Chapter 21
The Ship of Mutineers
Cebu
The San Gerónimo, sent from Acapulco with help for Legazpi, reached Cebu on 15 October 1566 after a voyage of mutiny and murder. Its captain and his son were killed, and the pilot Lope Martín, who had deserted Legazpi’s fleet in the San Lucas, was marooned with twenty-six men on an island in the Marshalls.
15 October 1566
On 15 October 1566 a ship sails into Cebu from Mexico. It is the *San Gerónimo*, the first ship from Mexico since the fleet arrived, and her story is a dark one: “bad management, mutinies, want of harmony, deaths, hardships, and calamities.”
Her captain, a man called Pericón, sailed from Acapulco in too much of a hurry. Her pilot was Lope Martín, the same man who took the *San Lucas* away from Legazpi’s fleet. At sea he and the master plotted mutiny. The captain and his son were murdered; then the pilot hanged the master, and planned to sail the ship to Spain by the Strait of Magellan, leaving behind on some island anyone who would not follow him.
He landed most of the men on a small island near Barbudos, to “winter” there. The ship’s priest, Juan de Viveros, protested that “it was inhuman, and he should take them to the Filipinas, and leave them where there were provisions.” Then the men still aboard rose against the mutineers in the king’s name, seized the ship, and sailed for the Philippines, leaving Lope Martín and twenty-six others on the island. What became of them is not known.
Legazpi tries the ship’s notary for his part in the captain’s murder, and he is executed. The rest are pardoned.
November 1566
A month later comes news that a Portuguese fleet is in the islands, looking for Legazpi. Two of its ships appear off Cebu, stand off, and come back.
The Spaniards make ready to fight. Legazpi tells them not to forget that they are Spaniards. The people of Cebu are terrified. Many carry their families to the mountains, but others bring their wives, children and goods into the camp, to the houses of soldiers who have become their friends, “saying they would die with us.”
Goiti goes out to the Portuguese. They have lost their fleet in a storm, they say, and are bound for the Moluccas. The ships exchange salutes and sail away. Legazpi sends after them a letter and presents of food and wine. The Portuguese send their thanks by word of mouth: “they had no paper or ink.”
November 1566
The next night a comet blazes “nearly above the town of Zebu.” The soldiers say it means war.
There is trouble enough inside the camp. A Mexican Indian and a sailor die, and others fall ill, and poison is suspected. A woman is found to have poisoned palm wine she sold to the men; she confesses, is baptised, and is executed. The same night, on information from Tupas, one of the chiefs who killed Pedro de Arana is caught, and he is executed the next day where Arana died.
The *San Gerónimo* is so rotten that the carpenters say not even a small boat can be made from her timbers. Legazpi has a big frigate built instead, to fetch food from the other islands.