When we learn about European explorers in school we’re taught that they were advancing knowledge through quests of adventure; not plundering, raping, and enslaving peoples around the world. In reality, “explorers” were sent to conquer.
Ferdinand Magellan, for example, is credited with being the first person to circumnavigate the globe, though he never made it because he just couldn’t resist the temptation to kill brown people along the way. Magellan was a seasoned colonizer who had multiple conquests of the East Indies under his belt. When he left Spain to find a westward route to the Spice Islands his flotilla consisted of 5 ships with 250 men. When it returned there were only 19 men and 1 ship left.
When Magellan came across islands in the central Philippines he was allowed to restock his supplies and led to the island of Cebu by native leaders. There he saw Chinese, Thai, and Arab vessels peacefully trading at the port.
However, deciding that mutual trade and respect was for suckers, Magellan searched for a way to control the native population before leaving the Philippines. He decided to put a Christian chieftain loyal to the King of Spain in control of the local tribes of Cebu. This is when he came across Datu Lapu-Lapu, ordering him to submit to Spain and convert to Christianity. Things didn’t go so well for Magellan after that.
The following passage from the diary of Antonio Pigafetta recounts the death of this murderous colonizer.
“When our muskets were discharged, the natives would never stand still, but leaped hither and thither, covering themselves with their shields. They shot so many arrows at us and hurled so many bamboo spears (some of them tipped with iron) at the captain-general, besides pointed stakes hardened with fire, stones, and mud, that we could scarcely defend ourselves.
Seeing that, the captain-general sent some men to burn their houses in order to terrify them. When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury. Two of our men were killed near the houses, while we burned twenty or thirty houses. So many of them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, but the men took to fight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain. The natives shot only at our legs, for the latter were bare; and so many were the spears and stones that they hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance. The mortars in the boats could not aid us as they were too far away.
So we continued to retire for more than a good crossbow flight from the shore always fighting up to our knees in the water. The natives continued to pursue us, and picking up the same spear four or six times, hurled it at us again and again. Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice, but he always stood firmly like a good knight, together with some others. Thus did we fight for more than one hour, refusing to retire farther. An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain’s face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian’s body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide.”
I could read that over and over again.
Every moment counts; let's capture them.