Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

by Laurence Bergreen

If he had correctly estimated the size of the world, the Age of Discovery might never have occurred.

The spice trade was central to the Arab way of life.

Spices were the ultimate cash crop.

In Spain, the best and perhaps the only reason to risk going to sea was the prospect of getting rich in the Spice Islands, wherever they were.

Portugal was the first European nation to exploit the sea for spices and the global empire that went along with them.

“You cannot find a peril so great that the hope of reward will not be greater.”

Spain, in this era, remained a feudal society ruled by a powerful, feared, and corrupt clergy.

Magellan’s expedition to the Spice Islands must not violate the treaty.

In the Age of Faith, the serpents were representative of the devil, which invades the Edenic garden of peppers, and which could be defeated only by the fire of faith.

Greek concept of autopsis, seeing for one’s self (and the origin of our word “autopsy”).

This was a revolutionary concept in the Age of Discovery, to go see for one’s self, to study the world as it was, not as myths and sacred texts suggested that it should be.

A generation earlier, Manuel’s father had sent ships to intercept Columbus.

Eventually, Magellan gave the Indians a name—Pathagoni, a neologism suggesting the Spanish word patacones, or dogs with great paws, by which he meant to call attention to their big feet, made even larger by the rough-hewn boots they wore. So these were the Bigfeet Indians, according to Magellan, who later gave the name to the whole region, known ever since as Patagonia.

The Land of Fire is actually the land of storms.

Magellan’s skill in negotiating the entire length of the strait is acknowledged as the single greatest feat in the history of maritime exploration.

He wrote of a “holy man named Mouxie [Moses], who established a religious cult; the people knew that he was a true [man of] heaven, and all revered and followed him.”

He could never return home with honor, and so he pressed on, a fugitive from society and a captive to the winds of fate.

Here was civilization, or at least a semblance thereof.

He saw the local populace as prey, as helpers, and as heathen, not as equals, and he intended to claim their territory for Spain and their souls for the Church.

Rather, it was the direct outcome of his increasingly belligerent conduct in the Philippines, where

he burned the dwellings of people who could easily have been converted to Christianity by diplomacy rather than force.