This is a replica of the Santo del Niño, a Flemish-made doll of the infant Jesus given by Magellan to Rajah Humabon’s wife after a mass baptismal in what is the present day Cebu City. Forty-four years to the day after Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan across the water from Cebu Harbor, […]

“From time immemorial this spot has been set aside to commemorate the erection of a cross in Cebu by the expedition of Magellan. When King Humabon of Cebu and his Queen, son and daughters, together with some 800 of their subjects were baptized by Father Pedro Valderrama. This hallowed site was improved in 1735 by […]

Just to put Magellan into historical context, here are some events and dates to consider. 1519 was the year Magellan set out on his expedition. The cosmological belief system at the time was “geocentric.” Complex celestial trigonometry was used to navigate by heavenly bodies which were assumed to be rotating around the Earth. The Spanish […]

The retracing voyage will begin the journey in the Philippines where Magellan was killed. The voyage will begin here as this is the core of the commingling of European and Asian cultures resonating through the centuries to the present day. The European perspective on this commingling has been the primary history taught in schools in […]

While the European historical perspective of the motivations and results of global exploration in the 16th century has been developed and recorded over the years, an opportunity to explore and develop the perspective of the complex cultures in existence along the route of the expedition is needed to further understand the impact Magellan’s voyage. At […]

“Make no small plans, for they have no power to stir the soul.”Niccolo Machiavelli 1469-1527 In 1519, the Magellan expedition left the west coast of Spain with five ships and approximately 270 souls in pursuit of a westward route to the Spice Islands. Three years later, one ship with 18 Europeans, a handful of Malays […]