On Wednesday, May 1, Humabon requested that the armada’s leaders attend a feast. The invitation, presumably delivered orally by Enrique, promised a lavish meal accompanied by gifts of jewels and other presents, which Humabon wished the fleet to carry across the waters as tribute to the king of Spain. The Christian king hoped that as many people as possible would partake of his hospitality and generosity. In all, around thirty men, most of them officers, decided to accept.
This was a large contingent, approximately a quarter of the entire crew; their number included Barbosa and Serrano, the new co-commanders, as well as their astrologer and astronomer, Andrés de San Martín. Antonio Pigafetta was also invited to the feast, but, as he later explained, “I could not go, because I was all swollen from the wound of a poison arrow that I had received in the forehead.” He had sustained his injury at Magellan’s side, during the battle of Mactan.
This banquet promised to be another occasion for Humabon’s guests to fill their bellies and get drunk on the island’s palm wine. But shortly after the officers went ashore, Pigafetta, recovering on board Trinidad, was startled to hear João Lopes de Carvalho, the Portuguese pilot, and the master-at-arms, Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa, returning unexpectedly. Pigafetta listened apprehensively as they “told us that they had seen the man cured by a miracle”—the prince’s brother healed by Magellan—“leading the priest into his house, and for this reason they had departed, fearing some evil chance.” The sight of Father Valderrama entering a Cebuan hut hardly seemed sinister, but in this charged atmosphere it was enough to send the two Europeans scurrying back to the ships for safety.
No sooner had those two spoken their words than we heard great cries and groans,” said Pigafetta. “Then we quickly raised the anchors, and, firing several pieces of artillery at their houses, we approached nearer to shore.”
What they saw exceeded their worst imaginings; it was worse, even, than the massacre of Juan de Solis. Ginés de Mafra, among those who had remained behind, described the murderous chaos engulfing the sailors on shore:
As the banquet was about to end, some armed people emerged from the palm grove and attacked the invitees, killing twenty-seven of them, and captured the priest who had remained there and Juan Serrano, the pilot, who was an old man; others, although there were few of them, swam to the ships and, helped by those aboard, cut the cables and set sail; the barbarians, gorging on the killing and anxious to steal whatever was in the ships, brought their armada to the sea and, in order to stop our men while they were preparing to leave, also brought Juan Serrano to the shore and said that they wanted to exchange him for ransom. The old man implored our men with words and tears to feel sympathy for his old age and not to become accomplices, lest his last days end in the hands of such cruel barbarians, but to strive so that at least he could spend what little life he had left amidst his kin.
Our men told him that they would do as they could. The ransom was discussed and they asked for an iron gun, which is what they fear the most; this was sent to them on a skiff, and upon seeing it, the Indians asked for more, and no sooner would our men grant their request than the Indians would reply asking for more, and this continued until, realizing their intention, those aboard the ships did not want to remain there any longer and said to Juan Serrano that he himself could very well see what was going on, and how the Indians’ words were all but a pretence.
Serrano pleaded for his crew members to come to his rescue, but they refused to leave the safety of their ships for fear that they would be massacred, as well. “Then Juan Serrano, weeping, said that as soon as we sailed he would be killed,” Pigafetta recorded. “And he said that he prayed God that at the day of judgment he would demand the soul of his friend João Carvalho.” Serrano’s desperate words fell on deaf ears, and his friend Carvalho refused to intervene. Pigafetta was appalled by this cowardice, but there was nothing that he, as a supernumerary, could do.
Hoarse cries from the ships floated to land. Had the worst happened? Were the men ashore all dead? Could it be possible? Summoning his last reserves of strength, Serrano, stranded on the shore, confirmed that the other men, including Barbosa and San Martín, were dead, slaughtered during Humabon’s banquet. He then watched the ships weigh anchor, preparing to abandon him to bloodthirsty island warriors seeking to reclaim their lost honor and dignity. “I do not know whether he is dead or alive,” Pigafetta wrote in anguish as the ships sailed. Left behind by his own men, Serrano eventually met the same fate as his crew members. Enrique’s revenge on the Europeans had been bloodier than anyone could have foreseen.
The three black ships of the Armada de Molucca raised anchor, set sail, and headed out of Cebu harbor with all the speed they could muster. No thought was given to sending a rescue party to stop the massacre, to recover bodies or search for survivors, or even to punish Enrique for his betrayal. Only 115 men remained of the 260 who had left Spain, and as they fled to safety, their last sight of Cebu was of enraged islanders tearing down the cross on the mountaintop and smashing it to bits.
The May 1 massacre claimed many of the ablest and most prominent crew members. The victims included Duarte Barbosa, who had served as co-commander for just three days; Serrano; Andrés de San Martín, the fleet’s cautious astrologer; Father Valderrama; Luis Alfonso de Gois, who had succeeded Barbosa as the captain of Victoria; two clerks named Sancho de Heredia and León Expeleta; a barrelmaker by the name of Francisco Martín; Simón de la Rochela, a provisioner; Francisco de Madrid, a man-at-arms; Hernando de Aguilar, who had been the servant of the mutineer Luis de Mendoza, whom Espinosa had executed; Guillermo Feneso, who operated the lombardas; four sailors; two cabin boys; three ordinary seamen; a servant attached to Serrano; and four men described in the roster as “servants of Magellan.”
According to some accounts, eight of these crew members survived, but were imprisoned and sold off as slaves to the Chinese merchants who regularly visited Cebu, but the rumors were impossible to confirm. Enrique, whose treachery had set the stage for the ambush, disappears from history at this point, as does the wily Humabon. Such was the tragic conclusion of what had begun as a highly promising experiment in the Philippines.
Five days later, and half a world away, a weatherbeaten vessel tied up at the harbor in Seville.
The arrival of a ship from distant lands was hardly an unusual event in Seville, but she was not just any vessel, this was San Antonio, part of the Armada de Molucca. It was May 6, 1521, and the event marked the first news of the fleet since it left Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 20, 1519.
No one ashore knew what to make of her arrival, for the fleet had not been expected to return for months. They would soon learn that Magellan had found the fabled strait, after all, but before he could traverse it, San Antonio had been commandeered by mutineers fleeing Magellan’s cruelty and excessive daring. She carried her captain, Estêvão Gomes; his chief co-conspirator, Gerónimo Guerra; and fifty-five men, including Magellan’s cousin, Álvaro de Mesquita, whom the mutineers had stabbed and kept in irons throughout the return journey.