Magellan and the world's first circumnavigation

Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who died 500 years ago, discovered a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans — today's Strait of Magellan.

The first circumnavigation of the world was unwittingly initiated by Ferdinand Magellan, who died 500 years ago, on April 27, 1521.

A battle-hardened knight and hardy sailor at a young age, he never would have imagined he would be the one to make the key contribution to travelling around the globe.

Born about 1480 in Portugal into a Catholic family of minor nobility, Magellan was influenced by the confining religious ideology of the late Middle Ages and the idea of subjecting the world to Christianity. The era was marked by the epochal shift from the Middle Ages to modern times. In 1492, Christopher Columbus had sailed to America, which inspired other seafarers to go on ever more daring voyages of discovery seeking new lands and fabulous wealth.

Career-minded daredevil

The beginning of the colonial era came at just the right time for Magellan, a daredevil who had distinguished himself during military missions at a young age — hoping, experts believe, to rise to the ranks of the upper nobility. He traveled to India or the Malay Peninsula for the first time on board Portuguese spice and war ships. For a total of eight years, he fought on colonial battlegrounds in Asia and North Africa.

In 1512, he and a group of mariners headed to the legendary Spice Islands, also called the Maluku Islands or the Moluccas, in Southeast Asia — islands that are home to the nutmeg tree and above all the clove tree. On the European markets, these precious exotic flavor enhancers were worth their weight in gold. Magellan's share in the sale of the spices after the crew's return home secured his livelihood, but it also awakened the desire for more.

Changing allegiance

After a quarrel with the Portuguese king, Ferdinand Magellan in 1517 changed his allegiance over to Spain, to King Charles I, the future Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. Bartolome de Las Casas, a Spanish theologian and writer of the time, described Magellan as small and rather unassuming — but exceptionally charismatic. "When it came down to it, he was a brilliant salesman and self-promoter who was able to inspire people with his ideas and great goals," German historian Christian Jostmann told DW, adding it was no surprise that Magellan managed to convince the Spanish king to shell out the money for a trip to the Moluccas.

Prospects of great wealth are one thing, but Charles I also agreed because he had an eye on power politics. At the beginning of the 16th century, Spain and Portugal had split up the world among themselves, with ownership of the Spice Islands, which today belong to Indonesia, still up in the air.

Magellan could not sail around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa because the route was blocked by the Portuguese. To avoid Portuguese territories altogether, Magellan vowed to find a western sea route to the Moluccas. Since Columbus' sea journey, about 500 ships had tried in vain to find a passage through the American land mass.

Magellan's Moluccan Armada of five completely overhauled ships equipped with cannons left Seville on August 10, 1519 — headed for Sanlucar de Barrameda on the Atlantic coast. The fleet with its crew of 240

set sail again from there about a month later.

'Life in a wooden tub'

Magellan aimed to become rich, found colonies for Spain and convert the natives, all while keeping in mind the prospect of social advancement, said Jostmann. In his book Magellan or The First Circumnavigation of the Earth, the historian vividly describes what Magellan and his companions experienced on this first travel around the world, including stormy and calm seas, hunger, thirst, diseases, mutinies and deadly conflicts with indigenous peoples.

It was far from a seafaring idyll, Jostmann said. "About 50 men lived for months in a wooden tub measuring about 150 square meters with no sanitary facilities, no kitchen, no privacy." The food was modest, there was hardly any medical

Ferdinand Magellan