Magellan and the Circumnavigation of the Globe
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CK_5_TH_HG_P104_230.QXD 2/14/06 2:23 PM Page 151 Ocean from the Western Hemisphere. He claimed the ocean and its entire coast- line for Spain. Magellan and the Circumnavigation of the Globe Teaching Idea The Portuguese sea captain Ferdinand Magellan, sailing under the Spanish Use Magellan’s voyage as a way to flag, gave the Pacific Ocean its European name. Magellan’s expedition became the revisit and reinforce what students first to circumnavigate the globe. learned about the International Date Magellan was Portuguese and originally sailed for his native land. He fol- Line and time zones during their study lowed the Portuguese trade routes around Africa to the Indies. However, he even- of geography. tually fell out of favor with the Portuguese king and began to sail for Spain. He convinced the Spanish king that he could reach the Indies by sailing west and then through or around South America. Name Date In September 1519, five ships under his command sailed southwest from Routes of European Explorers Spain. They reached the South American coast in December and sailed south, Study the map. Use it to answer the questions below. looking for a passage through South America to the Pacific Ocean. They spent the N W E winter in a settlement along the coast. Magellan had to put down a mutiny by S ASIA NORTH EUROPE PORTUGAL AMERICA some of his ship captains. He executed one leader and left another to survive on CHINA PACIFIC SPAIN Calcutta ATLANTIC INDIA OCEAN Bombay Caribbean OCEAN AFRICA Madras PACIFIC SOUTH Calicut Spice Islands an island. One of his ships was lost in a wreck at sea. When the winter ended in OCEAN AMERICA INDIAN BRAZIL OCEAN August (remember that the seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere), he AUSTRALIA Cape of Henry’s Ships Good Hope Dias Strait of Magellan Vasco da Gama sailed on, still searching for a passage. 0 2,000 4,000 miles 0 2,000 4,000 kilometers Cabral Columbus’s first voyage In October 1520, they at last found a passage—the passage that is now Magellan 1. Which explorers sailed to or around the Cape of Good Hope? known as the Strait of Magellan. The roughly 350 miles through the passage were Dias, Magellan, Cabral, Vasco da Gama 2. Which explorers reached South America? extremely difficult, and one of his ships abandoned him and sailed back to Spain. Cabral, Magellan But Magellan pressed on. It is said that he cried for joy when he finally reached the ocean. On entering the Pacific Ocean, Magellan gave it that name because he Purpose: To read and interpret a map featuring the routes of six European explorers Copyright ©Core Knowledge Foundation Copyright ©Core found it very calm compared to the icy waters he had just crossed. Master 20 Grade 5: History & Geography With three ships out of his original five, Magellan sailed into the Pacific Use Instructional Master 20. Ocean. He thought it would not take long to reach Asia, but he had no idea of the vastness of the ocean before him. It took six months to reach the Philippines. He and his men barely survived. The ship ran out of water and food. Sailors suffered from scurvy and were reduced to eating rats and pieces of leather. Some men starved to death. Once Magellan’s party reached the Philippines, they began to convert some of the local leaders to Christianity. On the island of Mactan, Magellan was killed in a battle by Chief Lapulapu, the leader of a tribe that resisted the European explor- ers. Antonio Pigafetta, one of the men on board described the encounter: When morning came forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two crossbow flights before we could reach the shore. When we reached land, those men [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries. Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice. An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain’s face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian’s body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of History and Geography: World 151 CK_5_TH_HG_P104_230.QXD 2/14/06 2:23 PM Page 152 III. European Exploration, Trade, and the Clash of Cultures them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face down- ward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off. After this encounter, there were no longer enough men to sail three ships, so one ship was abandoned. The two remaining ships arrived in the Spice Islands in 1521. After loading up with spices, they sailed for home. One ship was captured by the rival Portuguese, so only one ship returned to Spain. This ship had sailed west to Africa, south along the coast, west around the Cape of Good Hope, and northward along the western coast of Africa, reaching Spain in 1522. Despite the loss of four ships and all but 18 men, the spices that the one remaining ship had taken on in the Spice Islands made the voyage a profit for its backers. Arriving home, the survivors of the journey noticed something interesting. They had kept a careful record of the days they had journeyed, but when they checked the date with locals, they found that their reckoning of what day it was differed by one day from the reckoning of those who had stayed at home. The travelers thought it was Wednesday, but the Europeans who stayed at home said it was Thursday. What had happened was the ship had sailed one rotation around Earth, so that their assessment of time was off by 24 hours. This discovery even- tually led to the creation of the International Date Line. England and France Search for the Northwest Passage Although Spain and Portugal led the way in exploration, England and France were not far behind. The English and the French were hopeful that they could find a “Northwest Passage,” a water route that would lead them through North America to the Pacific Ocean. Then they could sail to the Spice Islands and grow wealthy. An early English explorer was John Cabot. Although he was from Venice, Cabot was in the service of the English monarch when he sailed west in 1497. Cabot reached the coast of North America at Newfoundland and possibly sailed as far south as the Chesapeake Bay. Cabot’s expedition was the first European expedition to see the North American continent since the Vikings. But Cabot himself did not know this. Like Columbus, he believed he had reached Asia. When Cabot returned to England, he did not have any spices and silks to show for his journey, but was able to describe scooping codfish out of the water in baskets. Cabot’s second expedition in 1498 disappeared, and while he had not located the Northwest Passage, England based its later claim to North American territory on his explorations. When Cabot had first sighted Newfoundland, he had gone ashore and claimed the land for England. Frenchman Samuel de Champlain searched for a Northwest Passage several times. He explored the St. Lawrence River, northern New York (where he discov- ered the lake that bears his name), and the Great Lakes Huron and Ontario. From 152 Grade 5 Handbook.