had nothing
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else, Bergrin continues, although the men did not realise it. Their diets replenished their depleted
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bodies. The wild herbs they consumed contained vitamin C, which protected them against the
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depredations of scurvy, at least for a while. All things considered, Pigafetta judged, quote,
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I believe there is not a more beautiful or better strait than this one, end quote. So they sail on,
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and they get a little bit of that precious vitamin C. And this will become vitally important,
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as we shall see in a bit, heading out into the Pacific for weeks or months on end,
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with basically no vitamin C. You can get scurvy, did get scurvy, and eventually scurvy will kill
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you, quite horribly, really. Okay, so a few words then about Magellan's, how it knocked his confidence
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when the San Antonio ran away back to Spain. We've actually got very few writings, very,
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very few, of Magellan himself. We've got Pigafetta, and we've got one or two other
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survivors that wrote accounts. But words directly from Magellan, very, very few sort of written orders
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that have survived. But one we do have here, in fact, it's the longest thing we've got that's
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actually written by Magellan in Magellan's hand. And it was written about this time, when they were
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still in the sort of the western half of the Strait of Magellan. And he sends a letter to the other
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captains of the remaining ships. And it's very un-Magellan-like. It's sort of a little bit out
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of character. It's one of the few times, the few moments, when he sort of seems to be not exactly
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asking for forgiveness. It's not really that. But he's sort of bending his will a tiny bit.
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Well, I'll read it to you. I'll read it to you. So he sent letters to the other two ships. And the
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one that he sent to Durant Barbosa, who's the captain of the Victoria, that's the one that actually
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literally physically survives. And he wrote this, quote,
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I, Ferdinand Magellan, knight of the order of Santiago and captain general of the Armada,
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which his majesty sends to the discovery of the islands of Spice, etc. Hereby inform you,
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Durant Barbosa, captain of Victoria, and its pilots and boatswains, that I am aware of your deeming it
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a very grievous thing that I shall be determined to continue onwards, because you think that time is
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short to accomplish our journey. And since I am a man who never despised the advice and opinions of
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others, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, right. On the contrary, all my decisions are taken jointly with
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everyone and notified to one and all, without my offending anyone. And because of what happened
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in St. Julian, with the deaths of Luis de Mendoza and Caspar de Quesada, and the banishment of Luis de
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Cartagena, and Pero Sanchez de la Reina, priest, you, out of fear, refrain from telling me and
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advising me on everything you believe to be useful to his majesty and the Armada's well-being. But if
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you do not tell me so, you are going against the advice of the Emperor King, our Lord, and against
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the oath and homage you took with me. Therefore, I ask you on behalf of the said Lord, and I myself
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beg you and order you to write down your opinions, each one individually, stating the reasons why we
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should continue onwards, or else turn back, and all this showing no respect for anything that may
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prevent you from telling the truth. Being aware of these reasons and opinions, I will then say mine
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and my willingness to conclude what should be done. Written in the Canal de Todos Los Santos,
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opposite Rio de la Isleta, on the 21st of November, Thursday, at 53 degrees of the year 1520,
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ordered by Captain General Ferdinand Magellan, end quote. So, there you go, he's saying,
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let me know your thoughts. I was never someone who ruled in an authoritarian manner. I always
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listened to what people around me said. We know that's not true. Maybe he's very, very deliberately
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wanting to get it down on paper as some sort of proof, if they finally get back. Something physical
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proof, evidence, saying, no, look, I definitely didn't act in some sort of overbearing, tyrannical
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way. Look, here's evidence. I sent, well, Captain's letters saying, you've got to let me, not only do I
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want to know your opinions, but you've got to tell me your opinions. It would be wrong of you not to
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give me your opinions. The King and God would be displeased if you didn't. I insist you do,
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and I will listen to them with all fairness. But you can tell this is a reaction, we know,
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this is a reaction to the loss of San Antonio now. So, you know, everyone that, well, nearly
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everyone that has looked back at this sees this as some sort of attempt to cover his tracks a tiny
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bit. Because we know that going forward, we also know from Pigafetta and other accounts that after
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this stage, Magellan still continues to rule with an iron fist. It's still completely his way on the
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highway, on everything. So that, the reality of that hasn't and doesn't change. So this letter does
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seem to be, you know, just an exercise in, not exactly fabricating evidence, but, you know,
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having something that you can point to later to suggest, to make the argument that, you know,
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I wasn't all that bad. I did ask for other people's opinions. Okay. So that's what it is. But we've also
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got a response, at least from one of the officers, Andreas de Saint-Martin, the fleet's astronomer.
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We've actually got his response to it. And I can read you that. It's kind of long. It's not all
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that long, but, you know, it's a couple of hundred words or so. But I'll read that so you can, I like
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the original texts, right? Going back to the actual original sources. You can't beat that. And it's
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interesting. So it is kind of revealing as well. So first of all, Berggren says this, quote,
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This remarkable document, i.e. Magellan's, Magellan's letter I just read out. This remarkable document,
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Magellan's longest statement to have survived, reveals the suspicion and mistrust running
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rampant at what should have been one of their most harmonious and triumphant intervals.
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The normally resolute Magellan sounds as though he is about to apologise for the protracted trial
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and cruel executions he ordered in Port St. Julian, and he clearly realises that as a result of his
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severe, though legally sanctioned, disciplinary measures, he has alienated his officers, even
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those closest to him. Afraid of losing still more of his ships to mutiny, Magellan's isolation at this
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moment was nearly complete. Thrust into an unaccustomed position of authority,
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Andreas de Saint-Martin, the fleet's astronomer, urged that they continue the expedition
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at least through mid-January. And remember, they're in the southern hemisphere. So that's
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summer. December and January is a sort of higher summer.
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Although he remained sceptical that the strait, this is Saint-Martin, remained sceptical that the
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strait would ultimately prove to be the miraculous passage to the Spice Islands. After January, he
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warned, the days would grow short and the waterways, whose destructive power they had already experienced,
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would become even more ferocious. Furthermore, they must not sail by night because the men would
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be exhausted after a long, you know, like 17-hour day sometimes, after a long strenuous day battling
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high winds and rough waters. So the fleet's astronomer, Andreas de Saint-Martin, wrote this
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in response to Magellan's letter, asking for his opinion on everything. He wrote, quote,
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Most magnificent lord, having seen your lordship's command, of which I was notified of February 22nd
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of November in the year 1520, by Martin Mendes, clerk of the ship of his majesty named Victoria,
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of which orders gave to me my view as regards to what I believe to be better for this journey,
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either to continue or turn back, with the reasons behind either choice. I say, that aside from
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doubting that neither through his canal de todos los santos, in which we now are, nor through the
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other two straits laying to the east and east-northeast, there might be found any passage to the Moluccas,
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this is irrelevant to the question of what could eventually be found. Weather permitting, insofar as
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we are in the prime of summer, and it seems that your lordship must continue ahead in search of it,
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i.e., you know, actually getting to the Pacific. And depending on what shall be found or discovered
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until the middle of this coming January of 1520, you may consider the possibility of returning to
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Spain, because from then on, the days suddenly dwindle and the weather shall worsen. And since now,
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even though the days last 17 hours added to the dawn and dusk, we still suffer stormy and shifting
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weather, much more so than can be expected when the days decrease from 15 to 12 hours, and much more
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in winter, as we already know. So your lordship may want to leave these straits and spend the month of
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January in reaching the outside, i.e. the Pacific, and then, after collecting enough fuel and water,
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head towards Cadiz and the port of San Luca de Barrameda, i.e. Spain, whence we departed.
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Continuing nearer the Austral Pole, where we presently are, as you instructed the captains,
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at the river of Santa Cruz, i do not think it feasible due to the terrible and stormy weather,
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because if at this latitude sailing proves so hazardous and painful, what shall it be like
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when we find ourselves at 60 or 75 degrees or more? He's saying, you know, the further south we go,
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the more hazardous it's going to be. And he's right in that, of course. As your lordship said,
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he must go in search of the Moluccas by way of the eastern and the east-northeastern route,
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rounding the Cape of Good Hope. By the time we should arrive there, it would already be winter,
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and also the crew is thin and lacking in strength. Moreover, if there are now sufficient provisions,
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there are not many, nor enough to regain energies and enable too much working without the crew's
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health suffering it. And I also have noticed how it takes the ill ones longer to recover.
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I also believe that your lordship should not sail along these coasts at night, both because of
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the ship's safety and the crew's need to rest a little. Since there are 17 hours of daylight,
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let your lordship have the ships lie at anchor for the four or five nightly hours, so that,
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as I said, the people can rest instead of having to bustle about the ships with the rigging.
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And most importantly, in order to spare ourselves the blows that an untoward fate would inflict on us,
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may heaven forbid it. For if such blows befall us when things can be seen and observed,
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it should not be unfitting to fear them when nothing can be seen or known or well watched.
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So let your lordship have the ships anchor one hour before sunset, rather than continue forward
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at night to cover two leagues. I have said as I feel and understand in order to serve both God and
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your lordship with what I believe is best for the armada and your lordship. Your lordship shall do as
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your lordship sees fit, as God shall guide your lordship. Please he, i.e. God, that your lordship's
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life and condition be successful, as it is my wish. End quote. So basically he's saying, let's push on,
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but also be careful, particularly at night, and let's push on at least to January until the days
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start getting shorter, and then have a rethink at that point. You know, if we've got to the Pacific,
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or they don't know it's the Pacific. They don't call it that yet. They just know that there is
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an ocean on the other side of the South American continent. We've got no idea how big it is or
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anything, but see if we can reach that ocean by sort of mid-January or the end of January at the
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latest, and then have a rethink. That's basically what the astronomer says. Not bad advice. You know,
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not bad advice. It does seem, though, from everything we know, what happens going forward is that Magellan
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had made up his mind. He was still completely of the opinion that they're going to press on until,
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if not death, then something very close to it. He's got no real intention of turning back.
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You know, you get the impression, most people think that probably, even if he'd got word back
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from all of his officers saying, no, we all think you should turn back, he probably wouldn't have
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still. I mean, we don't know. That's just conjecture. But yeah, from the way Magellan behaves
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for the rest of the expedition, he truly is single-minded. That's the one thing you can absolutely
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say about Magellan. He's not intending to turn back at any stage. Okay, Bergering goes on saying
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this quote. Sam Martin, the astronomer, dared to express what nearly everybody on the voyage
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whispered. There was great danger ahead, and chances were they would not make it to the
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Spice Islands, wherever they were. Their maps had long sinks proved to be useless. Give it
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until January, he advised, and if they had not reached their goal by then, return to Spain
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and try again. Magellan considered these carefully thought-out admonitions, but he was nevertheless
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inclined to proceed, no matter how long it took to reach the Spice Islands. They had
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at least three months' provisions, by his reckoning. Most important, he believed that
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God would assist them in achieving their goal. After all, he had permitted them to discover
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the strait, and he would guide them to their final goal. The next day, Magellan gave the order
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to weigh anchor. The ships fired a salvo of cannon that reverberated around the splendid dark
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green mountains, grey ravines, and azure glaciers of the strait, and the armada set sail once
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again, heading west, always west. At last, the churning metallic waters of the Pacific came
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into view, and they realised that they had reached the end of the strait. Magellan had
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done it, and he found the waterway just as he had promised King Charles. Now that the armada
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had accomplished this feat, all the arguments for turning back by mid-January were never again
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discussed, and Jeanne de Mafra, one of the other men to have survived, made it back to Spain,
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gone all the way around the world and survived, come back to Spain and written accounts, the
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other one other than Pigafetta. He said this, at this moment, quote, everyone thought himself
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fortunate to be where none had been before, end quote. A bit Star Trek that, isn't it? A bit
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Starship Enterprise. Okay, Bergering continues. Magellan was overwhelmed to have completed his navigation
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of the strait, at last. Pigafetta recalls that the Captain General, quote, wept for joy, quote.
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When he recovered, he named the just-discovered Pacific Cape, Cape Desire. Oh, well, this is
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Pigafetta again. He named it Cape Desire, for we had been desiring it for so long, end quote.
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As the armada approached the Pacific, the seas turned grey and rough. It was late in the day,
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and the dull skies were fading to darkness as the three ships put the western mouth of the
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strait to stern. Pigafetta again. Wednesday, November the 28th, 1520, we debauched from the
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strait, engulfing ourselves in the Pacific Sea, noted Pigafetta with quite satisfaction,
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even with the mutiny of San Antonio and the time spent trying to recover the ship, not to mention
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the ubiquitous dead ends the straits presented. Magellan needed only 38 days and nights to travel
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from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. And in hindsight, this is me now, and in hindsight,
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that's a remarkable feat of navigation and seamanship. Even a very, very good pilot might
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have been expected to take a lot longer than that, or even got completely lost and, you
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know, got himself into a terrible survival situation. So the fact it took Magellan merely
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38 days is remarkable. Most people have remarked on that. I mean, Drake, a few years later,
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well, like 50 odd years later or so, 60 odd years later, he didn't even really attempt
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it. He thought it was too dicey. He thought it was too much of a risk. You're sort of more
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likely to get lost than not. That's why he didn't even really attempt it. Bergering continues.
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For Magellan and his crew, it had been a remarkable rite of passage. As they sailed beyond the strait
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into the open water, how could they doubt that their expedition was indeed blessed by
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the Almighty? Although Magellan and his crew appeared vulnerable to the elements, to starvation,
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to the local tribes they encountered, and most of all to each other, this was not how they
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saw themselves. They all believed that a supernatural power looked after them and conferred on them
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But how much of this accomplishment of navigating the strait derived from Magellan's skill, and how
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much could be attributed to plain good luck? Magellan was fortunate that the weather was
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relatively mild. After the intense storms that had menaced his ships, no other squalls surprised
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them, no glaciers collapsed on them, and the temperature, fluctuating as it does at the time
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of year, from between 35 degrees to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, maintained within normal bounds,
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so that the men were spared the intense cold they had suffered at Port St. Julian.
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Their scouting excursions, as well as the addition of fresh vegetables to their diet, boosted both
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their spirits and their health. The passage through the strait, while strenuous, was far healthier
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than being at sea for long stretches, within the unsanitary confines of the ships, subsisting
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on a diet of salty, spoiled food and wine. Some think they're now going to have to suffer,
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because they've got no idea how wide the Pacific is.
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Burgreen again. Although the Armada enjoyed reasonably good fortune, Magellan's extraordinary
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skill as a strategist proved to be the decisive factor in negotiating the entire length of the
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dragon's tail. That's just another, sometimes, how the bottom of South America is described.
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He ordered lookouts scrambling to the highest perch on the ships, where they could see the waterways
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and obstacles that lay ahead. In addition, he regularly sent small scouting parties in the
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longboats, Jean de Maffre wrote. They would go on and come back with news of the findings,
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and then the rest of the Armada would follow. This is the way the Armada operated for the
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whole passage of the strait. The information they brought back helped Magellan plot his next move.
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They warned him against rocky shoals, bays that deceptively resembled a continuation of the strait,
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and other dead ends that would have delayed his passage. Magellan even relied on the taste of
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seawater to guide the fleet. That's actually a really important one. How salty is the water
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we're in right now? As the water became fresher, he knew he was travelling inland, and once it turned
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salty, he realised he was approaching the Pacific on the western side of the strait. It sounds like a
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very, very simple, what it is, very, very simple, straightforward thing to do. And yet,
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if you get used to it, if you become a master of that, it can be extremely useful and telling.
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We're agreeing again. This array of tactics saved tedious days of wandering up and down
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dead-end channels and harbours. If one approach failed, he always had others on which to fall
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back. Not even the loss of his best pilot, Estroval Gomez, and his biggest ship, San Antonio,
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defeated him. The more the fleet shrank, the more nimble it became. His sophisticated approach to
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navigating uncharted waters went far beyond technical ability in boat handling and direction
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finding. It revealed an ability to deploy novel tactics to overcome one of the greatest challenges
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of the Age of Discovery, namely how to guide a fleet of ships through hundreds of miles of unmapped
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archipelagos in rough weather. A skill he's going to need when he gets to Southeast Asia, or the modern
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day Indonesia. A giant maze of unmapped archipelagos, and sometimes in rough weather.
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Magellan's skill in negotiating the entire length of the strait is acknowledged as the single greatest
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feat in the history of maritime exploration. It was, perhaps, an even greater accomplishment
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than Columbus's discovery of the new world, because the Genoan, Columbus, thinking he had arrived in China,
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remained befuddled to the end of his days about where he was and what he had accomplished,
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and as a result he misled others. Magellan, in contrast, realised exactly what he had done.
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He had, at long last, begun to correct Columbus's great navigational error. Columbus, till his dying day,
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was under the impression that the islands and land that he had discovered was, in fact, still somewhere
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quite near Asia, near India and Japan and stuff. He never accepted that it was an entirely new continent.
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Of course, he landed in what is today the Caribbean, basically. But they knew there was a large
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landmass, you know, not too far away from the islands of the Caribbean. And yet Columbus insisted
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that, you know, he never accepted that there was this giant continent. And of course, he had no concept
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that there was also, beyond that, then, the Pacific. They thought the world was a lot smaller than it
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really was. Let Berggrin continue again. He says this, quote,
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When the fog receded and the sun broke through the low clouds, the Western Sea, as the Pacific was
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then called, turned from lifeless grey to seductive cobalt. Its surface mottled with frothy white caps
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that melted into the frigid air. The water boiled menacingly and surged over the rocks and cliffs
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emerging from its inscrutable depths. Fearing shoals, Magellan adjusted his navigational technique.
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Instead of gliding through deep fjords, it steered a course in rough water between two rocks,
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later named, with a bitter irony best appreciated by wary sailors, the Evangelists and Good Hope.
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A cold miasma descended, blinding the pilots, Demafra said. The Western exit of the strait is
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very narrow and foggy, and there is no sign of it. Having exited it and sailed three leagues into
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the sea, its mouth cannot be descried, end quote. Berggrin goes on. Magellan set a northerly course
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along the coast of Chile. The strait they had just left seemed an enchanted refuge by comparison
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to the ocean they now faced. Darwin, on his journey, found the vista so horrifying that he
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was moved to comment, and this is Darwin now, one sight of such a coast is enough to make a landsman
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dream for a week of shipwreck, peril and death, end quote. I.e., it's like a very, very rugged coastline.
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You can sort of see that the ocean's trying to push you onto really, really dangerous rocky
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coasts, but you could easily, so easily, so easily be wrecked along that coast. It's terrifying,
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in pre-modern times anyway. If you enjoyed that preview, please consider heading over to
00:25:52.960
lotusseaters.com to watch the full and abridged video.