Magellans Voyage: The First Circumnavigation of the Earth

Five Ships and a Desperate Gamble

On September 20, 1519, five ships carrying 270 men departed the Spanish port of Sanlucar de Barrameda. Their commander, a Portuguese navigator sailing under the Spanish flag, believed he could reach the Spice Islands by sailing west. Three years later, only one ship and 18 men returned. Ferdinand Magellan was not among them. Yet the voyage he launched completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth and reshaped European understanding of the planet's geography.

The expedition was born from commercial ambition. Portugal controlled the eastern route to Asia via the Cape of Good Hope. Spain needed an alternative. Magellan proposed sailing west, passing through a rumored strait at the bottom of South America, and crossing the ocean beyond to reach the Moluccas — the fabled Spice Islands of present-day Indonesia.

The Fleet and Its Provisions

King Charles I of Spain funded the expedition. The fleet consisted of five aging carracks, none longer than 30 meters. Provisions were loaded for a two-year voyage, though the journey would take nearly three.

Mutiny on the Patagonian Coast

The fleet crossed the Atlantic and sailed south along the coast of South America. By March 1520, they anchored at Port San Julian in present-day Argentina to wait out the southern winter. Tensions exploded. Three of the five captains — all Spanish nobles — mutinied against Magellan, a Portuguese outsider commanding a Spanish fleet.

Magellan crushed the rebellion swiftly. One mutineer was killed in a skirmish. Another was executed. A third, Juan de Cartagena, was marooned on the desolate Patagonian shore along with a priest who had supported the mutiny. Their fate remains unknown.

• The crew encountered indigenous Tehuelche people in Patagonia, whom they described as giants due to their tall stature
• The Santiago was lost during a scouting mission south, though most of its crew survived
• Supplies dwindled during the five-month winter stopover
• Magellan maintained discipline through a combination of charisma, ruthlessness, and the promise of wealth

Through the Strait

On October 21, 1520, the fleet entered a narrow waterway at the southern tip of South America. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous passage, which Magellan named the Strait of All Saints. It later bore his name: the Strait of Magellan. The channel stretches 570 kilometers through a labyrinth of islands, fjords, and glacier-fed waters.

During the passage, the San Antonio deserted. Its crew turned the ship around and sailed back to Spain, taking with them a large portion of the fleet's remaining food supplies. Magellan pressed on with three ships.

The Pacific — Vast and Merciless

Emerging from the strait on November 28, 1520, Magellan encountered a calm ocean. He called it the "Mar Pacifico" — the peaceful sea. The name was bitterly ironic. The Pacific crossing lasted 99 days, far longer than anyone had anticipated. No one had grasped the ocean's true size.

The crew ran out of fresh food within weeks. They ate sawdust, leather strips soaked in seawater, and rats — which sold for half a ducat each. Scurvy ravaged the men. Gums swelled. Teeth fell out. Nineteen crew members died before the fleet reached Guam on March 6, 1521.

The Philippines and Magellan's Death

The fleet reached the Philippine archipelago in mid-March 1521. Magellan befriended Rajah Humabon of Cebu, who converted to Christianity along with hundreds of his subjects. Emboldened, Magellan involved himself in a local conflict. On April 27, 1521, he led 49 men in an attack on the island of Mactan.

Chief Lapu-Lapu and roughly 1,500 warriors met them on the beach. Magellan was struck by a bamboo spear, then swarmed. He died in the shallows. He was approximately 41 years old. He never completed the circumnavigation himself.

Elcano Finishes What Magellan Started

After Magellan's death, the surviving crew burned the Concepcion (too few men to sail three ships) and continued with the Trinidad and Victoria. They finally reached the Spice Islands in November 1521. The ships split up: the Trinidad attempted to recross the Pacific and was captured by the Portuguese, while the Victoria, under the command of Juan Sebastian Elcano, sailed west across the Indian Ocean.

• Elcano navigated the Victoria around the Cape of Good Hope, avoiding Portuguese ports to prevent capture
• The crew was so weakened that they struggled to operate the ship
• They stopped at Cape Verde for supplies and lost 13 men to Portuguese authorities
• On September 6, 1522, the Victoria reached Sanlucar de Barrameda with 18 survivors aboard
• The 26 tons of cloves in the hold more than covered the entire expedition's cost

What the Voyage Proved

The expedition provided the first practical proof that the Earth could be circumnavigated by sea. It revealed the true vastness of the Pacific Ocean, which covered more area than all the Earth's landmasses combined. It demonstrated that the Americas were a separate continent, not an extension of Asia. And it confirmed the existence of a navigable, if dangerous, passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian scholar aboard the Victoria, kept a detailed journal. His account remains the primary source for the voyage. He noted that upon returning to Spain, the crew's calendar was one day behind — an observation that puzzled scholars until the concept of the International Date Line was understood centuries later. Magellan's voyage, incomplete for its captain but complete for his ship, drew the first true outline of the world's oceans.