https://www.getrealphilippines.

com/2015/03/five-inaccuracies-still-accepted-as-philippine-history/

On March 16, 1521, the Philippines was discovered by Magellan.

The Popular Myth: Thanks in part to Yoyoy Villame’s catchy song, many Filipinos now assume that
Ferdinand Magellan came to conquer the Philippines for Spain, and he was eventually killed by Lapu-
Lapu because of that same premise.

The Historical Evidence: There is now evidence to show that Magellan wasn’t even the first European to
come here; though it’s not really clear who was, natives who’ve had contact with Magellan’s crew
claimed that they saw “other men like them,” hinting at Portuguese merchants who may have arrived
before 1521.

Magellan himself wasn’t even Spanish: he was a Portuguese merchant-navigator hired by Spain to look
for an alternative sea route to Asia, because the traditional Indian Ocean route was blocked by Portugal.
As for his death in the Battle of Mactan, this was brought about only because he got involved with a
petty squabble between Sugbu’s king Humabon and Mactan’s chief Lapu-Lapu (who by the way was
Humabon’s subject). Magellan’s corpse was never recovered and returned to Humabon as ordered; one
could only assume what Lapu-Lapu’s fate was for defying a king’s order, despite the supernatural
myths surrounding Lapu-Lapu’s own demise.

And no, Lapu-Lapu did NOT shout “Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!”

https://thezoomerhistorian.medium.com/the-battle-of-mactan-in-a-nutshell-44011cc43ffe

The Battle of Mactan in a Nutshell

The Zoomer Historian

The spice and gold competition between Spain and Portugal was going more and more intense.
Portuguese explorers Bartolomeu Dias discovered another route to the East through the Cape of
Good Hope, while later on, Vasco da Gama made his way to Calicut, India, making Portugal have
a major stronghold in the world domination. Spain was desperate. Even though the monarchs
Fernando and Isabela already made some fortune from Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas,
they are not contented. In order to ease the feud between the two Iberian kingdoms, Pope
Alexander VI issued a papal bull in 1493, drawing the so-called Line of Demarcation, splitting the
whole globe on where territories they can only explore. Spain was allowed to explore the
Americas in the West while Portugal was allowed to control Asia in the East. A year later, this
agreement was solidified through their signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas.
But Spain really wanted to go to Asia, as they are so rich with various spices, a luxurious
commodity to own in medieval Europe. Spices like cloves, nutmeg, and mace, were extremely
expensive that nobles and aristocrats were the only ones who can afford them. Which means, a
lot of spices equals to ba-bling ba-bling. Therefore, Spain and Portugal must race against each
other on who can find first the islands of Moluccas, aka the Spice Islands, now part of modern-
day Indonesia. But since only Portugal can use the eastward route, Spain must devise another
way to go to the East, and their solution was to go westward, way beyond the American
continents. Even though Portugal already established control in Spice Islands islands, the Spanish
crown still desired to claim them.

Enter Ferdinand Magellan (or Fernão de Magalhães in Portuguese, and Fernando de

Magallanes in Spanish), a Portuguese explorer and sailor working for King Manuel I. It was not
his first time to go to the East Indies, since he was sailing to what is now India, Malaysia, and
Indonesia for Portugal since 1505. He told the Portuguese king about his new plan to take the
route to the East by going westward. But he was dismissed and deemed ridiculous. It is because
sailors used to think that circumnavigating the globe is not only preposterous, but also
dangerous due to their fear of sea monsters and killer fogs awaiting for those who dare. Aside
from that, he was also being accused of illegal trading, which caused distrust (1). Because of his
desire to travel to the East through a new west route, it drove him to negotiate with their rival
kingdom, Spain, and abandoned his Portuguese citizenship.

The Beginning of the Expedition

Magellan approached King Carlos I of Spain, aka Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire,
aka That-King-With-A-Horrible-Jaw-Due-to-Habsburg-Inbreeding. He told the Spanish king that
he can reach the Spice Islands by west through Atlantic Ocean, going down across South
America, until they reach its tip. Due to Spain’s desire to colonize in Asia, the king funded
Magellan and gave him 265 troops and 5 galleon ships, namely San
Antonio, Concepcion, Trinidad, Victoria, and Santiago. They leaved Spain from San Lucar de
Barrameda on September 20, 1519, representing the Spanish flag despite being Portuguese
himself.

Magellan and his fleet called the Armada de Molucca sailed across Atlantic Ocean and reached a
very narrow passage at the tip of South America near Tierra del Fuego, which was later
named Strait of Magellan. They were the first Europeans to sail across the Pacific Ocean, and
they were also the ones who named it Oceano Pacifico which means “calm waters”. Magellan
was a great captain of the sea, but he was hated by most of his crew, which led to mutinies. Who
could blame those Spanish crew if they distrust a rival Portuguese giving them orders? Most of
Magellan’s men died from scurvy and starvation due to their unexpectedly long journey to the
Pacific. When they arrived at Mariana Islands, dozens of the Chamorro people plundered some
of their stuff from their ship Trinidad, which was why Magellan called the islands as Islas de los
Ladrones (Island of the Thieves). The next day, they looted and burned Chamorro houses as
revenge. And finally on March 16, 1621, they reached the uninhabited island of Homonhon,
Samar and stayed there for two weeks (2).

Then in March 28, they arrived at the island of Limasawa in Leyte and encountered the natives.
To their surprise, Magellan’s slave called Enrique de Malacca can understand the Malay
language of the natives, which lead to their belief that he must have been originated there, an
indication that Enrique may have been completed the circumnavigation himself (3). They
exchanged goods with the Limasawans, built an alliances with Rajah Kolambu and Rajah Siagu
through blood compact, and conducted the first ever Catholic mass in the islands on March 31,
where the first Christianization in the Philippines began. Magellan’s men also planted a huge
cross there and named the entire islands as Las Islas de San Lazaro, declaring them as a colony
of Spain.

With a guide from Rajah Kolambu’s men, Magellan reached Cebu on April 6, and made an
alliance with Rajah Humabon through sanduguan. They converted almost 2,200 Cebuanos to
Christianity, including the rajah which adopted the name Don Carlos, after the king of Spain.
They also gave a baby Jesus image to Humabon’s wife, Juana, and later became known as the
Santo Niño de Cebu.

So what happened next? You already know it. Or is it?

What Most Filipinos Think What Happened at the Battle of Mactan

If you’ve ever watched a movie or read a nationalistic textbook detailing how the battle went
down, popular culture entailed to most of our minds that Magellan went to the island of Mactan
to convert them to Christianity and make them bow to the Spanish crown. But because of the
chieftain of Mactan, Lapulapu’s fierce resistance to colonial rule, they fought back with bravery
and courage. Lapulapu (or Cilapulapu, according to Pigafetta) is often being portrayed in the
media as a fairly young and muscular man with robust physique, as indicated in his portraits and
statues. Even though Magellan and his troops were militarily advanced because of their
weapons, Lapulapu’s men still fought with honor. We often visualize the battle scene where the
chief of Mactan and Magellan were having a one-on-one duel with each other, until the latter
was killed. And just like that, Lapulapu became the first “Filipino” to fought against European
tyranny, making him our first national “hero”.

But upon critical examination of facts, our interpretation of the event is at best, sensationalized,
and at worst, distorted. First of all, historians widely believe that Lapulapu was around 70 years
old when the battle occurred (4), making him physically unfit to fight Magellan himself through a
one-on-one duel. So no, Lapulapu did not kill Magellan by himself, but by his warriors instead.
And second of all, the reasons for their bloody confrontation are more nuanced and complicated
that most people think. It is because simplistic and nationalistic retelling of our history is more
desirable and palatable to uncritical minds who crave for historical identity. So what is the real
story that the documents actually say?

What Actually Happened in History

The only surviving account of the Battle of Mactan from an eyewitness came from Magellan’s
Italian historian and chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, who had a tendency to exaggerate his claims,
but nevertheless still the most reliable primary source for the event. What we only have is a
story from a Eurocentric point of view, and the other side of the story from Lapulapu and Rajah
Humabon simply doesn’t exist (at least for now, who knows, maybe future historians will
discover something). Almost every thing that we know about Magellan’s expedition came from
Pigafetta’s accounts. Therefore, it must be kept in mind that some details might be biased. But it
is also important to remember that we cannot fully trust the local legendary accounts either
about the life of Lapulapu before and after the battle since they were written centuries after the
fact, and assessing their historicity is simply not tenable. So, we must have some kind of a
balanced perspective here.

The Rajahnate of Cebu was an affluent kingdom since it was an intersection point between the
trade routes of Chinese goods from the Kingdom of Tondo and Muslim pottery from the
Rajahnate of Butuan, which made Rajah Humabon rich from the influx of wealth from these
trade, and a very powerful leader, superior to other datus. Because of Magellan and Humabon’s
friendship, as signified by their blood compact (sanduguan), the rajah ordered to the nearby
datus to provide food supplies to the Europeans, and also to convert to Christianity. This gave an
impression to Magellan that the Rajah of Cebu is the ultimate local sovereign over other chiefs,
and everyone must subdue to him. Every datus near Cebu complied with Humabon’s decree,
except one: Lapulapu, the chief of Mactan.

Humabon and Lapulapu were rivals when it come to power. Even though the former created
wealth from trade, the chief of Mactan was a threat to him, as he was notorious for being a
fearsome pirate that plunders the merchants’ ships before they can even make it to mainland
Cebu. It is because Lapulapu has a greater geographical edge, where Mactan is located in a
strategic place that allowed him to control the surrounding waters of the island (5). This gave a
growing tension and fight for the control of Mactan waters. between the two even before the
arrival of the Europeans. Magellan was ignorant on how the chiefdom politics work in the
archipelago, as he became used to the system of centralized government system in Europe.
Visayan chiefdoms were built on networks of alliances through loose ties and personal allegiance
to a much more superior datu or rajah to them. But both Humabon and Lapulapu asserted
dominance and superiority, hence the feud. Humabon saw his conversion to Christianity an
opportunity to build ties with foreign powers, which can be a way to subdue Lapulapu.

According to Pigafetta (6), the other rival datu of Mactan, Datu Zula, promised Magellan
livestock from their island and Christian conversion, but they cannot fulfill their promise because
Lapulapu resisted to give in. Humabon and Zula persuaded the Portuguese captain to go to
Mactan and confront the datu.

Magellan interpreted that Lapulapu was just a misbehaving subordinate datu, that needs to be
force to comply with the orders of his superior rajah, without knowing about their existing
rivalry. Most nationalistic historians say that Lapulapu’s resistance to Magellan was driven by his
anti-colonialist desire to be under the European influence. But according to Cebuano historian
and National Artist for Literature Resil Mojares, Lapulapu was actually willing to recognize the
power of the King of Spain, but not the authority of Rajah Humabon (7). In other words, the
Battle of Mactan was not really a heroic defense of indios against the tyrannical conquistadores,
but more like a episode of two warring rival sandwich states, where Magellan and his crew
became the sandwich dressing between them. Despite of that, his aspirations to Christianize the
whole Visayan islands and make them a Spanish colony was still standing in his mind.

When Magellan arrived at Mactan the night before the battle, he was backed by Rajah
Humabon, Datu Zula, and their newly converted natives, but they were told to just watch from
afar, and let the Spaniards do the talking. The captain gave an ultimatum to Lapulapu: recognize
the authority of the Christian Rajah of Cebu and the Kingdom of Spain, or prepare for violence.
The Mactan chief was decided to choose the latter, but he requested to postpone the attack
until the morning. The conquistadors were baffled at first, but it turned out to be a delaying
tactic by Lapulapu to gather more men.

It was already morning of April 27, 1521, and Magellan prepared his 49 troops to fight, prepared
with guns, swords, crossbows, shields, and metal armors. Even though the Spaniards have a
more advanced weaponry, Lapulapu and his men still have the greater advantage. The shores of
Mactan were full of rocks and coral reefs, which prevented Magellan’s ships to land near the
beach. As a result, firing guns, cannons, and crossbows from the ships had little to no effect on
inflicting damage to the natives as they can just easily avoid the fired muskets and crossbow
arrows due to extreme distance from the shore, making them essentially useless. And for the
same reason, Magellan cannot command them to stop, until they run out of ammunition. Aside
from that, Magellan’s men were severely outnumbered. Pigafetta, which was one of the 49
soldiers who fought in Mactan, estimated that Lapulapu’s men were 1,500 in total (8).

Immediately after they landed on the shore, Mactan natives bombarded them with poisoned
arrows, iron-tipped spears, fire-hardened sticks, and stones. Damage on them were not that
severe, as they were protected by their iron armors and helmets. But Lapulapu’s men were
brilliant, they started to aim at their unarmored legs. With hopes to deescalate the whole
situation, Magellan ordered some of his men to burn down some 20 to 30 houses in order to
instill fear on the natives and to show a sign that they were messing with the wrong guys. But
jokes on him, Lapulapu’s men just became more pissed off, giving them more reasons to fight
back. Until Magellan was finally shot with a poisoned arrow on his right leg. It became the
Mactan natives’ opportunity to specifically attack the captain. He was wounded on his arm with
a bamboo spear, and suffered a heavy blow on his left leg with a “scimitar” (which was likely
a kampilan), which caused him to fall onto his face downward on the waters. Afterwards,
Lapulapu’s men ambushed the wounded Magellan with spears and swords repeatedly, killing
him in the process. Pigafetta witnessed how his captain was murdered by the natives, and found
enough time to escape.

Pigafetta estimated that eight of their crew were killed, plus one including Magellan, while four
from Christian Cebuanos perished, and 15 men from Lapulapu were lost. The historian himself
was one of the wounded. Meanwhile, Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula were just from afar,
watching the whole mess happen before their eyes and not offering any kind of back-up. The
Spaniards left Mactan with a great shame on their faces, while surviving loyalists lamented the
death of their captain. Magellan died without even accomplishing his goal of going to Moluccas,
and not finishing his circumnavigation trip.

What Happened After the Battle?

Magellan’s survived loyalists begged Rajah Humabon to claim the corpse of their captain and
eight other men, and were even willing to pay the victors as much as they wanted, but Lapulapu
notedly refused. It seemed that they wanted to keep his remains as their war trophy (9).
Meanwhile, another Portuguese explorer and Magellan’s brother-in-law Duarte
Barbosa and Juan Serrano were elected as the new captains of Armada de Molucca. But due to
their loss at the Battle of Mactan, Cebuanos lost their respect to the Spaniards, while their
abusiveness became more obvious. Magellan’s will allegedly included his request to liberate his
slave Enrique de Malacca, but the two new captains demanded him to continue his translating
duties and follow their orders. According to historian Gregorio Zaide, Barbosa reportedly
became abusive to Enrique. So, he developed a conspiracy plot with Rajah Humabon to betray
and kill the remaining Europeans, and they executed the plan (10).

It was May 1, 1521 when Humabon conducted a feast with the Spaniards, which attended by 30
men who were mostly officers. After the meal was ended, armed Cebuanos entered the hall and
massacred 27 of them, including Barbosa and Serrano. Out of fear, the remaining Spaniards
hurriedly escaped Cebu and went towards of what was now known as Indonesia. They finally
reached Moluccas at the island of Tidore and greeted by the islands’ leader Sultan Al-Mansur.
They exchanged goods such as clothes, knives, and glassware with spices. The two remaining
ships, Trinidad and Victoria, parted ways where the former planned to take their route to
Mexico, while the latter planned to travel westward to go back to Spain. Unfortunately, Trinidad
was plundered and sacked by Portuguese forces in Moluccas, making Victoria the only surviving
ship. Juan Sebastian Elcano, the captain of Victoria, led the expedition for their return to Spain
by sailing across the Indian Ocean, down to the Cape of Good Hope, and up to the western side
of Africa, until they went back to San Lucar de Barrameda on September 6, 1522, making Elcano
the official first European to circumnavigate the globe. Only 18 of them out of 265 crew
survived.

The Battle of Mactan’s Historic Significance

Overall, despite of the less nationalistic reasons of the battle than we thought, Lapulapu’s victory
managed to scare the Spaniards away, and delayed the Spanish colonization for 44 years,
until Miguel Lopez de Legazpi’s conquest in 1564 to 65. If Magellan and the conquistadors won
that bloody conflict, we may have been colonized by Spain for total 377 years, instead of just
333 years.

However, think about it, is Lapulapu really deserved to be called the first “Philippine national
hero”? As we’ve established earlier, his motivations to fight Magellan weren’t that nationalistic
and anti-colonialist, compare to our other heroes like Dagohoy and Bonifacio. He didn’t
defended his island of Mactan against a Western oppressor, but only expelled a combatant from
a rival chief. But nevertheless, we created him as our own symbol of nationalism during the
times that we need to have a historical identity. Filipinos transformed him as a “native Filipino”
hero who successfully fought the conquistadors. After all, isn’t that what our heroes for?

Of course, modern day Spaniards and Filipinos have conflicting portrayals on how Magellan and
Lapulapu were viewed in their own histories. Historian Laurence Bergreen said in his book Over
the Edge of the World that Magellan was interpreted in the Philippines as “an invader and
murderer” instead of “a courageous explorer”, while Lapulapu was “romanticized beyond
recognition” that “if not for his battle with Magellan, his name would be lost to history,”
considering that there are no other official historical records on Lapulapu’s life, even during his
reign (9).

History is truly more complicated than we think, and keeping it simplified is often vulnerable to
distortion. There are always multiple sides of the story, and it is foolish to portray historical
figures as only good or only evil, even though in this case, we only know about the European
side. We gotta read between the lines. A critical reading of historical events will not somehow
diminish its value and impact that it caused to our country’s rich history. The battle’s 500th
anniversary is still worth celebrating.
https://blog.oup.com/2012/03/magellan-reaches-the-philippines/

This Day in World History

March 16, 1521
Magellan Reaches the Philippines

On March 16, 1521, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, attempting to sail

around the world for Spain, reached the Philippine archipelago. Magellan and his
expedition were the first Europeans to reach the Philippines, a stop on the first
circumnavigation of the globe, though Magellan’s portion of that journey would soon
end.

The expedition of five ships and 250 men had left Spain on September 20, 1519.
Magellan sought a western route — avoiding the southern tip of Africa, which Portugal
controlled — to the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) of Southeast Asia. Magellan survived
two mutinies before sailing around the southern tip of South America, finding the strait
named for him, in November of 1520. Reaching calm waters after a dangerous
passage, Magellan named the ocean west of South America “the Pacific Ocean.”

As the ships continued sailing west, supplies dwindled, the crew was forced to eat
leather and drink a mixture of salt and freshwater, and men began dying of scurvy.
Fortified by provisions secured at island stops along the way, the ships reached the
Philippines in March 1521.

Magellan spent more than a month in the area, trading with local leaders and trying to
convert them to Christianity. He grew angry at one chief who refused to cooperate,
however, and ordered an attack on his village. Wounded in the fighting, Magellan
bravely held his ground while the rest of his men escaped back to the ship, but then
received more wounds and died on the beach.

It took until September of 1522 for the remains of the expedition, 17 survivors under the
command of Juan Sebastián de Elcano, to reach Spain. Though he did not complete
this voyage, Magellan is considered the first person to circumnavigate the globe
because earlier in his career he had sailed an eastern route from Portugal to Southeast
Asia, the same region he had reached on his last, fatal voyage by sailing west.