Ferdinand Magellan - hero, traitor or brutal tyrant

Arriving at the island of Mactan in what is now the Philippines, Magellan himself was brutally killed during a battle with the local population.

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Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

To Miriam Balanescu

A new film depicts the pioneering journey of a world-famous Portuguese navigator who was accused of "uncontrollable bloodthirstiness."

There are few films as epically exhausting as Magelan, a new drama about the 16th-century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, filmed by Filipino author Lav Diaz.

It begins with a famous explorer – played by Mexican star Gael García Bernal – who harbors grand ambitions to create a new sea route to what were then called the “spice islands” in Indonesia.

He flees his homeland to Spain and, with the support of King Charles I, leads a arduous voyage - during which many of his crew members die of scurvy or are executed for mutiny.

Arriving at the island of Mactan in what is now the Philippines, Magellan himself was brutally killed during a battle with the local population.

The circumstances of this odyssey, which he began in 1519, have become somewhat legendary.

It was a voyage that many historians claim marked the first complete circumnavigation of the globe; after Magellan died on Mactan in 1521, his fleet's circumnavigation of the globe was completed under the command of fellow captain Juan Sebastián Elcano the following year.

Biographer Lawrence Bergrin claims that the Portuguese navigator's exploits are "more significant" than those of Christopher Columbus, while NASA named one of its spacecraft after him.

But others dispute his significance, especially because he did not live long enough to complete the journey back to Spain.

There are other reasons why Magellan is a controversial figure, including his betrayal of his own country, preceded by accusations of illegal trade; his alleged tyranny over the fleet; and his forced conversion of the inhabitants of Mactan to Christianity.

It wasn't until 2022 that historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto attempted to debunk the narrative of Magellan as a hero in the book "Brains: Beyond the Myth of Magellan."

He called him reckless and fanatical, and his mission a "complete failure", due to the high number of deaths (out of around 270 sailors, only 18 are believed to have returned to Spain) and the failure to make a profit.

Fernandez-Armesto also says that Magellan was guilty of “imperialism, slavery, uncontrolled bloodthirstiness and unjust discrimination” against indigenous peoples.

So, should he be considered a pioneer or a treacherous predator hungry for power?

Magellan's legacy is made even more unclear by the fact that the records that remain of his expedition around the world are scant.

Most of what we know about Magellan comes from his ship's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, who was the navigator's assistant - but Fernandez-Armesto characterized him as the navigator's "public relations agent."

Changing the narrative about Magellan

To create his own semi-fictional account of Magellan's expedition, Diaz spent seven years researching and visiting archives in Lisbon.

Initially, the screenwriter and director's attention was drawn to Beatriz Barbosa de Magellan, Magellan's neglected wife to whom he had been married for almost four years.

"But then, during my research, I just thought Magellan was more interesting," Diaz tells the BBC - especially because he saw an opportunity "to balance the narrative, to throw in a Malay perspective. Because it's always about Magellan - the white man's point of view."

Part of that change includes emphasizing the importance of Magellan's ten-year-old slave, Enrique of Malacca (played in the film by Amado Arjai Babon).

Before Magellan set out on his journey to the Philippines, he purchased Enrique, a former Muslim, in the Malaysian city of Malacca and brought him back to Spain.

Upon arriving in Mactan, Magellan's entourage was surprised to find that Enrique spoke the native language – suggesting that he had grown up nearby.

Some historians have even speculated that, by returning to the region, Enrique may have actually circumnavigated the world before anyone from Magellan's crew.

Diaz's film also sheds light on the anti-slavery sentiment during the era: Magellan is warned about it by a fellow member of the Spanish court.

Fray Bartolome de las Casas - a member of the Spanish royal council - preached against slavery, while new laws restricted trade in Portugal in 1570.

Although the facts about Magellan's life are limited, the narrative that often prevails is that of his heroism.

Diaz's Magellan unflinchingly considers what we know about his treatment of the crew members aboard the Armada de Maluku.

This included the execution of one of them for alleged sodomy and, as his paranoia grew, the excommunication of a priest, Pedro Sánchez de Reina.

Mutinies were constant, and in November 1520, one of the fleet's five ships, the San Antonio, and its entire crew abandoned the mission.

Magellan may have felt compelled to impose such harsh sentences out of insecurity, for by fleeing his own nation he had made himself an outcast in both Portugal and Spain.

"Magellan had the handicap of not being Castilian, which reduced his authority over the Castilian nobility," João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, a history professor at the University of Lisbon, tells the BBC.

"His Castilian captains wanted to take control of the expedition. The punishment had to be brutal to discourage further rebellions."

"If Magellan hadn't killed them, they would have killed Magellan."

In Diaz's biopic, the colonial violence committed by Magellan and his men is also brought to the forefront.

When they landed on Guam and a small boat was stolen, the sailors took bloody revenge on the indigenous community, burning down houses.

Communities in Malacca and the Philippines were subjected to similar brutality.

However, unlike other cinematic depictions of colonial violence, such as The Nightingale (2018) or The Blue Soldier (1970), Diaz's portrait avoids explosive, potentially exploitative action.

"The Magellan saga is an epic thing," he explains.

"But I didn't want to do it in a conventional way, [with] spectacle... I was on police patrol when I was a young reporter and you see the consequences and you don't see the action. There's a disrespect for humanity when that's shown."

Despite Magellan's flaws, Diaz was not interested in demonizing him.

“I wanted to see a real character,” Diaz insists. “A real human being is ambitious and dreams, not just for themselves or their family.

"He really believed in Christianity."

In addition to being considered the first European to make contact with the Philippines, Magellan was also credited with introducing Catholicism to the region.

The Santo Niño (Holy Child), a statue that Magellan gifted to local chief Raja Humabon and which supposedly led to the miraculous recovery of sick children in that community, “is still the greatest icon in the country,” says Diaz.

Today, 93 percent of the Philippines' population is Christian.

Who killed Magellan?

Diaz's myth-busting approach was also applied to the centuries-old mystery of Magellan's death at the Battle of Mactan.

Pigafetta claimed in his diary that while 2.000 Malay warriors were fighting the 60 surviving crew members, Lapulapu, another local chief, killed the conquistador.

Diaz was not so convinced: "To me it's a kind of unsolved case, because they always accept Pigafetta, that Lapulapu killed Magellan – but nobody saw Lapulapu."

In Diaz's version of events, Lapulapu is actually a fictional invention of Humabon and, supposedly, a supernatural blood-drinking creature summoned by the chief to frighten Magellan and his men.

"Humabon did not want to convert to Christianity," says Diaz.

"And then Magellan said that Humabon would die in two days, because he had a decree that anyone who did not want to convert must die."

The film does not show Magellan being killed by one specific person, but rather implies that it was a collective effort by Humabon's men.

This suggestion that Lapulapu is not a real person caused controversy in the Philippines when the film was released there last September.

This is because of Lapulapu's legendary status.

According to Danilo M. Herona, historian and author of “Fernando Magellan: Armada de Maluku and the European Discovery of the Philippines” (2016), Lapulapu has long been “a symbol of Filipino nationalism.

This, he says, is evident in the monuments, insignia, and site names [that honor him],” although “most of what we know [about him] comes from apocryphal, legendary, and folk tales from oral traditions. For this reason, he has received little attention among scholars.”

However, Diaz's film prompted two anonymous historians to write to the Philippine newspaper The Freeman to challenge his position on the figure.

Magellan himself had a similar, constantly contested reputation in the Philippines.

Once recognized as a “champion of the Catholic faith,” Herona says, he became increasingly unpopular amid a surge in nationalism during President Rodrigo Duterte’s term between 2016 and 2022, and is now being criticized by “younger generations” amid a growing “anti-Western” sentiment.

His role in Philippine history is also the subject of much debate.

Historian and former chairman of the Philippine National Historical Commission, Ambet Ocampo, claimed:

"Magellan should not be seen as the beginning of Philippine history, but as one event [in] a history that has yet to be written and rewritten for a new generation."

It is not surprising that, after centuries, the legacy of explorers like Magellan is complex, and even his intentions remain questionable.

"Magellan did not want to circumnavigate the world," claims Oliveira e Costa.

However, among his achievements, he says, Magellan “discovered the connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, as well as the great size of the Pacific Ocean.”

It was only after his expedition that cartographers were able to create planispheres [world maps that show a view of the Earth's surface] with three great oceans, and elites finally understood the size of the planet itself."

At the end of the film, the story ends with the conflicted perspective of Enrique of Malacca, rather than Magellan's or his co-captain Elkann's.

He regretfully admits that he helped massacre the Portuguese and Spanish men still stranded on Mactan Island, while simultaneously reflecting on the colonial violence perpetrated against him and other Malays.

Diaz hopes his film will encourage a dialogue about Magellan's voyage that is "more balanced, that is more inclusive in some ways, and not just portrayed from the dominant European perspective."

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