Juan de Cartagena, Mutiny, and the Plot Against Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan faced not just the challenges of a voyage at sea but also plots and mutiny by his own captains. At the forefront was Juan de Cartagena, both a ship’s captain and inspector-general of the fleet.
Juan de Cartagena was the original captain of the San Antonio and one of the human obstacles Ferdinand Magellan had to overcome on the expedition.
History labels Magellan and Columbus and other ships’ captains as “explorers” and “navigators.” Cartagena is identified as “an accountant and a ship captain”[1], not quite the swashbuckling image that inspires fifth-graders in history class.
The accountant note was important, though — Cartagena was sent to keep and eye on the Portuguese captain-general and possibly depose him along the journey.
When Spain’s newly crowned King Carlos I (Charles V) agreed to back Magellan’s expedition, Castilian court officials set out to undermine the project. The idea of a Portuguese fleet commander for this big a a large Spanish expedition was unthinkable.
But their new king was an 18-year-old from Flanders listening Flemish advisers. Magellan won him over, but not the entire court.
The day the Articles of Agreement were signed, a royal decree was also inked naming Cartagena as the fleet’s inspector-general , a check on Magellan’s power. Cartagena was a confidant and “nephew” (possibly illegitimate son) of Archbishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, a relationship other officers in the armada knew of and one that Magellan was forced to respect, to a degree.
Once at sea, Cartagena openly defied Magellan’s authority, driving the captain-general to arrest him before they even crossed the Atlantic. Still a captive when the fleet reached Patagonia, Cartagena broke loose and returned to the San Antonio to lead a mutiny.
Cartagena joined the Concepción’s Captain Gaspar de Quesada, its pilot, Juan Sebastián Elcano, and 30 Spanish crew members to seize control of the vessel. Quickly the mutiny pitted three ships — the San Antonio, the Concepción, and the Victoria — against Magellan’s flagship Trinidad and the Santiago.
Although outnumbered, Magellan quickly prevailed in a battle at sea that included sending Duarte Barbosa to board the Victoria and retake it by force, a decisive surprise attack.
Magellan convened a court martial onshore at Puerto San Julian. Quesada was sentenced to death by beheading (and quartering afterward). Cartagena was spared the beheading, likely because of his relationship to Archbishop Fonseca. He was sentenced instead to be marooned along with a priest, Pedro Sánchez de la Reina, who was among the mutineers.
On August 11, 1520, Juan de Cartagena and Reina were left marooned on a small island off Puerto San Julian with a small supply of sea biscuit and wine — this along a coastline where the fleet had already encountered cannibals and Patagonian “giants.”
Later at the entrance of the strait, two other officers aboard the San Antonio mutinied again, putting the replacement captain, Álvaro de Mesquita, in chains. (Mesquita was a nephew of Magellan.)
They piloted out of the strait and sailed directly back to Spain [2] without stopping to replenish supplies or rescue Cartagena and Reina, who were never seen or heard from again.
By John Sailors, Enrique’s Voyage
Notes:
[1] Okay, so the wording is from Wikipedia.
[2] Note to self: Stop writing “the Victoria was the only ship of the fleet to return to Spain.” The San Antonio did too, just in disgrace via mutiny and without circumnavigating the globe.
Images
Top, Juan de Cartagena: De L. Bennett — Les premiers explorateurs par Jules Verne, Dominio público, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=88429117.
Monte Cristo: De Fernando de Gorocica — Trabajo propio, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons. wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32923586.
© 2022 by John Sailors. All rights reserved.
Enrique’s Voyage Profile: Ferdinand Magellan
Part 1. Magellan’s Real Circumnavigation, Enrique of Malacca Taken as Slave
Part 2. Magellan Wounded in Combat in Morocco, Defects to Spain
Part 3. Magellan Beats Mutinies, Sabotage, Starvation to Cross Pacific
Part 4. What Magellan’s Death Says About His Motives — and Columbus’s
