Magellan's Voyage: Part 7 - Coming Home

One must wonder how the remaining sailors felt when they had their spices and sailed for home. On one hand they had their bounty; they were packed to the nines with spices and had succeeded in their mission. On the other, they had a long stretch to go back home and upon their return their reception was questionable at best. Adding an extra element in the mix were the guys that way back in the day  sailed back after performing a mutiny. These sailors returned and bad-mouthed Magellan relentlessly, and since he was a man of Portuguese descent it was believed pretty quickly. Magellan's choices may yet have the remaining crew face treason charges if the mutineers are to be believed, and treason in the 1500s is treated about as well as one would expect. Either way, the stakes were high; best case, a king's ransom, worst case, lengthy jail-time or worse.

The whole route! I once took a long plane trip, and while I don't believe
I deserve as much credit as Magellan, I believe I deserve more than
I've been given.

Unfortunately for them their options were fairly limited. It was either go home or stay on the water, and they wisely chose the former. The Victoria (keep in mind the Trinidad, the other remaining boat, was still docked for repairs) sailed for nine weeks until they reached the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost tip of Africa. Sadly, these are notoriously difficult to navigate waters seeing as they're cold and exceedingly windy, and coupled with the fact that they are literally years into the expedition at this point it's safe to assume the men were pretty tuckered out. It took multiple attempts to finally get the right time and angles to round the cape. While they eventually succeeded it came at a heavy cost; the men had not taken on fresh water and were quite literally dying of thirst.

Meanwhile, the Trinidad was faring little better, having left three months after Victoria. In an ill-advised plan to take their boat northeast in a direction sort-of towards Japan believing there would be

Antonio Pigafetta, the man who wrote
the journal most of this info is based on.
It's a darn good thing he survived or else
we wouldn't know most of it. Perhaps
large neck rings protect you from scurvy.

a connection to North America, they quickly became both lost and scurvy-ridden. Thirty men would die on the boat leaving only twenty on the Trinidad remaining. After seven months of fruitless searching they decided to return to the Moluccas, the Spice Islands. Adding insult to injury they found little respite. The Portuguese had returned to trade and found the sick and downtrodden Spaniards. They quickly arrested the men and confiscated the ship which collapsed in the harbour, ending the expedition for those remaining sailors.

But the Victoria wasn't done - not yet. They stopped off briefly on the west coast of Africa but through a stroke of bad luck ran into a Portuguese trading party. Bear in mind once more the Treaty of Tordesillas, as they were not allowed to be there for it was Portuguese territory. While they arrested some of the men not all of them went on shore, allowing twenty-two to continue the trip. Yes, that's just twenty-two - of the original 260.

For those remaining it was the final stretch. They had seen a lot; 60,000 miles (fifteen times longer than Columbus' trip), a vast variety of native tribes, fought in battles, found new species of animals, witnessed torture, tried a number of exotic fruits (and women), survived horrible diseases and spent a stunning three years at sea. But they made it. On September 10th, 1522, a battered and broken eighteen men returned home. Plus, they came back with 52,000 pounds of cinnamon and cloves. I suppose that's worth mentioning. I guess they had some extra room on board considering pretty much everyone else was killed.

So, how'd they do now that they're back? Well, it's a mixed bag. The guys that mutinied were absolved as most of the crew decided it was the safest route to all stay on one side of the issue and often falsely disparage Magellan. Those that bad-mouthed him were given loads of money and all the

Sir Francis Drake. Because when you hear
of torture, disease and death, there'll always
be some dude who says "sweet, my turn!".

respect that brings; a coat of arms, a mansion and the respect and admiration of Spain. The Magellan loyalists, meanwhile, often got jailed - but only for a time. Now, you would think they would never want to set foot on a boat again but it must have been in their blood. Many ended up returning to sail anyway, a surprising choice considering they had enough adventure for multiple lifetimes.

So what, then, is Magellan's legacy? It's strange. It seems that no matter what time he's in he's not getting what he deserves. In his time he was seen as a dishonest, poor-quality captain who didn't live to see the completion of his voyage - the former likely false, the latter true. Today, he's often seen as a good captain that was the first to sail around the world - the former likely true, the latter false. In my mind, the truth falls in that he shouldn't have the credit for the full-world voyage, but anyone who got as far as he did, defeating mutinies, navigating the strait that was named after him, and making mostly good decisions until his final one, he's got to be pretty darn good at what he does. After all, it would be another fifty-eight years before another circumnavigation would be completed by Sir Francis Drake.

He used, of course, the Strait of Magellan.

-------------------------

The information for this blog came from Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen. I'm not sure why I picked it up in the first place, but I'm darn glad I did. It's a heck of a book, and if you get the chance you should give it a read.