IO PIGAFETTA[32]

Ferdinand Magellan, whose name in Portuguese was Fernao de
Magalhaes, was born in Portugal about 1480. After serving
with the Portuguese in the East Indies, 1505-1512, and in
Morocco, 1514, where during an action he was lamed for life,
he became disaffected toward his country, and in 1517
renounced his allegiance and turned to Spain in hope of
better reward for his services. In conjunction with a
fellow-countryman, Ruy Faleiro, a geographer and astronomer,
he offered to find for Spain the Moluccas, in the Malay
Archipelago, and to prove that they were within the Spanish
and not the Portuguese lines of demarcation. The acceptance
of this proposal by the Emperor, Charles V, who was also
King of Spain, gave Magellan the opportunity, which he so
well improved, to immortalize his name in the annals of
maritime discovery.

While the specific object of the expedition failed on
account of the leader's death, his performance made him
worthy, as some historians think, to be considered "the most
undaunted and in many respects the most extraordinary man
that ever traversed an unknown sea."

A squadron of five ships with two hundred sixty-five men was
fitted out by the Emperor, and the two friends were named as
joint commanders, but Faleiro was afterward detached from
the expedition, leaving full command to Magellan, who sailed
from San Lucar, Spain, September 20, 1519, first touching at
Madeira.

Magellan passed through the straits that bear his name and
so penetrated to the Pacific, that ocean being first so
called by him. He was the first European to reach it from
the Atlantic. Magellan was killed by natives in the
Philippines, April 27, 1521; but his ships continued their
course. One by one they were lost from the expedition,
except the Victoria, on which was Pigafetta, who wrote for
Charles V an account of the voyage. The Victoria returned to
Spain in September, 1522, completing the first
circumnavigation of the earth. Bautista was pilot and
afterward captain of the Trinidad, one of the lost vessels.

In 1898 the Philippines and Guam, one of the Ladrones, were
acquired by the United States as a result of the
Spanish-American War.

JOAN BAUTISTA

Magellan steered to the southwest to make the island