Did Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigate the globe?

Upvote:3

In the Philippines, some of my teachers have already settled this fact.

  1. Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the world in two trips. He was the second do it in two trips. (first, his ventures in Ternate and second trip, the expedition from 1519 to his death in 1521).
  2. Sebastian de Cano circumnavigated the world in one trip.
  3. Enrique of Malacca (Magellan's Malay slave and their interpreter) circumnavigated the world. He was the first to do it in two trips. (He originally lived in the Malay archipelago, returned to Malay archipelago in the expedition making him ahead of Magellan).

Upvote:6

Even if Magellan did reach points further east than where he died, nonetheless, he himself never circumnavigated the Globe:

Circumnavigate

To sail or fly around; make the circuit of by navigation: to circumnavigate the earth.

Circumnavigation means completing a circuit: A circular journey whereby you end up at the point where you started out - going around the world.

If Magellan managed to get further east than where he died in the Phillipines, this would have been when he travelled from India with Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, a Portuguese official who was sent to India and embarked on journies further east, from India. If so, during those trips Magellan was coming from the west via India, as opposed to his famous, ill fated attempt at circumnavigation, which was a separate journey during which he traversed first the Atlantic and then the Pacific, arriving in the Philippines from the east.

So there was never a circular voyage, but two separate ones, which in totality span the globe, and are mapped approximately as two arcs which might converge or run parallel to one another at some point:

One of about 300 degrees, starting at a point east:

Spain->Atlantic->Pacific->Philippines;

Another of about 60 degrees, starting at a point west:

Portugal->Arabian Sea (presumably)->India->Indian Ocean->Points East??

So Magellan never went around the world. Were this not the case, when on his voyage from Spain going westward, Magellan could have claimed circumnavigation as soon as he reached a point further east than he had in his previous travels.

It might also be contended that even if one made two voyages from east to west or vice versa, such that in their totality they spanned the globe, but they were entirely separate endeavors with a significant lapse of time between them, (as were Magellan's) this would not be considered circumnavigation.

For example: If one went on a military expedition from Portugal to Goa via the Arabian Sea, laid over in Goa for ten years, and then hitched a ride on a whaling vessel through the Pacific, the Atlantic and back home to Portugal - difficult to call this circumnavigation in the sense of the Age of Discovery, since there would be little or no connection between the two voyages such that they could be considered a circuit.

Upvote:8

Long story short, yes, he did. He was for a brief time military counsellor for the sultan of Ternate (around 1512). Ternate lies on longitude 127 East.

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