Magellan's Voyage: Part 6 - The Show Must Go On

With their captain general dead and soundly defeated at the hands of a Filipino tribe, the Europeans were left to return to their boats and to lick their wounds. Fortunately, they were still friends with the guys who split off from Lapu Lapu, the ones that originally sided with the travellers. Some time after the loss they were invited to a banquet hosted by the group, likely to plot a course of action from then on - which is to say, let them deal with it while the explorers fled. But hey, free food is free food, and beggars can't be choosers.

The people liked Enrique enough to make a
statue of him, but not enough to bring it
out from the back of a junior high
art room, apparently.

There was a wrench in the works, however. Magellan had a slave by the name of Enrique. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal; slaves were common and if it weren't for the upcoming events he probably would never have been mentioned. The reason for his importance is that when Magellan died, it's logical that he then would be freed, no longer belonging to a master seeing as they didn't even know what happened to the master's corpse. That didn't fly for the people on board, though, and the judge and jury are pretty much whoever is holding the biggest weapon when you're on a boat far from your home. Telling him that he's not to be freed meant that Enrique wasn't too pleased, so he decided to take a trip to the land and meet with Humabon, the leader of the Euro-friendly Filipino tribe.

You know, the tribe that is now against the powerful Lapu Lapu and associated with a bunch of Europeans that maybe didn't live up to their fighting potential. And, you know, maybe a tribe leader that would be more than happy to get back into the good graces of Lapu Lapu by proving his loyalty. Yeah, that's the guy Enrique is meeting with, Enrique being the spited slave that should have been freed. They got to talking.

Lo and behold, the banquet was an ambush. Twenty-seven men were killed, leaving the numbers of the shattered European expedition down to a slim 115. It seemed time to leave, seeing that in spite of things starting so darn well they took a turn for the worse with nothing but the deaths of their captain general and dozens of other men. Seeing one of their ships was in such rough shape that it was beyond repair, they set fire to it so it wouldn't fall into the hands of their enemies and set sail for Brunei, hoping that it would fare better for them than the Philippines. The bar was pretty low.

While on the way they had to decide on a new captain, seeing as the other one was... incapacitated. Joao Lopes Carvalho was named the head honcho, but he had his faults. He lacked the discipline and moral aptitude of Magellan, as well as lacking the respect of his men, a problem that not so much festers as blows up very quickly.

Nevertheless, they found their way to Brunei on July 9th and met the ruler, a man who considered himself an enemy of Spain. Fortunately, they had a number of Portuguese on board and passed themselves off as friendlies rather than rivals, finally having a use for the two countries of origin on board that had caused so many difficulties thus far. Treated like royalty, they were taken around the place on elephant back and given their first hint of the long awaited spices. The king doted on them, using the Europeans as a means to show his power and wealth to the other leaders in the area - to no complaint of the Europeans, of course.

A replica of Magellan's boat Victoria. It probably didn't have the Japanese
flag in real life. But hey, stranger things have happened.

Unfortunately, once more miscommunication reared its ugly head. When returning to their ships one day in Brunei they realized they were surrounded by a number of warriors and a few junks (smallish, fairly weak ships of Chinese origin). Thinking they were surrounded and about to be attacked, they destroyed a junk and accepted the surrender of another through a bribe of its captain, keeping the boat and its belongings. When confronting the king later he said they were meant to go fight elsewhere and they simply got in the way, repaying his hospitality with brutishness. I think that's what you call a diplomatic "oopsie."

Pushing the issue further, the new captain Carvalho decided it seemed like a good plan to kidnap sixteen prisoners and three local hotties to have as his own personal harem onboard one of the ships. Magellan could easily have done this, but wisely decided against it as it would be a divisive issue between him and the crew. Carvalho lacked the wisdom and self-sacrifice of Magellan, and instead bribed the officers who darn near killed him for the action. He kept his life but lost all authority, and was told to step down in favour of a new man, Juan Sebastian Elcano. After having one captain for so long, they switched another one out in less than a month.

Just throwing this out there: cloves are by no
stretch of the imagination worth this trouble.

Elcano decided that after thirty five days it was time to leave, not forgetting that the spice islands were surely close. After "convincing" some captains to help them - you know, by capturing their ships and demanding they lead them - the expedition finally heard there was a direct path to the spice islands. On November 6th, 1521, at long last, they found them. They had lost three ships and over a hundred men and spent twenty-seven months reaching them, but they arrived. Landing in Tidore island, they immediately began trading for spices using much of what they took from the Chinese junk they brought along with them to exchange. And boy, did they exchange. Trading with the king, Almanzor, they hauled in a stunning 1,400 pounds of cloves. This would be enough to make them rich, their children rich, and their children's children rich - but there still lay one huge obstacle in front of them: getting back.

With two boats remaining they surveyed the damage. The Trinidad had sprung a leak they couldn't find for the life of them and would have to stay docked for some time. It could take months. The Victoria, meanwhile, was in awful shape but could leave on a more immediate basis. The plan was to sail straight back, but that would go through Portuguese waters and thus violate that pesky treaty of Tordesillas from the beginning. The other option was to go to the Americas and mule the spices across for a ship to pick them up from there. They opted for the former, and the Victoria set sail with her cache of cloves, heading back in a direction that would be ten thousand miles alone at sea.