chapter 1-2._

_Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Memoirs, volume 1, chapter 2-19._

AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524. The Spanish Conquest of Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1519-1524.

AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524. The Voyage of Magellan and Sebastian del Cano. The New World passed and the Earth circumnavigated. The Congress at Badajos.

Fernando Magellan, or Magalhaes, was "a disaffected Portuguese gentleman who had served his country for five years in the Indies under Albuquerque, and understood well the secrets of the Eastern trade. In 1517, conjointly with his geographical and astronomical friend, Ruy Falerio, another unrequited Portuguese, he offered his services to the Spanish court. At the same time these two friends proposed, not only to prove that the Moluccas were within the Spanish lines of demarkation, but to discover a passage thither different from that used by the Portuguese. Their schemes were listened to, adopted and carried out. The Straits of Magellan were discovered, the broad South Sea was crossed, the Ladrones and the Phillipines were inspected, the Moluccas were passed through, the Cape of Good Hope was doubled on the homeward voyage, and the globe was circumnavigated, all in less than three years, from 1519 to 1522. Magellan lost his life, and only one of his five ships returned [under Sebastian del Cano] to tell the marvelous story. The magnitude of the enterprise was equalled only by the magnitude of the results. The globe for the first time began to assume its true character and size in the minds of men, and the minds of men began soon to grasp and utilize the results of this circumnavigation for the enlargement of trade and commerce, and for the benefit of geography, astronomy, mathematics, and the other sciences. This wonderful story, is it not told in a thousand books? … The Portuguese in India and the Spiceries, as well as at home, now seeing the inevitable conflict approaching, were thoroughly aroused to the importance of maintaining their rights. They openly asserted them, and pronounced this trade with the Moluccas by the Spanish an encroachment on their prior discoveries and possession, as well as a violation of the Papal Compact of 1494, and prepared themselves energetically for defense and offense. On the other hand, the Spaniards as openly declared that Magellan's fleet carried the first Christians to the Moluccas and by friendly intercourse with the kings of those islands, reduced them to Christian subjection and brought back letters and tribute to Cæsar. Hence these kings and their people came under the protection of Charles V. Besides this, the Spaniards claimed that the Moluccas were within the Spanish half, and were therefore doubly theirs. … Matters thus waxing hot, King John of Portugal begged Charles V. to delay dispatching his new fleet until the disputed points could be discussed and settled. Charles, who boasted that he had rather be right than rich, consented, and the ships were staid. These two Christian princes, who owned all the newly discovered and to be discovered parts of the whole world between them by deed of gift of the Pope, agreed to meet in Congress at Badajos by their representatives, to discuss and settle all matters in dispute about the division of their patrimony, and to define and stake out their lands and waters, both parties agreeing to abide by the decision of the Congress. Accordingly, in the early spring of 1524, up went to this little border town four-and-twenty wise men, or thereabouts, chosen by each prince. They comprised the first judges, lawyers, mathematicians, astronomers, cosmographers, navigators and pilots of the land, among whose names were many honored now as then—such as Fernando Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, Estevan Gomez, Diego Ribero, etc. … The debates and proceedings of this Congress, as reported by Peter Martyr, Oviedo, and Gomara, are very amusing, but no regular joint decision could be reached, the Portuguese declining to subscribe to the verdict of the Spaniards, inasmuch as it deprived them of the Moluccas. So each party published and proclaimed its own decision after the Congress broke up in confusion on the last day of May, 1524. It was, however, tacitly understood that the Moluccas fell to Spain, while Brazil, to the extent of two hundred leagues from Cape St. Augustine, fell to the Portuguese. … However, much good resulted from this first geographical Congress. The extent and breadth of the Pacific were appreciated, and the influence of the Congress was soon after seen in the greatly improved maps, globes, and charts."

_H. Stevens, History and Geographical Notes, 1453-1530._

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"For three months and twenty days he [Magellan] sailed on the Pacific and never saw inhabited land. He was compelled by famine to strip off the pieces of skin and leather wherewith his rigging was here and there bound, to soak them in the sea and then soften them with warm water, so as to make a wretched food; to eat the sweepings of the ship and other loathsome matter'; to drink water gone putrid by keeping; and yet he resolutely held on his course, though his men were dying daily. … In the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that exceeds, if indeed there is anything that equals, this voyage of Magellan's. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a display of superhuman courage, superhuman perseverance."

_J. W. Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,