The official reports and orders concerning the mutiny of San Antonio and her paltry contents can be found in Licuanun and Mira, The Philippines Under Spain (pp. 17, 24–28, 43–44). See also Denucé (p. 293). Joyner (p. 159) says Mesquita had to pay for his trial-related costs.
Roger Merriman offers much more on King Charles’s astonishing ascent to power in The Rise of the Spanish Empire (vol. 3, 1925).
For accounts of daily life in sixteenth-century Seville, see Pike’s “Seville in the Sixteenth Century,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 41, no. 3, August 1961.
CHAPTER XII: SURVIVORS
Elcano’s ascent and the problems facing the Armada de Molucca after Magellan’s death are ably set forth in Mitchell. See especially pp. 42–48 and 63–64.
Robertson’s translation of Pigafetta carries forward into vol. 2 at this point in the narrative.
Morison’s description of Palawan appears on p. 442, and Albo’s exasperation while trying to reach Brunei can be found in Stanley (pp. 226–227).
Jones’s 1928 translation of The Itinerary of Ludovico de Varthema of Bologna has been quoted. Varthema’s description of the Spice Islands (pp. 88–89) offers a fairly exact preview of scenes the armada later encountered. And for more on the Bajau, see Harry Nimmo’s The Sea People of Sulu (1972).
Argensola’s description of the Moluccas comes from Stevens’s 1708 translation of The Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands (p. 7).
The quotation of The Lusíads comes from Landeg White’s translation (p. 223).
CHAPTER XIII: ET IN ARCADIA EGO
Barros’s harsh view of the inhabitants of the Spice Islands is cited in Charles Corn’s charming and evocative study, The Scents of Eden (p. 58), and in Andaya (p. 16). Given the reputation of the Spice Islands’ inhabitants, it is surprising that the armada treated them with as much civility as they did.
António Galvão’s useful and vivid description of the Spice Islands’ volcanoes and rainfall can be found in his Treatise on the Moluccas, tr. Hubert Jacobs (1971), and The Discoveries of the World, tr. Richard Hakluyt (1862, originally published in 1601). Barbosa’s descriptions of cloves and Almanzor’s family are drawn from his Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar, tr. Henry E. J. Stanley, 1866 (pp. 201–202). Andaya discusses the primacy of oral over written agreements (p. 61).
On the subject of Serrão’s curious odyssey in the Spice Islands, Guillemard offers several unsubstantiated theories. According to one scenario, he was “poisoned by a Malay woman who acted under Portuguese orders.” But Guillemard also cites Argensola’s assertion that Serrão was not poisoned at all; rather, he was sent back to India and he died aboard ship (p. 281).
Anyone wanting to learn more about cloves should start by consulting Frederic Rosengarten’s Book of Spices (rev. ed., 1973), especially pp. 200–204. Much of the information about spices in this chapter is drawn from this comprehensive and entertaining reference work. Other useful works on the subject include Parry’s The Story of Spices (1953) and Larioux Bruno’s “Spices in the Medieval Diet: A New Approach,” Food and Foodways, vol. 1, no. 1, 1985. Also of interest is M. N. Pearson, ed., Spices in the Indian Ocean World (1996).
CHAPTER XIV: GHOST SHIP
It is still possible that syphilis in Timor—if that was what the sailors saw—originally came from Portugal, because the Portuguese went to China as early as 1513; the Chinese might then have carried it to Timor.
Pigafetta’s elaborate account of China relies on stories he gathered in Indonesia from a well-traveled Arab merchant. Pigafetta sketched a convincing description of the emperor’s seat, Peking: “Near his palace are seven encircling walls, and in each of those circular places are stationed ten thousand men for the guard of the place [who remain there] until a bell rings, when ten thousand other men come for each circular space. They are changed in this manner each day and night. Each circle of the wall has a gate. At the first stands a man with a large hook in his hand, called satu horan with satu bagan; in the second, a dog, called satu hain; in the third, a man with an iron mace, called satu horan with pocum becin; in the fourth, a man with a bow in his hand, called satu horan with anat panam; in the fifth, a man with a spear, called satu horan with tumach; in the sixth, a lion, called satu horiman; in the seventh, two white elephants called gagua pute.
“The palace has seventy-nine halls which contain only women who serve the king. Torches are always kept lighted in the palace, and it takes a day to go through it. In the upper part are four halls, where the principal men go sometimes to speak to the king. One is ornamented with copper, both below and above; one all with silver; one all with gold; and the fourth with pearls and precious gems. When the king’s vassals take him gold or any other precious things as tribute, they are placed in those halls, and they say, ‘Let this be for the honor and glory of our Santhoa Raia.’”
Concerning the Cape of Good Hope: in Canto Five of The Lusíads, Luis de Camões personified it as a mighty giant named Adamastor, who resented the intrusion of mere humans, even audacious Portuguese navigators, into his domain.
I am that vast, secret promontory
You Portuguese call the Cape of Storms,
Which neither Ptolemy, Pompey, Strabo,
Pliny, nor any authors knew of.
Here Africa ends. Here its coast
Concludes in this, my vast, inviolate
Plateau, extending southwards to the Pole
And, by your daring, stuck to my very soul.
Espinosa’s sad comment about turning back is in Lévesque (p. 306).
Much of what is known about Trinidad’s tragic end comes from Barros, whose account is skewed in favor of the Portuguese. Barros (Chapter 10) states that Brito discovered the armada’s attempts to alter the locations of various lands, and Guillemard (p. 303) approvingly quotes Brito’s callous report to the Portuguese crown about the armada’s survivors. Trinidad’s tragic end inspired Barros to twist events so that Brito emerges as the savior of Magellan’s men, when in fact he was happy to let them die. “The first thing he did,” Barros writes of Brito, “on request of a certain Bartolomé Sánchez, clerk of that ship, whom Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa had sent for help due to their sorry condition, was to dispatch a caravel with plenty of provisions and anchors for the ship. . . . António de Brito had the crew cured and tended as carefully as they had been natives of this kingdom, and not gone to those lands to cause us trouble.” In conclusion, Barros writes, “We are free of any suspicion.”
The description of Espinosa’s travails in the Portuguese penal colony is drawn from Lévesque (p. 306), Guillemard (p. 304), and Navarrete (vol. 4, pp. 378ff).
The vignette of Victoria’s encountering an indifferent Portuguese vessel at the Cape of Good Hope is related by Joyner (p. 231), and Morison (p. 461) mentions Victoria’s multiple crossings of the equator. Joyner (p. 234) explores Burgos’s character and motives for betraying his crew members.