The first person to circumnavigate the Earth
Juan Sebastian Elcano was born in the Basque region of Spain in 1486.
As a young man, he fought for Spain in conflicts in Italy and Algiers.
After military service, he went to sea, quickly becoming master of his own ship operating out of Seville.
To get out of some difficulty with the King, he agreed to serve as a subordinate officer on Magellan’s expedition to the East Indies.
At that time, Spain and Portugal were operating under the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the non-Christian world between the two nations.
Under the treaty, Portugal had dominion over everything in the hemisphere east of a line set at approximately 40°W longitude.
The Spanish guessimated (incorrectly) that the fabled Spice Islands were situated on their side of the line on the opposite side of the planet.
They could not reach the Spice Islands by sailing east through Portuguese waters, so they decided to try a westerly voyage.
Through political intrigue and fortuitous circumstances, King Charles I selected Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese mariner, as leader of the Spanish five-ship expedition, which departed on August 10, 1519.
Elcano and other Spanish officers chafed under Magellan’s leadership.
Following an unsuccessful mutiny off South America, Elcano was kept in chains for several months, but eventually returned to command on one of the fleet’s ships.
When Magellan was killed in a conflict with natives in the Philippines, the remaining two ships went through a series of leaders before the duties fell to Elcano.
The Victoria, with Elcano in command of 17 European survivors and four natives, along with a cargo of precious spices, arrived back in Spain on September 6, 1522.
Elcano was lauded as the world’s first circumnavigator, awarded an annual pension and a coat of arms.
Three years later, on July 24, 1525, he set sail again as second in command of another expedition to the Spice Islands, intended to duplicate Magellan’s original plan.
The voyage was commanded by Garcia Jofre de Loaisa.
In an amazing repetition of history, the Loaisa expedition suffered a fate similar to that of the Magellan expedition.
Some ships deserted, some were lost at sea.
Loaisa himself died of malnutrition as his ship crossed the wide Pacific and Elcano died likewise a few days later.
One ship survived to reach the Spice Islands, where it was captured by the Portuguese.
Andres de Urdaneta, who had been the fourth in command, and a few other survivors returned to Spain in 1528, with no riches and to no acclaim.