Magellan's plan to go around the globe was fraught with great risk, so the members of the expedition were considered suicide bombers. In those days, there were various terrible rumors about the seas - about sea snakes, which cost nothing to crush a ship; that on the edge of the Ocean River there is the Malstrom whirlpool, which is almost impossible to avoid; about the fact that the sea is filled with glue: the ship falls into such a trap and its fate is sad.
Magellan believed in these stories, but still he dreamed of going out on a dangerous path to the west and arriving at the same harbor from the east. The fabulous riches of the spice islands captured his soul forever!
Thirst for new lands
Everything could have turned out differently if the Portuguese nobleman Ferneo da Magalhães and the then King of Portugal Manuel had a good relationship, but intractable, Fernando Magellan - a brave and fearless, proud, obstinate, stubborn sailor Magallays did not want to coordinate his actions with the king. Although he owed his education and position in society to the king, he did not think of himself as the second Enrique the Navigator, Manuel, but to his father, who raised the noble but poor father Ferneo, giving him the position of mayor, and Ferneo himself the title of page. From adolescence to twenty years, Ferneo lived and studied at the court of the Portuguese kings. He mastered mathematics, geography, astronomy and many other sciences, since he was a young man, thoughtful and greedy for knowledge. In his dreams, he saw himself as a captain, leading a squadron of ships to unknown countries. And as soon as the opportunity arose, he asked for permission to serve in the Royal Navy. From 1505 to 1515, Magalhães fought honestly with the enemies of Portugal and sailed in various waters, going from private to captain. But his service did not work out: Magalhaes was honest and straightforward, he did not know how to deceive and flatter. No wonder he soon fell out of favor with Manuel. On sea voyages, this honest campaigner became friends with the same headstrong captain Francisco Sirran. Both of them - Ferneo and Francisco - were convinced of the sphericity of the Earth, and a plan was born in their heads to reach the Moluccas (the path to which was blocked by hostile Spanish ships), sailing through the strait, piercing through South America. The Portuguese king only laughed at the plan of this Magalhães: is he a fool, perhaps, to allocate funds for a doomed maritime enterprise?to allocate funds for a doomed maritime enterprise?
Then Magalhaes asked permission to go into the service of another king. The Portuguese ruler did not mind.
So Portugal lost, and Spain acquired a geographical discovery of a world scale.
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Everything is at stake
After crossing the border, he changed his name to Spanish - so instead of Ferneo da Magalhães, the Spanish nobleman Hernando (Fernando) Magellan was born. In addition, Magellan became close friends with the family of the Portuguese sailor Diogo Barbosa, who had moved to Spain long ago and received the post of commandant of the Alcazar fortress. Hernando married his daughter Beatrice, and with his son went on a trip around the world. In the same place, in Spain, he attracted several more influential persons to his side.
On May 22, 1518, an agreement was concluded between Magellan and Faleira (his companion) on the one hand and the King of Spain on the other, according to which both mariners received the titles of hereditary governors of all lands and islands that they would discover during their voyage, and the twentieth part income from these new lands.
The chronicler of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world, the knight Antonio Pigafetta, left behind a whole book dedicated to Magellan, whom he considered a great man and sailor. Pigafetta said: "Magellan brought with him a magnificently painted globe, on it all the coasts were depicted, and only the places near the strait remained deliberately unpainted - only so that no one would steal his secret."
To paint over these places, Magellan had to sacrifice his life.
Armada goes to sea
Five small but strong enough ships set sail for the Moluccas. Without much adventure, they reached the Canary Islands, stocked up on water and firewood there, and moved south towards the equator.
After crossing the equator, the flotilla turned westward to Brazil. The further movement of the armada is associated with the search for a through passage: bays and deep rivers, of which there are many in these places, were taken for it. The travelers considered one of these rivers a desirable strait, entered it and sailed for several days until they were convinced that it was just a river.
The disappointment was great - the sailors murmured, the captains wanted to return home, but Magellan, despite the displeasure of the crew, ordered to follow to the south.
They had already entered the cold zone, saw bare shores and penguins ahead, but the longed-for strait was not there. Then Magellan ordered to enter the San Julian Bay, where the expedition waited out the winter cold for five months. Once on the shore, the team raised a mutiny, but Magellan quickly and decisively suppressed it.
In the spring, the expedition continued its journey south. They managed to meet on the shore with an unprecedented tribe of very tall people, whom they called the Patagonians. The sailors tricked a couple of Patagonians aboard and forced them to sail with them - Magellan hoped to present them as a gift to the king.
In October 1520, the ships entered a narrow ice-covered passage that looked like a Norwegian fjord. The voyage turned out to be very difficult - there were many shallows, the strait often broke into sleeves, but in the end he brought them out into the ocean - the one that soon received the name of the Pacific.
The Pacific Ocean turned out to be huge and deserted, for three and a half months of the journey everything was eaten, including the leather upholstery and rats. Despair seized the crew when on March 15, 1520, the flotilla approached the beautiful islands, which the Spaniards called the Philippine islands.
Here the sailors were in for another trouble. Magellan subdued the ruler of the island of Cebu, who happily adopted Christianity. But in return, the native leader asked the guests to help him in the war with the wild tribes living on the island of Matan. The Spaniards, clad in armor, armed themselves with muskets. They hoped to easily defeat the natives, but did not calculate their strength. The natives threw spears at them, and if not for Magellan, who covered the retreat, the natives would have killed everyone. And so only Magellan died. The team could not even recapture the body of their leader.
On the way back, the Spaniards had it even worse, since there were Portuguese bases around, they could not land ashore, fearing that competitors would kill them. As a result, the sailors died like flies, and only "Victoria" with a load of spices and emaciated sailors in the amount of 18 people reached Spain.
The price of the discoveries made was very high. But they were worth it.
Figures and facts
Event: first voyage around the world.
When: September 20, 1519 - September 1522 Participants: 5 ships, number - 265 people.
Discoveries: the Atlantic coast of South America; Philippine Islands; Pacific Ocean; the strait named after Magellan; covered 17,000 kilometers.
Price: Magellan died in a skirmish with the natives in the Philippine Islands; most of the sailors died of hunger and scurvy. Only two ships returned back; so many spices were brought on them that their sale compensated for the loss of the remaining ships.
Meaning: For the first time, ships heading west came back from the east, proving that the Earth is in the shape of a ball. Europeans crossed the Pacific for the first time, opening a passage from the Atlantic. The expedition found out that most of the Earth's surface is occupied not by land, as Columbus thought, but by the oceans.
Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 2, Daren Tashie
