Written by: Anthony Tran

Ferdinand Magellan was born in the spring of 1480, probably in Oporto, Portugal. He was born to be a noble family, and first entered the Portuguese royal service as a page at court. Magellan proved himself in many battles in the name of his country. Like Columbus before him, Magellan believed no one could get to Spice Island by sailing west. He knew he would have to sail around or through the New World to do so. Like so many explorers before him, he thought the earth was much smaller than its actually size. Snubbed by the Portuguese king, Magellan easily convinced the teenaged Spanish king, Charles I that at least some of the Spice Islands lay in the Spanish half of the undiscovered world.

In 1505, Magellan went to east Africa and served for eight years in the Portuguese navy, where there he engages in constant combat in the Indian areas. He was wounded twice and eventually became a ship commander. Because he was identified from his youth with the out-of-office group at court, Magellan’s reputable Asian career was completely passed over. Unrewarded, he was sent back to Portugal, where the King Manuel I gave him no recognition.

In 1511, Magellan took part in the capture of Melaka, the Malayan gateway to the Southeast and East Asia. Some of the 2,000 miles to the east lay the next object of Portuguese endeavor, the spice-producing island of the Moluccas. Weather or not that Magellan participated in the Portuguese reconnaissance of the Moluccas is uncertain.

After eight years in the East, during which he suffered form both wounds and shipwreck, Magellan emerged hardened by experience, resolute and resourceful in adversity, and discontented with his relatively slow advancement. Through his friends and associates he had access to information about the value and position of the Moluccas. This information, distorted by lack of a practical method of determining longitude, led him, to believe that the island lay east of their actual position, and possibly within a short sailing distance from America.

Magellan’s belief was hardly calculated to advance his career in Portugal. The Spanish interpretation of the Treaty of Tordesillas assumed a complementary demarcation in the opposite hemisphere to the Atlantic meridian. If Magellan were right, than the Moluccas were situated within the Spanish demarcation. However so far the Spanish attempts to reach Asia by sailing westward from Europe had been blocked by the seemingly unlimited American cessors.