[New-Poetry] Magellan

[Anny Ballardini]

from Keillor's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1519 that *Ferdinand Magellan departed on the first
successful circumnavigation of the world*, although Magellan himself didn't
live to see the end of the expedition. He was looking for a westward route
to the spice markets of the Indies. He was Portuguese, but the king of
Portugal refused to fund his expedition, so he convinced the teenaged king
of Spain, Charles I, to sponsor him, and he told Charles that he would make
Spain the richest nation on earth. He set off with five ships and 270 men.
The Spanish captains didn't trust Magellan because he was Portuguese, a
foreigner, and three of them plotted to kill Magellan. He stopped the mutiny
by imprisoning the ringleader, Cartagena, aboard a different ship. They
reached South America by December and spent the winter in Patagonia, where
one of the captains freed Cartagena, and they led another mutiny. Magellan
marooned Cartagena in Patagonia, executed the remaining rebels, and set off
to look for a passage to the other side of the continent.

In May, one of his ships was wrecked in bad weather, but the other four
sailed through a strait that Magellan named All Saints' — it was later
renamed the Strait of Magellan. It took them 38 days to make it through the
strait, and during that time, one of the ships' captains turned his ship
around to sail back to Spain, taking with him most of the provisions for the
whole fleet. But the remaining three ships got to the other side and emerged
into the ocean, and Magellan named the ocean the Pacific because it was so
calm. Magellan thought the Pacific was small; he thought they could cross it
and reach the Spice Islands in two or three days. But it actually took four
months. They arrived in the Philippines in March of 1521. Magellan made
friends with a local king, agreed to help him attack the neighboring island,
and was killed during the battle with that tribe. There were three ships
left, and 115 men.

After Magellan died, Sebastian del Cano took over as captain, and since
there weren't enough men left to crew three ships, he had one of the ships
burned. They left the Philippines in May and made it to the Moluccas, the
Spice Islands, six months later. Del Cano wanted to make sure that at least
one ship made it back to Spain, so he sent one back, east across the
Pacific, and the other one continued west. The eastward-bound ship was
attacked by the Portuguese, who killed most of the crew. The westward-bound
ship crossed the Indian Ocean, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, and
arrived in Spain almost three years after it had departed with Magellan. One
ship and 18 men were all that remained, but it was the first vessel to
circumnavigate the globe.

Most of what we know about the voyage comes from an Italian crewmember named
Antonio Pigafetta, who was a supporter of Magellan and kept a detailed
diary. He was also one of the 18 men to survive the journey.
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