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500 years ago: Magellan's voyage that showed the world is round

2022-09-11 17:18:06Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

 

500 years ago: Magellan's voyage that showed the world is round
Only one ship returned from Magellan's fleet

 

The year 2022 marks the 500th anniversary of Magellan and Elcano's circumnavigation – an important moment in history because it showed that the world is round.

Two years and eleven months and two weeks traveled the ship "Victoria" loaded by the Spanish kingdom. The ship was one of the five ships with which Captain Fernão de Magalhães, known today as Ferdinand Magellan, began the journey in September 1519, departing from Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain. Magellan's mission was to find routes from the western coast to the Indonesian Moluccan Islands, to obtain cloves, nutmeg and pepper, expensive spices at the time. Magellan was no longer alive when the ship returned in 1522, as was most of the 244-man crew. However, even today he is seen as a pioneer of world travel.

500 years ago: Magellan's voyage that showed the world is round
Ferdinand Magellan was killed by a poison arrow

Experienced and charismatic fighter

Magellan, born in northern Portugal in 1480, was Catholic and belonged to the lower aristocratic class. From a young age, he proved himself to be fit for military missions. With the Portuguese spice fleet and war fleet he arrived in India and the Malay Peninsula for the first time. For eight consecutive years he fought in the colonial battles of Asia and North Africa.

After 1517, Ferdinand Magellan, angry with his Portuguese king, sailed under the Spanish flag. He now took orders from King Charles I, later known as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. "The Spanish theologian and writer Bartolomé de Las Casas describes Magellan as short and inconspicuous," says historian Christian Jostmann for Deutsche Welle. But he possessed extraordinary charisma: "When it came down to it, he was a great salesman and actor, able to convince others of his big ideas and goals." It is no wonder then that the sailor was able to convince the Spanish king to finance his trip to the Moluccas.

500 years ago: Magellan's voyage that showed the world is round
Magellan's fleet

A "suicide mission"

"To get rich, to create Spanish colonies, to Christianize and to pass to the upper classes, with these goals Magellan went to sea," says historian Christoph Jostmann. In his book "Magellan: or the first voyage around the world" he vividly describes how the initiator and other fellow travelers experienced the first voyage around the world with storms, lack of wind, hunger, thirst, sickness, revolts on board and deadly conflicts with indigenous peoples. “This was not about maritime romance,” says Jostmann: “They lived with about 50 people for months in a holzbotich, which had maybe 150 square meters of floor space, no sanitary facilities, no kitchen and no living room. private. The food was simple, there was no health care, and the insecurity was so great that the mission seemed suicidal."

The fleet sailed first to the Canary Islands, then along the African coast to Sierra Leone. In the strait they crossed the Atlantic and arrived in the South American continent, where Rio de Janeiro is located today.

They then sailed along the South American east coast. A difficult mission: the fleet had to spend the winter, the supply became more and more difficult, the atmosphere on board more and more bad. There were no shortage of revolts.

Seaway to the West

Magellan persisted: On October 21, 1520 he discovered a cape and sailed between the southern tip of the South American continent and the island of Feuerland in a maze of intertwining waterways. The first ship was lost, another ship took advantage of the lack of visibility to return to Spain. But Magellan finally found the long-sought passage: a barely visible sea strait that flows from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, known today as the Magellan Way. It took the reduced Armada six weeks to reach the Pacific Ocean.

From the south-east of the Pacific Ocean the voyage continued for three and a half months along an arc towards the north-west, during which they encountered no inhabited islands. Hunger, thirst and disease claimed the lives of 19 people before the ships were refueled in one of the Mariana Islands.

500 years ago: Magellan's voyage that showed the world is round
Replica of Magellan's ship

Finally, the crew of 150 remaining sailors arrived on March 21, 1521 in the Philippines, being the first Europeans to set foot there, for Magellan this was the last stop of the voyage. He wanted to conquer the rich islands to turn them into Spanish possessions, perhaps later becoming their governor himself. But when Magellan tried to take a village by war, a poisoned arrow shot him dead and took his life on April 27. The remaining ships hurriedly put out to sea.

Completion of the trip around the world

Commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano the two ships sailed from the Philippines to the Spice Islands. There they got the desired goods. Elcano chose to return the dangerous route around the Cape of Good Hope, the second remaining ship was lost on the way. Nearly three years after the Armada left the Moluccas, Elcano successfully completed the round-the-world voyage begun by Magellan, but not planned by him.

"Victoria" arrived on September 6, 1522 at the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, from where it had departed. The nearly 20 sailors who survived the voyage gained fame for the first historic circumnavigation, which simultaneously proved that the world is round. The western road has since that time been named after the Portuguese sailor: Magellan's Road.

Klaus Krämer, Stefan Dege/DW

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