Magellan circumnavigation
I am just in the process of reading “Over the edge of the world” by Laurence Bergreen which is about Magellan’s terrifying circumnavigation of the globe. Ferdinand Magellan took three years to sail around the world. Well one of his ships actually finished it, Magellan was killed in the Phillippines and of course did not complete the circumnavigation. Magellan set sail from Seville in 1519 on a journey to discover a sea route the Spice Islands that were in what came to be known as the East Indies.
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese nobleman and soldier. He fought in North Africa but was increasingly frustrated by the fact that the King of Portugal, Manuel I would not pay him what he thought he was owed. He devised an idea to find a sea route to the East Indies to set up a trading route for spices such as mace that were as expensive as gold. But he got no feedback from the Portuguese court and went to Seville in Spain to try his luck and make his fortune and fame.
In Seville Ferdinand Magellan met another Portuguese expatriate and through him is hoping to set up a meeting with the Spanish authorities so that he can get some backing for his proposed expedition to the sources of the spice trades. So that is where i am up to in the book at the moment. I will fill in the steps as i read further.
Another very interesting side issue that i am wondering about is what was the route that the former Arab traders took when they brought the spices to places like Venice. From places like Ambon, I am guessing that the spices went to Malacca. And then either onto places like Goa on the West Coast of India via chinese merchants in Junks. Then from South-west India, the spices may have been loaded onto Arab dhows and sailed up the red sea or up the persian gulf, and hence overland to Venice, and Europe. I am not sure about any of that but it would be a very rich research topic.