Prologue

As I have described in my previous account of the life of Juan Sebastian Elcano before he joined the fleet under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, I am an English historian who had the incredibly good fortune to find undiscovered documents about the life of Elcano. I translated these documents from medieval Spanish to English and have published the account of Elcano’s life before 1519 when he set sail on the fleet to discover a passage to the Spice Islands that would attempt to place Spain at the heart of the lucrative spice trade, and break the monopoly held by Portugal.

That first account had been dictated to a young boy sailor in1526 by Elcano when he was second in command on the Loaiza fleet which left Spain in 1525 to retrace the steps of the Magellan voyage.

This current volume was mistakenly archived along with that account of the life of Elcano, dictated by Elcano to the scribe Andrés de Urdaneta. However, unlike that account written by Urdaneta, this document was an original account of the voyage of circumnavigation written by Elcano himself after he had completed the first circumnavigation of the world in 1522. Previously, it had been assumed that there were only partial records of the voyage, especially the logs of kilometres sailed and of latitude and longitude noted daily by the pilots of the fleet, and that the only full account of the voyage had been written by the Italian, Antonio Pigafetta, who had joined the voyage with Magellan as a supernumerary, meaning that he held no official position in the fleet. However, he soon became close to Magellan, so he was biased against Elcano on account of Elcano taking part in a mutiny against Magellan while the fleet overwintered in the port of San Julián in South America. As a result, Pigafetta’s account of the voyage failed to mention the part played by Elcano in completing the voyage that had begun as Magellan’s vision of finding a new route to the Spice Islands.

This account by Elcano sheds new light on the voyage, on the tensions that existed among the participants, on the sights they saw, on the hardships and disasters they endured, and on the return to Spain after making the first circumnavigation of the world. It is a unique account written by the man who succeeded in circumnavigating the globe in a small wooden ship at a time when half the world had not been explored by Europeans, and when it was not even sure that it might be possible to sail around the globe. However, as the account covers a period of more than three years, I have taken the liberty of dividing it into two parts for publication. This present part describes the voyage to the Philippines, the death of Magellan, and the aftermath of that death. A future book will describe how the one remaining ship of the five that had so hopefully set sail from Sevilla in 1519 returned to Sevilla three years later, and what happened in Elcano’s life until he once more set sail in 1525 to revisit the route to the Spice Islands discovered by Magellan.

As I wrote in the prologue to the previous description of the early life of Elcano, I explain that this is my translation from medieval Spanish to English, and my interpretation of that document which I have spent the last two years preparing for publication. For the benefit of my readers, I have taken the liberty of converting weights and distances from those used in the original to their modern equivalent. Therefore, although the use of kilos and litres would not exist until after the French Revolution, it makes sense to use them to describe weights, and quantities of liquids. However, I have not converted terms used for money as the value of monetary units does not remain constant, so any conversion I might make could soon be out of date. In addition, although Italy and Germany did not exist as countries at the time covered by this narrative, I have used the terms to signify the territories now known by those names. I have retained the names of places and strange animals and fruit which were given by Magellan and others so as to help the reader to imagine the impact of those exotic lands on the voyagers who accompanied Magellan on his quest.

Arrival at Sevilla

Before I left Getaria, I entrusted Sean with the store of precious stones that I had obtained from the Maya king. I told him that he should sell them one by one in case Mari or my mother had need of money. I also gave him permission to sell a stone for his own needs in case the harvest of fruit and vegetables failed or if the Santa Maria required repairs that he could not afford. However, I also made it clear that such use of the stones for his own requirements would be considered a loan to be repaid in full, but without interest, at a time after I had returned. I trusted Sean, but I also felt that it was fitting to leave my financial affairs with him on a commercial basis rather than as an agreement between friends. In my life, I had seen too many instances of friendship being torn asunder when it became entangled with the details of trade.

Although I had previously journeyed to Sevilla by working my passage on a nao, this time I could not wait to find a ship that was bound for that city or that could drop me at Sanlucar at the mouth of the Guadalquivir river. The weather in the seas beating against the shores of Euskadi were still prone to storms bearing in from the Atlantic Ocean, so there were few traders who were interested in risking their lives, crew and cargo in the tempestuous seas off the north coast of Spain. Instead, I chose to travel by coach which I soon discovered was a mistake. Firstly, because of the distance involved there were no coach services that could transport me from Gipuzkoa to Sevilla, so I was forced to stop in several towns and search for a coach that would take me to the next town on my path. Secondly, although I had travelled extensively by sea, I had not ventured far inland from the shores of Euskadi. After I left Getaria, I discovered that the interior of Gipuzkoa was covered in dense forests which made travel difficult and also dangerous as there were many desperate men who preyed on unwary travellers, choosing, or being forced by poverty to choose, the life of an outlaw to that of a man working for an honest wage. The only advantage of having these dense forests so close to the sea was that there was a ready source of wood with which to construct ships. The same was true of the interior of much of Spain, with dense forests of oak and other trees covering the land between large towns and cities. Most of the people who lived in these forests were involved in using the fruits of the forest to provide their livelihood, whether that was as a coppicer of trees to provide stout lances from chestnut trees to be shattered by knights when they tested their prowess in the jousting arena, although this spectacle was no longer in favour at court, so it was in danger of dying and being replaced by the sight of a man facing a maddened bull in a contest of skill and bravery against unpredictable savagery; or as fletchers making arrows from the stems they so carefully selected from the living trees; or as producers of charcoal to sell to people as fuel for cooking or to warm their beds on cold winter nights. Officially, all the large animals in the forests belonged to the king, so it was a foolhardy or desperate man who would kill a deer to feed his family, since the penalty for such an act was death.

Therefore, I had to rely on coaches drawn by horses, or even at times by oxen, as my means of travel as they were always accompanied by an armed escort to ensure the safety of the passengers and valuables which were the treasures that the armed men lurking in the forests were anxious to part from their owners. In total, I must have caught eight or more coaches, and the journey took more than two weeks and involved considerable expense, discomfort, frustration and annoyance. Of course, what I should have done was agree with Sean that he would transport me in the Santa Maria, carefully keeping an eye on the weather and making for port when the signs were of an impending storm, while carrying a cargo of dried tomatls to sell at the court, and taking oranges and lemons back to Getaria where they would be a welcome addition to the tables of the wealthy merchants there and in other ports of the Atlantic coast or, as we had previously discovered, these fruits could also be sold easily in the lands of northern Europe because of their rarity value. But if we lived our lives with foreknowledge, we would never venture far from the security of our own hearth, and the exploration of the New World would never have taken place. Therefore, I endured the discomforts and delays of my travel by coach with ill grace and foul temper. This made me a very disagreeable companion to the other passengers who shared part of the journey with me on different coaches. But I had no inclination to reveal my final destination or the reason for my journey, or to share tales of my adventures, so for most of the time I pulled my cap low over my eyes and feigned sleep although the jolting of the coaches on the rough roads oft times made this impossible.

My journey took me on roads that passed through the mountains north of Gipuzkoa to Burgos. This was where a former queen of Spain had lived and where her husband had died. Her journey southward to Granada afterwards gave her the choice of being given the shameful name of Juana la Loca (Juana the Crazy) or of her abandoning her claim to the throne of Spain, and thence I made my way to Valladolid and Salamanca where I admired the house decorated with stone scallop shells which was constructed from 1493 to 1517 by Rodrigo Arias de Maldonado, a knight of the Order of Santiago de Compostela and a professor in the University of Salamanca who had made the arduous pilgrimage by the only road that led to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. As I was admiring the facade of the house, I was approached by a man who introduced himself as Pedro Maldonado Pimentel, the son of the man who had constructed the building. He had noticed the scallop shell that I wore in my cap and asked if I was returning from the pilgrimage to Santiago. When I informed him that I had made the pilgrimage several years previously, he invited me to dine with him. He explained that he was now the owner of the house as his father had died eight years previously before the construction of the house had been completed, but that his father had been a proud knight of the Order of Santiago whose members were sworn to defend Spain against all attempts to alter her fundamental status as a Catholic country. I was very pleased to accept his invitation and I looked forward to dining on food prepared by hands that were not also engaged in cleaning stables or slaughtering pigs which I observed in some of the ventas and fondas where I was forced to spend my nights during this wearisome journey.

The meal was enlivened by my tales of some of my adventures among the Beothuk and the Maya Indians although I found it circumspect to avoid mention of selling as slaves to the Barbary pirates Gaston and his friends who had attempted to cheat me of my dues. Finally, I was invited to spend the night with my gracious host which I gratefully accepted as it had been many nights since I had left the comfort of my own bed in Getaria and had been forced at times to sleep in a hayloft above the farm animals in some of the villages where my coach stopped for the night. In the morning, I bade farewell with many thanks for his hospitality to my host and without incident continued on my journey to Sevilla, passing through Plasencia and the mostly uninhabited and uncultivated land between Caceres and Sevilla. This was a land that had been rich in olives, almonds and apricots when the Arabs had ruled this land, but which had now fallen into disrepair after the former owners had abandoned their farms to follow their fellow believers into exile. It pained me to see this land lying so fallow, and I swore to myself, that if I ever had the money or the time, I would make this land flourish again. But for now, my aim was to arrive in Sevilla and to discover how I could join the voyage of exploration mooted by the Portuguese, Magellan.

When I arrived in Sevilla, I made my way to a tavern where I had lodged before and paid for a comfortable room. I was glad to escape from the jolting of the coaches which had conveyed me on my journey as the roads were unpaved and either dusty or muddy depending on the weather we encountered. I knew that I should avoid the Royal Court even though there was a new monarch on the throne after the death of Ferdinand, the Catholic King, but the fact that I had been accused of an act of treason in selling my father’s nao was common knowledge among the courtiers so, after bathing to wash away the dust and grime of the arduous voyage, I dressed in the simple garb of a common sailor and made my way to the port to listen to the rumours and gossip about the voyage that Magellan proposed to undertake. There were many Basques living and working in Sevilla in those days. The majority were involved in the construction of the cathedral of Sevilla working as stone masons, carpenters and general construction workers, but there were many involved in trade by sea. I visited several taverns where Basques typically gathered and talked to a number of sailors to obtain the information that I wanted. It soon became clear that this voyage would be well equipped and funded by the King. There would be a total of five ships under the command of Magellan which meant that there would be a need to recruit men to fill all marine specialisations. This gave me hope that I would be able to join the voyage in some capacity. I had no illusions that I could attempt to captain one of the vessels in spite of my extensive experience in that position, but at least I could aim for a post as maestre or at least as contramaestre on one of the ships. The captains would be chosen from the ranks of nobility or others who had the ear of the king, and I was not a person of privilege. In fact, I was still under pain of punishment for having sold my father’s nao to foreign trade rivals of Spain.

After the voyages of Columbus, it had soon become obvious that the trade between Spain and the New World needed to be regulated, so in 1503 the Casa de la Contratación de Indias (House of Trade of the Indies) had been established by Queen Isabella to oversee and regulate all trade with the New World on behalf of the Monarchy. This body had broad powers over overseas matters, especially financial matters concerning trade and legal disputes arising from it. It also was responsible for the licensing of emigrants, training of pilots, creation of maps and charters, and probate of estates of Spaniards dying overseas. It collected all colonial taxes and duties, approved all voyages of exploration and trade, maintained secret information on trade routes and new discoveries, licensed captains, and administered commercial law. In short, the Casa de la Contratación was the most important Spanish institution involved in everything connected with the New World. It was housed in several rooms of the Alcázar or Royal Palace, overlooking a small square where scribes and official clerks were constantly busy with clients as they officially witnessed their business dealings.

I knew from previous visits that by 1518 trade with the New World had brought riches to Spain, with Sevilla as the main port for fleets to leave from and return to. The goods that ships brought to Spain were sold in Sevilla and the King’s tax of one fifth of the value of all precious metals entering Sevilla was used to help fund both wars and the expenses of the court, although often these expenses far outran the revenue obtained from the quinta real tax on gold and silver. What surprised me was that this tax was only levied on precious metals and not on the exotic fruits and vegetables or spices that arrived in Spain from the New World. I was glad of that because it meant that the tomatl fruit that I had brought back from the land of the Maya could be sold in Sevilla or wherever the royal court had taken up residence free of tax. Equally, the parrots and the special stones from the Maya could be sold without having to pay tax. However, it was still prudent not to advertise where we had obtained these rarities as we had not advised Sevilla that we were about to make a voyage to Hispaniola and the New World.

While Spain explored and conquered the New World, and filled the royal coffers with the quinta real tax, Portugal concentrated on trade rather than conquest. The Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 between Spain and Portugal divided the globe into spheres of influence, and had given Portugal the opportunity to build trade relations with countries in Africa and Asia. The most lucrative of these trading posts were in the Molukka Islands, also known as the Spice Islands. From these far-distant lands, cloves, nutmeg, and other spices arrived in Portugal from where they were sold to other European countries at high prices.

In March 1518 an agreement was signed between the king and Magellan governing the proposal of Magellan to find a new way to reach the Spice Islands avoiding the Portuguese stranglehold on the eastward route by finding a passageway through the New World from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea. The Casa de la Contratación was then given the responsibility of ordering the purchase and outfitting of the fleet under the command of Magellan, and also for approving the crew of each ship and their payment. Therefore, I knew that I needed to introduce myself and present my experience to be considered for a position. I also knew that the voyage we had undertaken to the New World should have been approved by the Casa de la Contratación, so I found it prudent not to include that episode in the description of my experience when I visited the offices of the Casa de la Contratación that dealt with crewing the voyage of Magellan.

From the information that I had gleaned in the taverns of Sevilla I had learned that the two most important men in charge of this historic task were Juan López de Recalde from Azcoitia in Gipuzkoa and Domingo de Ochandiano from Durango in Bizkaia. It was my good fortune that these two men were Basques which I felt should help to make it easier to present my case to obtain a position on the proposed voyage. And this was indeed what happened; I went to the Casa de la Contratación and asked to speak to either of the two men in charge of this new voyage and I met with Juan López de Recalde. Although his official position was contador or record keeper, after listening to my account of the voyages I had made to fish for cod and to Naples and Oran in the service of the crown, he assured me that there would be a suitable position for me on the fleet that they were assembling. He could not promise me a specific post, but he was able to tell me that I would be given a position of responsibility with a rank and financial compensation that reflected my experience. He furthermore invited me to visit his house which was about 20 kilometres from Sevilla in a place called Lebrija, and where he owned a large area of land with many inns, farms, windmills and orange and olive trees. The invitation was for the following weekend, and he assured me that I would not feel out of place as he had also issued an invitation to some of the many Basques who lived and worked in Sevilla.

I travelled to Lebrija on horseback as the weather was pleasant and the roads were dry. It took me all day to make the journey passing many fincas or large farms producing olives, oranges, lemons, and almonds which helped to make their owners rich. López de Recalde had become rich through selling olive oil to London and Flanders, and used his position in the Casa to trade on his own account with the New World and to make business with other merchants in Sevilla who benefitted from the trade with the New World.

That weekend at Lebrija I met three of these Basque merchants: Martín de Guieldo, Juan Ochoa de Ireve and Martín de Aranzueta as well as several merchants who were natives of Sevilla. The food and wine were good, and the company agreeable, so it was natural that after a particularly satisfying lunch on the day after I arrived, when the company settled down with glasses of fine brandy from the town of Jerez de la Frontera, the conversation should turn to the voyage planned by Magellan. After Balboa had crossed the New World from ocean to ocean at Darien in 1513, it was well-known that there was another sea which was called the South Sea, but in spite of many attempts to find a way to sail between the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea, it had proved to be an impossible task, and it had also cost the lives of such brave sailors as Juan Díaz de Solís who had perished along with 60 of his men in 1516 while exploring the southern coast of the New World. These residents of Sevilla were all aware of how Magellan had persuaded King Carlos to agree to finance his search for a route to the Spice Islands by finding a navigable passage crossing the land of the New World to reach the South Sea. As I was a newcomer to Sevilla who they knew wanted to join the crew of one of the ships, they told me the details of what had made Magellan abandon Portugal and present his proposal to King Carlos.

Magellan had been born in the village of Saborosa in the province of Traz-os-Montes about 80 kilometres inland from Oporto in Portugal in 1480 and named Hernando Magallanes. His family were minor nobility and at an early age he entered the service of Queen Leonor, the widow of King Juan II of Portugal, and at the age of 15 he began to serve King Manuel who succeeded Juan II. In 1505 he joined the fleet of Francisco de Almeida which consisted of 22 ships containing two thousand men bound for India by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. He remained away from Portugal for eight years, taking part in the battles of Cannanore in 1506, where he was wounded, and Dui in 1509. He also showed his concern for the sailors of two Portuguese ships that sank after leaving Cochin in India en route for Portugal. The crew and most of the cargo were put ashore on a small island near where the ships sank. Magellan’s ship was too small to take all the crew members back to India, so the captains, the gentlemen, and the officers wanted to go first, but the sailors protested that they should not leave without them as they feared that they would be abandoned. This is when Magellan showed his wisdom and courage by volunteering to remain with the sailors while the others were taken aboard to sail to India. Eventually all were rescued but Magellan’s action helped to reassure the sailors that they would not be left to die on that small islet.

From India he was sent with his cousin Francisco Serrão to assist in the conquest of Malacca in 1511. Serrão sailed to discover the Spice Islands where he settled and became a military advisor to the Sultan of Ternate while Magellan returned to Portugal in 1513 along with a slave from Malacca who he renamed Enrique. Serrão and Magellan continued to correspond with each other which led Magellan to the idea of reaching the Spice Islands by sailing west across the Atlantic and into the South Sea through some passage that connected the two oceans.

In mid-1513, he was sent to fight against the Berbers in Azemmour on the Atlantic coast of North Africa. He was wounded in the leg there and always walked with a limp after that. In 1515, he was offered a position as a crew member on a Portuguese ship, but he refused. He tried to interest the king in the idea of seeking the westward passage to the Spice Islands, but the king refused to listen to him. Instead, he was accused of illegal trading with the Berbers and had to return to Azemmour to be tried. He was acquitted of the charge and returned to Portugal, where the king continued to refuse his requests to outfit a fleet to discover a new route to the Spice Islands. The existing route to the Spice Islands of Malukka was hazardous and lengthy, with a journey from Lisbon to the islands and returning to Portugal laden with cloves, nutmeg and mace taking at least two years if the winds and seasonal monsoon rains were favourable. The idea of a shorter route through the New World to reach the Spice Islands by crossing the South Sea seemed to Magellan to make sense as it would allow fleets of ships to bring back vastly greater cargoes of the precious spices that Europe was willing to pay handsomely for.

Disillusioned with the way that his proposal was disregarded by the king, he left Portugal and came to Spain to try to interest King Carlos in his idea. However, to demonstrate his honourable intentions, he publicly renounced his Portuguese citizenship. But before leaving Portugal he consulted with the most experienced pilots who had guided ships in Asia, and examined the maps of those seas which convinced him that the Spice Islands lay within the area under the control of Spain according to the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. He was also influenced by his correspondence with Francisco Serrão in Ternate, the most important source of cloves in the Spice Islands.

He was joined in his belief by a map maker called Rui Falero who was also upset with the king of Portugal. In those days, King Manuel of Portugal had made many enemies of important men. It was the natural order of society that under the king and the Royal family, the nobles were the most important people. However, as I had discovered, it was possible for a merchant to become rich by bringing exotic goods from the New World, and this was even more evident as the spices from the Spice Islands commanded such high prices when sold in Europe. The people who funded and reaped the benefits of this lucrative trade were merchants such as Cristóbal de Haro who was a Spanish merchant living in Lisbon with interests in India which had made him rich, and Diogo Barbosa. These merchants aspired to the rank of nobility but the king of Portugal disregarded their contribution to the spread of Portuguese influence by refusing to award them honours or titles. Consequently, these merchants had earlier left Portugal and settled in Sevilla where they were awarded positions of honour by Queen Isabella. Magellan arrived in Sevilla in late October 2017, and King Carlos came back to Valladolid from Spain’s territories in Flanders in November 2017. Magellan married the daughter of Diogo Barbosa’s second wife in January 2018. In addition to establishing himself in Sevilla, he became friendly with the head of the Casa de Contratación, Juan de Aranda, and told him of his plans. Juan de Aranda made enquiries in Portugal about Magellan and was convinced that he was of good character and that his idea was sound, so he wrote in secret to the Grand Chancellor of the court of King Carlos, recommending that the king should grant Magellan an audience. Of course, the fact that Magellan had promised him one eighth part of any benefit the expedition might obtain probably contributed to his decision to intercede with the king on behalf of Magellan.

When Falero discovered that Magellan had spoken to Juan de Aranda about his plan, he was furious because they had promised each other that they should not tell anyone about the proposal in case the idea might be taken up by another. However, Falero soon forgave Magellan and they suggested that Juan de Aranda should accompany them to meet the king. Eventually, the king sent a letter granting Magellan an audience. At this audience, Magellan described his plan and showed the king a globe of the world, although he was careful not to point to any particular place where the waterway between the two oceans might exist.

His argument was sufficiently appealing for the king to authorise the expedition. The king wrote to Magellan giving orders about how he should lead the fleet and what he should undertake on this voyage. Later, the contents of the letter were made available to the captains of each nao as instructions in case they became separated from the fleet. This was partly what the king commanded Magellan to comply with: