Ferdinand Magellan
In Here I Stand, Ferdinand Magellan is the only explorer with a "4" rating. (The next closest are Jacques Cartier and Francisco de Orellana, both "3"s). Therefore when chosen, Magellan will find the Pacific Strait and have a shot for circumnavigation just by rolling a "6" as the sum of two six-sided dice. Then when attempting to cross the Pacific and circumnavigate, he needs to just roll a "6" again to complete the circumnavigation. Reading of his voyage was the main inspiration for the circumnavigation table that is included in the game (and shown below). If you want a great recent book on the expedition, I recommend: Over the Edge of the World : Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen (2004) If you look through the entries on the Circumnavigation Table carefully, you can note that basically all but one of these results affected some of the members of Magellan's voyage. Anyone guess which one DIDN'T happen?
Ferdinand Magellan was born in northern Portugal in 1480 and spent his early career with the Portuguese expeditions to India. His relations with king Manuel soured, so he requested (and received) permission to seek a commission for another monarch. Trying Spain first was a fortunate move; the Hapsburgs were desperate for some way to block the Portuguese stranglehold on the spice trade. Events moved quickly for Magellan after arriving in Seville. Within one year he married, fathered a child, and obtained a contract from Charles V. That contract granted Magellan five ships to be outfitted as the Armada de Molucca, named after the Indonesian name for the Spice Islands. On August 10, 1519, the little armada set sail from Seville.
Magellan’s initial difficulties were internal, for the mostly Castilian crew resented being led by an unknown sailor from Portugal. Even before they had left the coast of Africa to cross the Atlantic, the captain of one of the other four ships (and the inspector general of the entire expedition) mutinied. Magellan imprisoned him quickly, but the seeds of discontent remained. After failing to find the reputed strait to the Pacific ocean by March (the month when the southern hemisphere’s winter weather kicks in), Magellan found a winter refuge and cut the men back to half rations to last out the winter. Hungry and not believing that a strait to the Pacific existed, the men from three of Magellan’s five ships mutinied and demanded to return to Spain. Magellan dealt with the mutiny in bold fashion, using landing boats filled with loyal men to storm the mutinous ships one-by-one. He soon regained control of the fleet and executed or marooned the ringleaders.
Trying to scout for the strait with the winter storms still raging, Magellan lost one of his ships to a storm in May 1520. Magellan finally resumed his voyage in October and quickly discovered the strait that now bears his name. Magellan needed five weeks to navigate through the 300-mile-long passageway. The archipelago of islands on the west side of the strait made navigation difficult and allowed the one remaining disgruntled Castilian captain to escape back to Spain with Magellan’s largest ship. Still, Magellan had found the western route to the Pacific and negotiated the hazardous strait without mishap, arguably one of the greatest feats of maritime exploration ever.
With his three remaining ships, Magellan headed into the Pacific, expecting the Moluccas to be a short sail to the west. Instead his starving men faced the longest continuous voyage at sea recorded to that time. For 98 days they sailed west buoyed by the prevailing winds, progressing an incredible 7000 miles without finding a habitable place to stop. Several dozen men died of scurvy, a disease believed to be caused by “bad air”. Little did Magellan and his officers know that their private stash of quince was keeping them from suffering from the same affliction as their crews.
Magellan resupplied in Guam; his first major stop was in the Philippines. At the Philippine island of Cebu, Magellan became deeply involved in converting the local islanders to Christianity. During his three-week stay there, he befriended two local tribal chiefs and baptized over two thousand of the islanders as Christians. However, as his successes mounted, so did his confidence level. Magellan boldly told his new allies that he could defeat a rival tribe nearby and took just 60 men to try and defeat the local tribe of 1500. Wading ashore, Magellan and his men were ambushed and he was struck by a poisoned arrow. Magellan continued the fight until his men could withdraw to the safety of their longboats, but he was ultimately overcome and his body hacked to pieces.
After Magellan’s death the remaining men prepared to resume their search for the Moluccas. However, disaster struck once more before they could leave the Philippines. The islanders, quickly souring on their conversion to Christianity, used the promise of a farewell feast to invite senior officers ashore. Once there, thirty crew members were massacred; out of the 260 men who set out from Seville, only 115 remained. The surviving crew was so short-handed that they chose to abandon one of the three remaining vessels.
Finally, six months after the death of Magellan, the remaining two ships reached the Moluccas. Every available trinket was traded to the locals for cloves. But just as they were to depart, the flagship Trinidad takes on water. With Trinidad needing months of repair, the crew decided to split up. Half remained with Trinidad intending to sail back home on an easterly course. Only one ship (under the Basque navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano) continued west on the quest to complete a circumnavigation.
Trinidad sailed northeast, into the stormy seas of the North Pacific. Battered by the weather, starving, and still far from the Americas, the desperate ship turned back to the Moluccas after five months at sea. They reached the Moluccas just in time to be captured by a Portuguese fleet that had been searching for Magellan.
And so, only Elcano’s lone vessel, Victoria, concluded the voyage successfully, bringing its cargo of 381 sacks of cloves (a small fortune) back to Charles V. Sailing west around the Cape of Good Hope, Elcano returned to the Atlantic and rushed north to Spain. Fear of capture by the Portuguese discouraged him from long stops to resupply or refit, causing additional deaths from scurvy. Out of the 60 sailors who left the Moluccas with Elcano, only 18 returned to Spain as circumnavigators.