27/04/2021
Today, 500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan died.
After several weeks in the Philippines, Magellan had converted as many as 2,200 locals to Christianity, including Rajah Humabon of Cebu and most leaders of the islands around Cebu. However, Lapulapu, the leader of Mactan, resisted conversion. In order to gain the trust of Rajah Humabon, Magellan sailed to Mactan with a small force on the morning of 27 April 1521. During the resulting battle against Lapulapu's troops, Magellan was struck by a bamboo spear, and later surrounded and finished off with other weapons.
Antonio Pigafetta and Ginés de Mafra provided written documents of the events culminating in Magellan's death:
“When morning came forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two crossbow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, those men had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries ... The musketeers and crossbowmen shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly; for the shots only passed through the shields ... Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice ... An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide.”
(Antonio Pigafetta)
“Nothing of Magellan's body survived, that afternoon the grieving rajah-king, hoping to recover his remains, offered Mactan's victorious chief a handsome ransom of copper and iron for them but Datu Lapulapu refused. He intended to keep the body as a war trophy. Since his wife and child died in Seville before any member of the expedition could return to Spain, it seemed that every evidence of Ferdinand Magellan's existence had vanished from the earth.”
(Ginés de Mafra)
Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan )
https://find-your-trip.com/?t=guide&poi=ph12881&zft=967ad13a427ea4e32d48c89a5baa5e0e&lang=en
Magellan's Cross (Spanish: Cruz de Magallanes, Tagalog: Krus ni Magallanes) is a Christian cross planted by Portuguese and Spanish explorers as ordered by Ferdinand Magellan upon arriving in Cebu in the Philippines on April 21, 1521. This cross is housed in a chapel next to the Basilica del Santo .....
