On September 6, but half a millennium ago, the Spanish sailor Juan Sebastián Elcano dropped anchor on his ship, the ‘Victoria’, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, after completing the first circumnavigation of the globe. Two days later he would arrive in Seville, where he disembarked.
The news spread quickly through Spain and from there it spread to the entire known world: the Earth had been circumnavigated, with the connection of Europe, America, Asia and Africa, and the entire Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans traveled.
Of the fleet of 5 ships and 236 souls that had departed, also from the Andalusian capital, on August 10, 1519, a single boat and 18 people managed to return, with the brave and tenacious Gipuzkoan from Getaria at the helm. They had sailed no less than 14,460 leagues (69,813 kilometers): the world, from that moment on, would never be the same.
Primitive and medieval legends and trickery, such as flat earthing or the belief in unknown places from which one could never return, were relegated forever.
a new reality
A new world, yeah definitively illuminated in the 16th century in three capital moments for the history of global civilizations: the Columbian voyages (1492-1504); the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation of the Earth (1519-1522); and the route of the tornaviaje or journey back from Asia to America, by Andrés de Urdaneta (1565).
(In context: Ferdinand Magellan’s overseas adventure)
Three Spanish companies, three milestones of the Hispanic Crown, which reached the zenith of the Iberian era of great explorations, after which the world, as we understand it today, was definitively consolidated.
From then on, a period of fruitful exchanges, discoveries and progress began, in the Spanish case of fundamental miscegenation, which, although it was obscured at times by certain shadows (whose consequences are still reflected in our days), brought a different way of understanding reality, based on the conviction, from then on, that, as the Spanish researcher Manuel Lucena Giraldo, a member of the Colombian Academy of History, rightly affirms, “Humanity was already only one…”.
Over the next few days there will be commemorations and reminders of this anniversary, which will be especially frequent and visible in my country.
Spain and Portugal (birthplace of the first commander of the Spanish expedition, the great navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who should be recognized for the feat of having connected the Atlantic and the Pacific, Europe and Asia, through the extreme south) They have been working together for three years now (the Spanish side, through the Commemorative Commission for the V Centenary of the Circumnavigation – www.vcentenario.es) to vindicate, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the importance and validity of what was achieved then.
History, development, cooperation, trade, environment, geography, botany, sociology, science and innovation, and art, are just some of the aspects that are being addressed in this ambitious agenda of activities.
With it, it has been sought to recover the factual rigor and sustained influence of this great event (overcome rancorous and self-conscious historiographical versions such as Pigafetta’s, or entertaining fiction, not history, such as Stefan Zweig’s), so that it is projected on our current life.
This sequence of initiatives and events will culminate between today and next Thursday, chen his majesty King Felipe VI first presides over, in the Cadiz town of Sanlúcar, the tribute and the naval revue to the heroes of the ‘Victoria’, and later, in Seville, the recreation of the landing of the survivors of the first trip around the world.
(Also: What really happened in Magellan and Elcano’s round-the-world trip?)
A meeting between the Spanish and Portuguese Foreign Ministers is also planned on the 8th, to close this commemorative program of the two Iberian governments on the era of maritime exploration.
our common past
Reflecting from Colombia on this event, it occurs to me that it is convenient to bring up a dimension that connects Colombians and Spaniards, Americans and Europeans, ultimately, to the entire Ibero-American community, largely the result, in its richness and diversity, of that epic.
That of our common past. Because in few places can its importance be better understood than here, in this bi-oceanic, Caribbean, Pacific, Atlantic and Amazonian, American, European, African, indigenous, mestizo and mulatto nation, point of departure and arrival of what this first globalization world contributed to human development.
From this beloved Colombian land,
that, as reflected in its flag, looks with equal pride at the two great oceans, these lines serve to pay tribute to that universal Basque.
It is one of the shared legacies that we must know and assume, because it is part of our Colombian, Spanish, Latin American, European and Ibero-American identity.
Remembering what those indefatigable and daring Argonauts of the Renaissance did five hundred years ago should help us better understand where we come from and who we are.
Assuming with serene pride, compatible with the necessary self-criticism, those traits that define us as members of a great culture, fundamental for civilization and human progress, the opening and modernization of the world, and the dissemination of the best and most varied cultural manifestations, expressed in that great language that is ours, Spanish, one of the first two global languages in the world.
A universal Basque
We are not only that, it is true; now we are much more, because we have been enriched by other contributions, varied and more recent. But in no case should we give up that accumulated heritage of shared history, one of whose great moments occurred five centuries ago today. It belongs to all Ibero-Americans.
“Primus circumdedisti me” (“You were the first to turn me around”), is the motto of the coat of arms that King Carlos I of Spain, great promoter of the project, granted to the sailor Elcano after completing his improbable and decisive trip.
(Keep reading: This is how the unpublished details of the Titanic are seen on display in 8k)
A fair and necessary acknowledgment to those who today sail the seas again and travel the world embodied in the Spanish Navy training ship, which quite rightly bears its name.
From this beloved Colombian land, which, as its flag reflects, looks with equal pride at the two great oceans, may these lines serve to pay tribute to that universal Basque, who one day challenged and defeated uncertainty and misfortune, connecting, forever, seas, continents, cultures and peoples.
JOAQUIN DE ARÍSTEGUI LABORDE
Ambassador of Spain in Colombia
#Juan #Sebastián #Elcano #challenge #uncertainty