The Voyage of Magellan

April 26 – 27, 1521

By April 26, 1521, Magellan’s ships had been anchored in Cebu City for almost three weeks, and yet the normally impatient captain general had revealed no plans to press on anytime soon. This suited the sailors just fine. After so many months of danger and hardship, they were more than happy to enjoy their Filipino hosts’ wine, women, and song for as long as Magellan wished to remain. Feted and favored as they were at every turn, it was easy for them to forget that they were barely 100 men in all, surrounded by countless thousands of Filipinos. In other words, it was the Europeans who were dependent on the kindness and forbearance of the Filipinos, not the other way around. To be sure, their muskets and cannons would constitute a potent force against the arrows, javelins, and spears with which their hosts fought their wars, but even these fruits of technology wouldn’t be able to erase the enormous disparity in numbers if the Filipinos became sufficiently determined to put an end to the strangers in their midst.

No one had these realities less at top of mind than Magellan himself on this fine April day. Having finished his usual morning sermon, he went to eat his customary lunch with his blood brother King Humabon. There he was introduced to a crown prince from Mactan, an island of 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) that is separated from Cebu City only by a narrow strait. The two chieftains who shared Mactan between them were both pledged vassals of Humabon, but one of them was proving more obedient than the other. Over the meal, the young prince explained that his father, whose name was Sula, was ready to be baptized a Christian whenever the visitors could get around to it, but that Sula’s counterpart, whose name was Lapu Lapu, was stubbornly recalcitrant.

Humabon himself was less concerned about this situation than he had been about the village which Magellan had recently helped him to forcibly convert to Christianity. He explained to Magellan that Lapu Lapu could indeed be stubborn at times, but that he generally came around when was all said and done. Magellan, however, was not so patient as the king of Cebu City. Flying into another of the rages that were becoming more and more commonplace with him, he thundered that Lapu Lapu was endangering not just his own soul but those of all of his people. He must be made an example of immediately. Taken aback, Humabon tried to soothe his angry guest. It seemed to him reasonable to presume that, after living for so many generations without knowing of Jesus Christ, these Filipinos of Mactan could live in ignorance a few weeks longer while Lapu Lapu was cajoled into accepting the inevitable.

But this logic only made Magellan more irate. “We will bring the holy word to all of Mactan tonight!” he shouted, his fist pounding the table. He would return to his ships to put together an assault force, which he would then lead personally. Reluctantly, Humabon agreed to provide 1000 of his own warriors to support the white men and their muskets and crossbows.

Back aboard the Trinidad, Magellan called his officers to a council of war. Almost to a man, they were appalled when he told them that he intended to lead 60 sailors — over half of the number who remained with the fleet — in an amphibious invasion that very night. His harsh handling of Duerte Barbosa, who was still in chains in the hold of the Victoria, had been one thing; this was something else entirely. The worst of it — and the surest sign of all that something inside Magellan had fundamentally shifted — was his insistence on leading the attack personally. That Ferdinand Magellan was no coward was amply attested by his adventures as a Portuguese officer in the Indian Ocean during his younger years. Yet he had consistently understood over the course of this long expedition that his role as its commander demanded that he stay back from the action. Until, that is, today. He really seemed to believe himself to have been made invulnerable by the armor of God in which he had so ostentatiously clad himself of late.

Gómez de Espinosa and Captain Serrano in particular did their level best to dissuade Magellan from his plan. “I think we must balance the risks against the rewards,” said Espinosa cautiously. “We will gain a minor advantage only from a victory, but a defeat would be disastrous to all of our plans.” Serrano reminded Magellan that they had barely enough sailors left to adequately crew their three remaining ships as it was. They simply couldn’t afford to lose any more men, even if the assault ultimately proved a success. Espinosa chimed in again to point out that they really didn’t know for sure whether or how well Humabon’s support force would fight, and that the 60 of their own men whom they could count on absolutely could be all too easily overwhelmed by potentially thousands of Filipino defenders, fighting on terrain which they knew and the Europeans did not. Even the admittedly immense advantage of their muskets would only get them so far against such a gross disparity in numbers. But in response to these eminently reasonable arguments, Magellan raged so violently that everyone present soon shut up, lest they wind up in chains next to Barbosa.

“Who volunteers to join the attack?” asked Magellan, dark eyes sweeping across the company. Of the dozen or so officers assembled, only his loyal relative Cristóvão Rebêlo, the ever-enthusiastic Antonio Pigafetta, and a far less enthused but duty-conscious Gómez de Espinosa, who knew that the attackers had a better chance of avoiding catastrophe with him than without him, raised their hands. Magellan looked at the others with an expression that dripped scorn, while everyone waited for him to begin requisitioning his volunteers from their ranks. But much to his underlings’ relief, he merely stormed off muttering under his breath, his peculiar, staccato gait echoing through the decking of the ship like musket fire.

A short distance away, back in his palace in the heart of Cebu City, King Humabon was holding a council of his own at the very same time. It was true that he had become blood brothers with Magellan, but he didn’t like his foreign friend’s increasingly highhanded tone. Meanwhile keen observation had convinced him over the past few weeks that this tiny Spanish fleet in his harbor was less the tip of an imperial spear than just a trio of ragtag wanderers. And as for this vaunted Christianity, it was for him still an abstraction to be used for practical advantage, not any rock of life. In short, Humabon could see advantages in whatever happened on Mactan. If Magellan defeated Lapu Lapu, it would echo throughout the Philippines that Humabon himself was no more to be trifled with than his powerful friend. And if things went the other way and Lapu Lapu massacred the invaders, it would leave the Spanish ships sitting there in his harbor ripe for the taking, with the majority of their defenders already dead. Then, too, it would be interesting in itself to see how well the foreigners’ weapons actually did against the army of Lapu Lapu…

At the end of the council, Humabon issued his own final orders. He told his commanders to hang back from the battle rather than rushing into the fray right behind the foreigners. Initially at least, they were merely to observe what transpired. Only if the battle was clearly going the invaders’ way were they to make a show of joining in.

At midnight, twenty confused, discomfited European sailors descended into each of the three longboats, leaving the mother ships to continue riding peacefully at anchor there in the harbor of Cebu City. About half of the men clutched muskets nervously, the others heavy crossbows. Magellan himself stood at the prow of one of the boats. He had abandoned his priestly vestments for a metal breastplate and helmet that glinted in the rays of moonshine which occasionally peeked through an overcast sky. A sword was sheathed at his side; he looked like a knight from the heyday of chivalry, like King Arthur rising out of the mists of Avalon. Just behind him sat the ever-faithful Enrique. The slave had said nothing during the debates aboard the flagship, but something in his impassive manner nevertheless suggested the same profound unease which just about everyone was feeling. As the longboats passed through the mouth of the harbor in the muggy night air, they were joined by about 30 more Filipino boats, stuffed with 30 or more warriors each, bristling with spears and bows and arrows.

The first light of rosy-fingered dawn found the mismatched armada floating on the placid ocean off the northern coast of Mactan. Lapu Lapu’s capital lay a short distance inland; only a small fishing village could be seen on the beach itself. At the previous afternoon’s council of war, Espinosa had pressed for a surprise ambush that would maximize the shock and awe of the Europeans’ exotic weaponry, only to have Magellan inform him that he had already agreed with Humabon to send one more Filipino envoy to Lapu Lapu before initiating hostilities, to offer him one last chance to agree to be baptized and thereby to defuse the crisis.

So, as arranged, one of the Filipino boats made for the beach. The sailors watched as several dark figures climbed out and proceeded up the trail that led to the capital. After a delay of more than two tense hours, they saw the same party coming back. When their boat returned to the armada, the delegation informed Magellan through Enrique that Lapu Lapu was more defiant than ever, that he had in fact dared the Europeans to try to force this God of theirs upon him.

With this disappointing news, the sinking feeling which Espinosa had had in the pit of his stomach for the past fifteen hours grew that much worse. All the would-be negotiators had succeeded in doing was advertising the coming attack to the defenders. The tide had gone out while the envoys were about their business, revealing rocks and reefs that would compel the longboats to discharge their human cargo well out from the shore, in water that was chest high or deeper. The beach itself still lay silent and deserted, a sight which seemed to Espinosa more ominous than an opposing army would have. For just above the beach the impenetrably thick jungle began. He knew exactly how he would spring the trap if he was in Lapu Lapu’s position. Espinosa hectored the captain general’s proud back, trying again to get him to reconsider an attack that, now that he had seen the geography in question, struck him as more ill-advised than ever.

Even as he was doing so, the longboats were drawing closer and closer to the point of disembarkation. At last, Magellan turned around. His face was a livid, wrathful red. “Silence!” he yelled. “Or be charged with mutiny!” Espinosa dropped to his seat as if he had been dealt a physical blow. Could this be the same man with whom he had once worked so well, with whom he had so masterfully fended off another, all too real mutiny a year ago at Puerto San Julián? Looking behind their own vessel, he saw that the boats of their alleged Filipino allies had made no move to leave their stations, but he dared not bring this to his captain general’s attention now. Not that he believed that it would make any difference anyway.

The longboats reached the point where they could go no further without splintering their bottoms on the rocks. With a shout, Magellan leaped over the gunwale, Enrique following close on his heels. Some 50 sailors then did the same with considerably more trepidation, Rebêlo, Pigafetta, and Espinosa among them. The three or four men who had stayed behind in each of the longboats turned their charges’ noses away from the island as soon as the last man had hit the water, doubtless happy that they did not have to do the same.

The attackers labored awkwardly through the water and rubble toward the land, holding their muskets above their heads in order to keep them dry, with the big, thankfully watertight bags of shot and powder that were slung around their necks further weighing them down. They staggered one by one up onto the beach, which was still ominously empty.

But not for long. Just as the last few stragglers escaped the surf, the crashing of the waves was drowned out by terrifying, whooping war cries, as the ambush which Epinosa had foreseen all along began. Lapu Lapu’s warriors swept down out of the jungle from left, right, and center. These were no jungle savages; this was a well-disciplined, seasoned army. Every third man carried a big wooden shield behind which he and two other men sheltered, the ones who had their hands free peeking around it to shoot arrows and throw javelins and spears. One of these javelins came whistling through the air to find the neck of Cristóvão Rebêlo. He collapsed to the sand, staining it red with his life blood.

Magellan looked at his young relative as he gurgled out his last breaths. And then, at this extreme exigency, something seemed to snap back into place inside him. Suddenly Magellan the zealot became Magellan the military man again, the gruff but supremely competent old soldier who always knew what he was about and never left a man behind. “Get down! Get down!” he shouted, whereupon his men all joined the unfortunate Rebêlo on their bellies behind the sand dunes that rose up just beyond the waterline. This bought them a reprieve of a minute or two, by placing them out of the line of sight of the advancing army for the time being.

Magellan yelled and waved at Epinosa, then pointed to the fishing village that lay a short distance further up the shoreline. It was a redoubt that the sailors might just be able to defend for a while with the aid of their muskets. Communicating almost telepathically, as they had in earlier days, the two seasoned soldiers led the sailors on a crouching sprint to the village, whose residents had all fled to escape the fighting that they knew was coming. A few more of the sailors were cut down as they crossed the open ground, but most of them made it unscathed. The last to reach the village was Magellan himself, whose limp made him and Enrique, who would on no account be separated from his master, the slowest of the runners by far.

Magellan and Espinosa made a quick survey of their new surroundings with their practiced soldiers’ eyes. They set up gunners and archers at the most favorable positions: inside or under the houses on stilts, behind fences and in sandy hollows, anyplace where they could take a shot at the enemy without exposing themselves unduly. These men now laid down a covering fire while other sailors moved around the outer perimeter of the village with their tinderboxes, setting fire to all of the outermost structures, which burned blessedly easily. Soon the orange and red flames were blooming up high, the Europeans crouching behind their wall of fire, eyes reddened and faces blackened by the heat, smoke, and soot, a scene out of Dante.

It was now obvious that King Humabon’s army had betrayed them, that they were all alone out here on this cruel beach with their backs to the sea, outnumbered by ten, twenty, or thirty to one. Magellan and Espinosa saw just one chance of escaping the trap into which they had so obliviously walked: if they could hold out until the tide came in, the longboats would be able to come very close to the edge of the seaside village. It was just a matter of surviving for the next few hours, until the rising tide and their loyal shipmates could save them.

Fortunately for them, the enemy was slow to cotton onto this last-ditch hope. Knowing that they had the Europeans pinned down and surrounded, Lapu Lapu’s warriors saw no reason to take unnecessary risks. They drew a cordon around the village, but they didn’t charge it yet. Eventually the Europeans would run out of buildings to burn, and then they would become much easier prey.

For their part, Magellan and Espinosa too were keenly aware that neither their supply of tinder to feed the flames nor their supply of ammunition to feed their muskets and crossbows was infinite. They conducted their defense like a maestro does an orchestra, always with an eye to minimizing the quantity of powder and shot that was used to keep the enemy at bay. The sailors were under strict orders not to fire until one of their two senior officers, who rotated through the village constantly to keep tabs on the movements of the enemy, tapped them on the shoulder. In this way the minutes crawled past with agonizing slowness, while the ammunition stocks slowly but inexorably dwindled and the sailors set fire to more and more of the village, creating a brimstone noose that tightened around them as relentlessly as the ring of Filipino warriors. Nonetheless, time did march on, and the waterline did move equally inexorably back up the beach. One hour passed, then two.

The bolts for the crossbows ran out first. After that one musket fell silent, then another. Only a couple of unburnt buildings now remained, behind and under which the sailors were all clustered. Magellan knew the enemy was likely to charge soon. He looked back, weighing the distance that still lay between the village and the line of the tide. It was now or never, he knew.

He picked up from the ground where he had tossed it the neatly furled flag of Spain which he had brought with him, intending to plant it at the heart of Lapu Lapu’s capital. Walking dangerously far from the cover offered by the burning village, he unfurled it and waved it over his head in the direction of the longboats, which were clearly visible out to sea. Throughout the battle, they had been out there hovering around nervously, having no idea what to do to help their ecomrades. Now, though, they received their captain general’s message loud and clear. They came about until their prows were pointed directly toward him.

Magellan had just planted the flag in the ground and turned to run for cover when an arrow arced in and caught him in the thigh. He tumbled backward onto the sand, the ugly black shaft sticking out of the limb. Pigafetta, who wasn’t entrusted with any weaponry and thus had had little to do in the battle to this point, ran to his captain general. As he did so, an arrow grazed his cheek; had there been an inch of difference in its trajectory, Pigafetta would have been dead, taking his invaluable chronicle of the expedition to the grave with him. Heedless of more arrows which were falling all around him, he grabbed Magellan by the wrists and dragged him back up the beach to join the others.

“Pull it out! Pull it out!” Magellan hissed up at him through gritted teeth.

“What?” exclaimed Pigafetta with wide eyes. “But you’ll bleed out!”

Suddenly Enrique was on the scene. He said just one word: “Poison!” Bracing a foot against the leg of a building, he gripped the arrow with both hands and yanked brutally. As the arrow was ripped out of the leg a sharp cry of pain was ripped out of the captain general. Throwing the deadly shaft aside, Enrique dropped to his knees, tore off his shirt, and tied it tightly around the wound.

Magellan reached out to grasp his slave’s arm. “Help me up!” he grunted. And so he resumed his direction of the battle, leaning now on Enrique’s shoulder. The crude tourniquet was soon saturated. Blood streamed down Magellan’s ankle and his face grew increasingly ashen, but he remained on his feet.

The cloud of smoke above and around the village made it hard for the Filipinos to see the water beyond it. Thus it wasn’t until the longboats, propelled by sails and frantically thrashing oars, had just about touched bottom that the warriors realized what was about to happen. When they did, though, they didn’t hesitate for another second. Resuming their blood-curdling war whoops, they finally advanced toward the village en masse.

Seeing and hearing this horrifying host closing in, Magellan barked an order to Espinosa which the others didn’t catch. The latter then moved swiftly from sailor to sailor, tapping each man on the shoulder, pointing toward the longboats, and shouting a monosyllabic order: “Run!” The sailors didn’t need to be told twice. A ragged line of retreating men soon stretched along the beach. The six or so gunners among the Europeans who still had ammunition slowed the Filipinos by firing into their packed ranks, dropping several of their number.

At last there remained only these six gunners inside the perimeter of the village, along with Magellan, Espinosa, Enrique, and Pigafetta. Alone among those who had been ordered to leave, Pigafetta had ignored the command, despite a painful proof of Enrique’s warning about poisoned arrows, in the form of a cheek that had swollen up so big that he could no longer see out of one eye. Now, Magellan grabbed Enrique and Pigafetta both, one with either hand, and shoved them so hard toward the longboats that Pigafetta landed face-first on the ground. “Go, for the love of God!” he shouted. “You can do nothing more here! Save yourselves!” Both ran.

Magellan spoke more quietly to Espinosa. “You too, my friend,” he said. “You will be needed in the days ahead.” Then, just as Epinosa was about to obey the last command his captain general would ever give him, Magellan made a more ambiguous statement: “Enrique shall have his freedom.” And then Espinosa ran too.

The enemy was inside the village now, tramping through the ashes and embers, howling madly, their blood lust reignited by the several of their number whom the gunners had managed to hit during the charge. Said gunners laid down a last volley of covering fire; two more Filipinos slumped to the ground. Then: “Go!” came the shout from Magellan. They went.

Drawing his sword, Magellan stood stock still behind the dying ring of fire. He was all alone now.

The first Filipinos burst through the wall of flames. One drove his lance directly into Magellan’s face, shattering bones and teeth and cartilage. His sword tumbled to the ground, but the proud knight did not fall. He grabbed the shaft of the lance, tore it from the grip of its owner, and drove it deep into the man’s chest, pinning him twitching to the ground. The rest of the warriors swarmed around him. A spear pierced his arm. Another pierced his leg near where the arrow had struck him, and finally he toppled forward. As the life ebbed out of this stubborn, humorless, arrogant, bold, brave, cunning knight of Christ under a hail of blows, kicks, and stabs, so too ebbed away his Medieval dream of a Christian dominion in Asia to rival that of any Crusader to the Holy Land. By way of ironic recompense, that dream was to be replaced in the course of time by fame for a feat of navigation which he had never set out to accomplish, one whose importance to a rapidly globalizing post-Medieval world he could scarcely have understood.

While Magellan was making his last stand, his sailors were milling around the longboats there where the land met the sea. Some leaped headfirst over the gunwales; some were dragged aboard by their companions. The last of the waders helped to push the boats back out to sea, clambering aboard at the last minute, just as the water was about to close over their heads. Arrows plunked into the ocean all around them, but few found their targets amidst the confusion. When he had time to take a tally, Espinosa would learn that just seven men were missing from those who had been landed that morning. They had been miraculously lucky by any conventional standard.

But it didn’t feel that way. As the longboats moved out of range of the enemy’s weapons, the sailors could see the Filipinos still jostling over Magellan’s armor and sword there on the retreating shoreline.

Ferdinand Magellan was dead.  And with him, the expedition had lost its “mirror, light, comfort, and true guide,” as a heartbroken Antonio Pigafetta would write in his journal that evening. What on Earth were they going to do now?

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