Magellan, Ferdinand

Magellan, Ferdinand (1480-1521), Portuguese explorer.

In 1518, a small, dark man with a limp appeared before King Charles V of Spain and asked him for ships for a voyage of discovery to the East Indies.

He was a soldier from Portugal, aged thirty-eight, and his name was Ferdinand Magellan. He had served with the Portuguese army in India and fought in many battles. He had also fought against the Moors in Morocco and received a wound making him lame for life.

Magellan had travelled as far east as Malacca, near Singapore, and he said he knew of a secret strait leading past the New World of America to the Indies. Charles V liked Magellan's plan. He gave him five ships, enough food for two years and promised him one twentieth of the profits made by the voyage.

Magellan sailed from Seville on 20 September, 1519, with his five small ships, Conception, San Antonio, Santiago, Trinidad and Victoria and 260 men.

In October 1520, he discovered the passage to the south of America, now called the Strait of Magellan, and sailed through this into the South Sea, as it was then called. Magellan renamed it the Pacific (peaceful) Ocean because it seemed so calm after the rough waters in the strait. Magellan now had only three ships. The Santiago had been wrecked and the San Antonio had turned back to Spain.

For ninety-two days afterwards, the explorers saw no land apart from two desert islands. They ran out of food and fell short of water and had to eat sawdust, rats and even leather from their equipment. Finally they reached the Ladrones. They sailed on to the Philippine Islands and there, on 27 April, 1521, Magellan was killed in a battle on the island of Mactan.

Afterwards, his three ships sailed on and reached the Moluccas (Spice Islands). But the Conception began to leak and was burned, and the Trinidad needed repairs. The Victoria went on alone with Sebastian Del Cano as captain and only seventeen other sailors. They reached Seville on 7 September, 1522 having made the first voyage around the world. The Victoria carried a cargo of spices worth £186,000.

See Stuart Waldman Magellan's World