The First Person to Circumnavigate the World Wasn’t A European; It was a Malay Slave
History is written by the winners, and this couldn’t more true than in the narratives around conquered societies. If you grew up in North America, you probably refer to the indigenous peoples as “Indians” and think of them as savage, primitive tribes who cruelly and randomly assaulted innocent white settlers who came to their shores to escape religious and political oppression in the Old World. You probably were not taught to see that history from the Native American perspective, which was groups of small nations defending and ultimately losing their territories and cultures as deceitful and technologically superior foreign invaders systematically committed genocide to settle lands they stole.
Another example closer to home for me is the generally accepted history of Philippines which, as taught in school, has an almost cursory mention of what occurred on the islands before they were “discovered” by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. What we were taught in history class was really told through the colonial experience of Spain and later, the United States. This year as we “celebrated” 500 years of Christianity, mostly as our initial entry to enlightened Christian i.e. Western civilization, but how many discussions were there in the public arena about the role the Catholic Church played in our colonization and the attempt to eradicate our indigenous culture?
My point is there are many ways of looking at history outside of the mainstream narratives bequeathed to us by our conquerors. And these outside narratives are where I believe my people must look if they want to forge their own identity and claim their rightful place in the world. To this day, our self concept as Filipinos is mostly what our conquerors have told us it is, and our place in the world is what they have allowed it to be. In recent years, I’ve begun to explore the history of my people and I’ve discovered so many interesting and little known stories that I will share in this space. In doing so, I hope primarily to entertain you, dear reader. But as we learn more about our past in a new context, maybe we can begin the long conversation that allows us to eventually decide on our own terms who are as a people, what we value, and what place we want to take in the community of nations.
Let me begin with the story of “Enrique”, the Malay slave who travelled with the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1519 as he set off for new lands to discover. “Enrique” may have just been the first person to circumnavigate the world. Much of what we know about Magellan’s adventures comes from the writings of Antonio Pigafetta, the Venetian adventurer who travelled with Magellan and chronicled his journey. “Enrique” is barely mentioned by name in Pigafetta’s writings. He is more often referred to simply as “the interpreter” or one of Magellan’s slaves — the one who spoke the language of the Malay peninsula’s inhabitants. But Pigafetta’s writings earned Enrique a footnote in Western versions of history as he came to be known as “Henry the Black.” In Southeast Asia, where he is better known, he is claimed by Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines as a kind of proto-citizen, because he is said to have come from Sumatra before settling in Malacca, and could readily converse with Cebuanos. But it’s in Malaysia where he plays a more prominent role, having been renamed there as “Panglima Awang” where he is more deliberately woven into that country’s popular culture and historical identity.
Writing in his journals, Pigafetta recounts how on 28 March 1521, Magellan and his exhausted crew dropped anchor on the Visayan island of Limasawa, where the locals spoke the same language as their Malaccan slave who was given the name “Enrique” when he was first sold into slavery many years ago.
“March 28, anchor is cast at the island of Limasaua (Mazava), where Enrique, the Malaccan slave of Magalhães, serves as interpreter. Amicable relations are speedily entered into and confirmed by the Malayan rite of blood brotherhood.”
Malacca, where Enrique came from, was a sultanate ruled by a Malay dynasty and was part of the Malay Peninsula, which encompasses the Southeast Asian islands that are today are parts of the countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Timor Leste. By the time it was invaded by the Portuguese in 1510, Malacca was one of the most important trading centers in the Malay peninsula. Merchants from the Middle East, China, Europe, and other parts of East Asia would trade a variety of goods, but especially spices. Even before the Portuguese invasion, Malacca was already a vital stop along the Spice Route, the network of maritime routes that enabled commerce from China and Japan to as far West as Portugal and Spain.
Its no surprise then that Enrique, the Malaccan slave, spoke the same language as the inhabitants of Limasawa, or a dialect similar enough that they could clearly understand each other, since they were all natives of the Malay peninsula. Enrique was around 18 years old when we was “acquired” by Magellan in 1511 during the Portuguese siege of Malacca. Upon his enslavement, he was brought by Magellan to Portugal via the Spice Route, going from the Malaccas to India, to the Middle East, and through the Mediterranean.
After that, I can find no record of what happened to Enrique before he boarded Magellan’s ships in Seville in 1519, but despite his seeming insignificance to his White masters, he proved to be an essential player in this last chapter of Magellan’s life.
Returning our story to Limasawa in 1521, it was Enrique who enabled the communication between the Europeans and Visayans. Through his efforts, Magellan learned that there was more food and provisions in the nearby island of Cebu. Accompanied by the Sultan of Limasawa, Magellan arrived at the port of Cebu with cannons blazing in an attempt to intimidate the locals. After that show of force, Enrique and a single European crewman were dispatched onshore to patch things up with the startled locals and pave the way for the arrival of his masters. Apparently left to his own devices, Enrique wrangled an audience with Rajah Humabon, the Ruler of Cebu, who demanded tribute from the foreigners as a sign of their friendly intentions; not an easy thing to convince him of given their less-than-friendly arrival at the port. Nevertheless, in a gutsy move, Enrique audaciously refused to pay tribute and claiming that his master’s king was the most powerful man in the world, negotiated a friendly first encounter for the Europeans.
Magellan and his crew disembarked, and with the added assistance of the Sultan of Limasawa, received a friendly welcome from Rajah Humabon and his court. Over the next several days, Magellan tried to convert the Cebuanos to Christianity through a combination of bribery, flattery, and coercion, and the suggestion that if they converted, they (the Europeans) would not rape their women.
“Then the captain told them that if they became Christians, he would leave a suit of armor, for so had his king commanded him; that we could not have intercourse with their women without committing a very great, sin, since they were pagans;”
After days of relentless evangelizing, Humabon and his people eventually agree to be baptized and accept the authority of the King of Spain. As an added benefit to Magellan, it turns out that Humabon is first among equals among the various rulers of the islands around Cebu and through him, the lesser chieftains are also converted to Christianity. Except for one holdout on the island of Mactan, named Lapulapu. Humabon convinces Magellan to invade Mactan and force Lapulapu to submit to Spanish rule and adopt the Christian faith. An invasion is hastily undertaken and Magellan and a number of his men are killed in the ensuing battle as the Mactanons succeed in driving the Europeans away. Enrique, who appears to have been involved in the battle on the side of Magellan, is wounded slightly and repairs to his quarters aboard one of the ships. With his master dead, Enrique assumes that he is freed from slavery, as indicated in Magellan’s will, which he executed before leaving Seville in 1519.
With Magellan dead, two senior officers, Juan Serrano and Duarte Barboza, assume command of the expedition and prepare to leave Cebu and return to Spain. Barboza finds Enrique, now a free man, preparing to go to onshore and tries to stop him. Barboza tells Enrique that he has not gained his freedom and that he shall remain a property of the estate of Magellan and will be returned to Spain to serve Magellan's widow. Enrique escapes the ship and goes ashore anyway.
There, according to Pigafetta, he finds Humabon and proposes a way for him to seize the Spanish ships and all the merchandise aboard. Humabon agrees to the plot, and Enrique returns to the ship. There is no mention of whether Enrique was punished for defying an order not to leave the ship, but he was already behaving as a free man.
Four days later, Humabon sends word to the commanders that some jewels which he had promised for the king of Spain were ready to be taken aboard the ships and asked that the officers and some of the crew dine with him that morning, when he would give them the jewels. Twenty-four men went ashore including Enrique and Juan Serrano. Once ashore, Enrique and Humabon’s men killed the crew, except Serrano who they took hostage. Bound and wounded, Serrano asked the crew to “redeem him with some of the merchandise” they had accumulated over their travels.
But to Serrano’s horror, the ship weighed anchor and just left him there at the mercy of his captors. Pigafetta writes that as he looked back, he saw Serrano weeping and cursing the crewman who ordered the ship to sail. And that was the last he knew of Serrano.
That was also the last we know of Enrique.
Maybe I’m romanticizing him but in those short footnotes of history in which he appears — and stripped of Pigafetta’s disdain — we get a grainy image of a man who was tough, intelligent, confident, savvy, opportunistic, and ruthless. We’ll never really know why he left Sumatra and what his life was like in the Malaccas before he became a slave, or the trials and triumphs of his journey to the savage alien civilization of 16th century Europe, or even what became of him after he won back his freedom. Did he stay on in Cebu and join the court of Humabon or did he make his way back to his old home in the Malaccas? He was only 28 years old at the time and had many years to live.
But imagine the story it would have been if told from his perspective— a young man living in a prosperous coastal trading center has his life upended when hostile foreigners invade his city and take him hostage and sell him into slavery. Ten years later after embarking on a dangerous historical journey across the oceans he becomes the first person to circumnavigate the world. He then befriends the local community and hatches a plan to win his freedom while at the same time hiding his intentions from his captors. The plan is successfully executed and a measure of justice is meted out to his tormentors after which our protagonist, now a free man, is free to remake his life.
Now that’s a story for the books.
