This continues the list of reprehensible acts of the Spanish Expedition captain general Ferdinand Magellan towards the Cebu natives during his fleet’s sojourn in our archipelago in 1521. The voyage chronicler Antonio Pigafetta recorded those acts in startling detail in his French manuscript that he never got published in his lifetime. That manuscript was evidently suppressed for posterity but the Augustinian priest Carlo Amoretti accidentally found it in a Milan library 275 years later.
FERDINAND MAGELLAN: Intrepid explorer but intemperate captain-generalAn intrepid explorer but intemperate leader of the Spanish Expedition that stumbled on the Philippine archipelago in 1521, the Portuguese captain-general Ferdinand Magellan became too impetuous, intimidating, and unrestrained in quickly wanting to both subjugate and Christianize the natives during his 6-day sojourn in the central island of Cebu. As recorded in startling detail by the Venetian chronicler Antonio Pigafetta in his suppressed French manuscript that got lost but found by chance only after 275 years, these actions triggered the native chieftain Lapulapu's armed resistance that led to Magellan's brutal slaying in the Battle of Mactan on April 27, 1521.The following passages, in addition to the first two excerpts presented in this chronological review last week, are from Pigafetta’s recovered French manuscript as translated into English in 1874 by Lord Stanley of Alderley:
—Magellan became too impetuous, intimidating, and unrestrained in Christianizing the Cebu natives: “When we landed the ships discharged all their artillery, and from fear of it the people ran away in all directions… Then the captain began to speak to the king [of Zzubu] through the interpreter to incite him to the faith of Jesus Christ, and told him that if he wished to be a good Christian… he must burn all the idols of his country, and, instead of them, place a cross, and that everyone should worship it every day on their knees, and their hands joined to heaven: and he showed him how he ought every day to make the sign of the cross…”
—He was scathingly demanding on the Cebu natives once he had hurriedly converted them into Christians: “The captain-general, who had informed the king and all those who had been baptised of the obligation they were under of burning their idols, which they had promised to do, seeing that they retained them and made them offerings of meat, reproved them severely for it. They thought to excuse themselves sufficiently by saying that they did not do that now on their own account, but for a sick person [brother of the native prince], for the idols to restore him his health… Having heard this, the captain, seized with zeal for religion, said that if they had a true faith in Jesus Christ, they should burn all the idols, and the sick man should be baptised, and he would be immediately cured, of which he was so certain that he consented to lose his head if the miracle did not take place.”
—He became too belligerent and reckless when told of the Mactan chieftain Lapulapu’s resistance: “Zula [another Mactan chief] sent to the captain a son of his [and came back to report] that Silapulapu would not in any way obey the King of Spain… but [Zula said] that if the captain would send him the following night one boat full of men to give him assistance, he would fight and subdue his rival… (T)he captain decided to go himself with three boats. We entreated him much not to go to this enterprise in person, but he as a good shepherd would not abandon his flock...
“We set out from Zubu at midnight… The captain before attacking…sent on shore the Moorish merchant to tell those islanders who were of the party of Cilapulapu, that if they would recognise the [native] Christian king as their sovereign, and obey the King of Spain, and pay us the tribute which had been asked, the captain would become their friend, otherwise we should prove how our lances wounded…”
“He became inordinately cruel even to the Mactan noncombatants: “He then, in order to disperse this multitude and to terrify them, sent some of our men to set fire to their houses, but this rendered [the warriors] more ferocious. Some of them ran to the fire, which consumed twenty or thirty houses, and there killed two of our men.”
Thus did Magellan’s excessive striving to both subjugate and Christianize the Cebu natives lead to his violent death in the Battle of Mactan.
(Next:
Getting our history right after 500 years – Part 13) June 24, 2021
This essay, 2,050th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the June 17, 2021 Internet edition of The Manila Times
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