April 27th
1521 Mactan Island the Philippines
Ferdinand Magellan has made a very very big mistake
Determined to circumnavigate the world and cross the ocean Balboa had sighted in 1513
He just finished a perilous four-month journey
Rounding South America and making it all of the way to a previously unknown series of islands the Philippines
See, he'd gotten involved in local politics converting a ruler in his kingdom to the Catholic faith
But to keep their new conquests secure they must now crush a rival subchieftain
Lapu-Lapu who would not submit to catholicism. Magellan tells his local allies to stay on the ship
He'll take 49 men and then overall Lapu-Lapu people with muskets and crossbows
They wade into the knee-deep water firing muskets, but to little effect, the Mactan unafraid of their weapons
1,500 warriors charge on Magellan's men striking for their unarmored legs
Magellan himself is hit with two bamboo spears, kills a man with his lance, loses his helmet
Suddenly a warrior strikes him in the leg with a great curved sword
Magellan has come a long way to die in the surf
The Spanish era in the Pacific begins with Vasco Núñez de Balboa
having trekked and battled his way across Panama wading into the Pacific Ocean
he holds a banner of the Virgin Mary in one hand a sword in the other and
declares the ocean and all of its land to be a part of the Spanish Empire. The irony, of course
Is that neither Balboa nor anyone in Europe knew just how big this ocean was?
But when Magellan rounded Cape Horn winding his way through the dangerous Strait that would later be named after him. He quickly found out
Magellan's journey starts out fairly lucky hitting a patch of rare good weather around Cape Horn and the Southern Pacific
Later expeditions will find the weather around Cape Horn
So foul, some will even opt to turn around and take a ten thousand mile detour to enter the Pacific by rounding Africa
But this good weather is where Magellan's luck ends and his voyage turns horrific
He had expected the sea crossing between the Cape and Asia to be 3 or 4 days a slight underestimate
It takes him 3 months 20 days and in all that time
He cites only two uninhabited atolls and 30 men died of scurvy but he does land in the Philippines putting it on Spain's
expanding map of the world. Magellan left Spain with five ships and over a hundred and eighty men but only one ship with 18 survivors
Actually completed the circumnavigation
Minus Magellan. His second mate would finish the journey in his stead. In fact, this circumnavigation was so difficult
It took 59 years before someone else, English privateer Sir Francis Drake managed to do it again.
But circumnavigating wasn't Magellan's true task. The point was to find a Western route to Asia
And this was important since treaties signed in 1479
1494 and 1529 had divided the world into Spanish and Portuguese zones of influence
because the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean landed under Portuguese control this limited Spain's access to Asia via the eastern route
The Pacific however was Spanish territory
and with Spain expanding its conquest in the America
the Spanish had an increasing number of ports to access the Pacific such as Lima and Panama City
but the most important to the Asian trade was Acapulco Mexico
In 1565 a Spanish expedition
conquered the Philippines bringing the islands into the Spanish Empire and naming them
after their monarch Philip the Second, and to link the new colony with its other possessions
Two navigators were given the task to figure out a route from the Philippines to Mexico
The pair suspected that the winds and currents in the North Pacific
Like the Atlantic formed a big circular gyre and since the winds blew east to west across the mid Pacific
They should blow west to east across the north. So they sailed north hitting Japan before they found the winds
They'd been looking for. Then, they made landfall in North America traveling south down the coast to Mexico
For the next 250 years this Manila galleon route would define Spanish trade in the Pacific
Each year galleons would shuttle between Manila and
Acapulco trading new world's silver and agricultural products for the riches of Asia
Chinese silk, Jade and porcelain, Southeast Asian spices, Indian rugs and
Philippine jewelry made in Spanish style
this trade route heavily influenced the Philippines
creating a fusion culture of Austronesian
Spanish and Mexican and led the Spanish to develop a line of colonies to support this route just in case these floating treasure chests ever
Got into trouble on the four-month journey
The first of those colonies were on Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands named for Queen, Mariana
And then on the Caroline islands named for King Charles, huh? I'm sensing a pattern here
They also founded some other way stations to support the Manila galleons, but you know, it was in a place so small and obscure
I kind of hate to bother with it. But what the heck, you know backwater province called, California
They founded two port cities: San Diego and Monterey
Other attempts did not go so well: take Alvaro de Mendaña for example
In 1565 he set out in an attempt to find Terra Australis incognita
The unknown Southern land that since the times of ancient Greece was believed to exist in the southern hemisphere
See, the idea was that because there was so much land in the northern hemisphere
There had to be an equal amount in the south
Otherwise the world would be unbalanced
And some even suggested that this hidden land was the source of King Solomon's gold... Not kiddin'
Even as late as the 1800s some people thought there was another North America kicking around down there
Mendaña didn't find Australia's incognita. What he did find was a group of islands
He named after King Solomon
And thirty years later, he set out again to found a colony there
July 21st 1595
Mendaña and his four ships who close to the high islands with their ridged coasts and deep valleys for five weeks
He's been at sail and Mendaña orders his crew to kneel and thank God for their safe arrival
Except these aren't the Solomon Islands
You know the ones he found 30 years before
It's actually a new chain that he will call the Marquesas after his patron
Mendaña realizes his error when 70 canoes carrying 400 people come out to greet him
they give the Spanish food and climb aboard curious
greeting and laughing at these strange people with their odd clothes and white skin
Mendaña even dresses one of the Marquesans in a shirt and hat and gives out trinkets
It's a light-hearted scene
But with no translator neither side really knows what the other is thinking
Are these exchanges trade? Gift-giving? Ritual hospitality maybe
then the Islanders begin to remove objects from the ship perhaps
Believing they were in the midst of trade one even begins cutting a piece of bacon off a slab
Mendaña sees this and orders them to leave
When they don't, again possibly due to them not understanding what was happening
He fires a gun
The Islanders dive into the water and swim back to their vessels
but one terrified Marquesan still clings to the ship
And one of Mendaña men cuts him with a sword trying to make him let go
The mood changes, warriors pelt the ship with sling stones, the Spanish fire a volley
killing several Islanders
this story of first contact, of welcoming fleets and peaceful exchange
descending into misunderstanding and violence
will play out again and again across the Pacific
but Mendaña will be particularly brutal
Misunderstandings continue ashore
the Marquesans do not understand the religion Mendaña is determined to force on them
and Mendaña doesn't understand their cultural taboos or differing understanding of property
the Spanish meet any minor infraction with violence
Mendaña orders three Islanders hanged outside his campsite as a warning against theft
A soldier even fires into a crowd unprovoked
Murdering a man with a child in his arms
In two weeks, they kill 200 Islanders
Then deciding a colony is untenable and that they will continue on to the Solomons
They leave without warning
It will be two centuries until another European ship arrives in the Marquesas
And Mendaña's darkness follows him to the Solomons
His colony there will only last two months
His malaria wracked crew descending into madness and infighting
Crewmen murder and ambush each other
Mendaña burning with fever and raving about religion will order
both his lieutenant and a local chief beheaded in front of him.
And when Mendaña dies, leaving all of his possessions and power to his wife, Isabel Barretto
They stick it out only long enough for 47 more colonists to die in a single month
With Barretto in command as the first female Admiral in Spanish history
they leave, taking 12 weeks to reach Manila
Of the 378 people who set out with Mendaña only 90 would live to tell the tale
But about 50 years later someone would find Terra Australis incognita or at least the island continent that bears its name
Australia
So join us next time, when Tasman sights Australia and New Zealand, the French arrived in Tahiti
Europe goes Pacific-crazy, and James Cook changes the Pacific forever
Legendary thanks to Ahmed Zia Turk, Alicia Bramble, Casey Muscha, Dominic Valenciana, Gunnar Clovis
Kyle Murgatroyd and Orels1 for helping to make this show possible