Enrique of Malacca Becomes the First Person to Circumnavigate the Globe
Rio de Janeiro, Puerto San Julián, Guam, Limasawa, Cebu.
On March 28, 1521, Enrique of Malacca became the first person to complete a linguistic circumnavigation of the globe — he traveled so far in one direction that he reached a point where his own language was spoken.
Enrique’s journey began a decade earlier with the sack of Malacca. A teenager, he was taken as a slave by Ferdinand Magellan, who served with the Portuguese in the brutal assault. Enrique then accompanied Magellan back to Lisbon in 1512–13, westward halfway around the earth, then to Seville by 1519.
There Enrique joined Magellan’s Armada de Molucca on its mission to return to Southeast Asia — sailing again westward. Although still Magellan’s slave, he was enlisted as an interpreter with a monthly salary of 1,500 maravedis. That’s the same amount that Duarte Barbosa, Magellan’s relation by marriage, was earning and 300 maravedis more per month than Cristovão Rebêlo, possibly Magellan’s illegitimate son.
Enrique likely had a talent for languages; different Malay dialects were spoken among merchants in Malacca, and Enrique learned Portuguese and later mastered Spanish.
But it would be a year and a half before Enrique had opportunity to do any interpreting. After searching for and finally finding a strait, the fleet survived a deadly three-month crossing of the Pacific Ocean, reaching Limasawa Island (modern-day Philippines) in March 1521. As they approached, they were met by eight men in a canoe, whom — presumably to everyone’s surprise and delight — Enrique could suddenly converse with.
At this point, Enrique had circumnavigated the globe linguistically, by language; he and Magellan had just produced empirical evidence that the world was round and could be sailed around. The two had come 2,600 kilometers (1,615 miles) from a full circle of the earth, Malacca being their starting point.
It is also possible Enrique had already reached his home islands, had in fact, completed a full global circuit. Some scholars in the Philippines argue that since Enrique spoke the language at Limasawa, he could have grown up in that region — the Visayan Islands — and was brought to Malacca perhaps already a slave. Malacca did in fact import its own slaves from as far as the Visayas.
Most likely, though, Enrique was speaking Malay at Limasawa — the language long used in Southeast Asian trade. Pigafetta’s accounts at both Limasawa and Cebu point to that.
Either way, Enrique has been adopted as a hero in the Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia.
Enrique of Malacca completed a ten-year journey around the globe, along the way witnessing first-hand the early forays of colonizing by both the Portuguese (in Malacca) and the Spanish (in South America and the Philippines) half a millennium ago. And traveled from one to the other the long way.
By John Sailors, Enrique of Malacca’s Voyage
© 2023 by John Sailors. All rights reserved.
