Pigafetta in the Philippines, 1521

Antonio Pigafetta’s account is the earliest written description of the Philippines and its people. This guide covers what students of Philippine history are asked about it: what happened, where and when, and how far to trust the man who wrote it down.

The writer: Antonio Pigafetta of Vicenza, Italy, who sailed with Magellan and was one of the eighteen men who came home
In the islands: 16 March to early November 1521, from the first sight of Samar to the last of Mindanao
Main places: Homonhon, Limasawa, Cebu, Mactan, Bohol, Palawan
People he met: Rajah Kolambu of Mazaua, Raia Siaui of Butuan, Rajah Humabon of Cebu, Lapulapu and Zula of Mactan
Key dates: First Mass, 31 March; first baptisms, 14 April; Battle of Mactan, 27 April 1521

Timeline, 1521

16 March 1521: After crossing the Pacific, the fleet sights Samar. (Chapter 16)
17 March: Magellan lands his sick men on Homonhon, a small uninhabited island. (Chapter 16)
18 March: Men from neighbouring Suluan come to meet them: the first meeting with people of the islands. (Chapter 16)
28 March: At Mazaua, now Limasawa, the islanders understand Magellan’s interpreter, Enrique. (Chapter 17)
29 March: Magellan and the king of Mazaua, Rajah Kolambu, agree to be casi casi, sworn brothers. (Chapter 17)
31 March: Easter Sunday: the first Mass in the Philippines, and a cross on the highest hill. (Chapter 17)
7 April: The fleet reaches Cebu, where Rajah Humabon asks for tribute. (Chapter 18)
14 April: Humabon is baptised Don Carlos, with about eight hundred of his people. (Chapter 18)
27 April: Magellan is killed fighting Lapulapu’s warriors on Mactan. (Chapter 19)
1 May: The banquet at Cebu: the fleet’s new commanders and their companions are killed. (Chapter 20)
Early May: Too few to sail three ships, the survivors burn the Concepción off Bohol. (Chapter 21)
June: Cagayan Sulu and Palawan, where the starving men are fed rice cooked in bamboo. (Chapter 22)
July: Brunei, on Borneo, a rich kingdom that trades in Chinese coins and porcelain. (Chapter 23)
October: Through the Sulu Sea and along the coast of Mindanao, towards the Spice Islands. (Chapter 25)
8 November: The two remaining ships reach Tidore, in the Moluccas. (Chapter 26)

Questions students are asked

Where was the first Mass in the Philippines?

At Mazaua, now Limasawa, an island off the southern tip of Leyte, on Easter Sunday, 31 March 1521. Pigafetta describes the Mass said on the shore, the two kings kneeling, and the cross planted that afternoon on the highest hill. Some historians have argued that Mazaua was at Butuan, on Mindanao. In August 2020 the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, after a panel of scholars reviewed the evidence, reaffirmed Limasawa, where the site is a national shrine under Republic Act No. 2733. (Chapter 17; the evidence on both sides is set out in Limasawa or Butuan?)

What was the blood compact at Limasawa?

On Good Friday, 29 March 1521, Magellan told the king of Mazaua through Enrique that he wished to be casi casi with him, sworn brothers, and the king agreed. It is often called the first blood compact in the Philippines. It is a different event from the famous blood compact of 1565 between Miguel López de Legazpi and Datu Sikatuna of Bohol, the one Juan Luna painted, which is told in Legazpi’s Log. (Chapter 17)

Who was Rajah Humabon?

The king of Cebu, the busiest port the fleet found. He first demanded the tribute every ship paid, then made peace, asking for a drop of blood from Magellan’s arm as a sign of friendship. On 14 April 1521 he was baptised Don Carlos, after the Emperor Charles V. Days after Magellan’s death, on 1 May, he invited the fleet’s new commanders to the feast at which they were killed. (Chapter 18 and Chapter 20)

What happened at the Battle of Mactan?

On the morning of 27 April 1521 Magellan waded ashore on Mactan with forty-nine men to punish Lapulapu, a chief who refused to obey the king of Spain or accept Humabon as his king. More than fifteen hundred warriors were waiting. Magellan was wounded by an arrow and then cut down in the shallows, and eight of his men were killed with him. Pigafetta, hit in the face by an arrow, escaped in the boats. (Chapter 19)

Who killed Magellan?

Lapulapu’s warriors. Pigafetta does not name the man who struck the blow: one warrior slashed Magellan’s left leg with a great cutlass, and as he fell face down in the water many more attacked him with spears and cutlasses. Lapulapu’s people refused to give up his body for any price. Lapulapu, whom Pigafetta calls Cilapulapu, is honoured today as a national hero of the Philippines. (Chapter 19)

What is the Santo Niño de Cebú?

A small wooden figure of the Christ Child that Magellan gave to Humabon’s queen, baptised Juana, in April 1521. Forty-four years later, in 1565, one of Legazpi’s men found it unharmed in a burned house in Cebu (the story in Legazpi’s Log). It is kept in the Basilica of the Santo Niño in Cebu City, the oldest Christian image in the Philippines. (Chapter 18)

What happened at the banquet in Cebu?

On 1 May 1521 Rajah Humabon invited the new commanders, Duarte Barbosa and João Serrão, to a feast to receive jewels for the king of Spain. Most of the men at the feast were killed; Serrão was last seen bound and wounded on the beach, begging to be ransomed, as the ships sailed away. Pigafetta stayed aboard because his face was swollen from his wound, and he blamed the interpreter Enrique, whom Barbosa had threatened, for plotting it with the king. (Chapter 20)

What did Pigafetta record about life in the islands?

More than anyone else on the voyage. He describes tattooed chiefs wearing gold, houses raised on posts, feasts of rice and pork served in porcelain dishes, palm wine drunk through reeds, the gongs the women played, the chewing of betel nut, and the weights and measures used in Cebu. He wrote down more than 150 words he heard in Cebu, many still spoken today: his tubin is tubig, water, his balai is balay, house, and his babui is baboy, pig. (Chapter 16, Chapter 17 and Chapter 18; the list is in the words Pigafetta wrote down in Cebu)

Reading Pigafetta critically

Who he was. Pigafetta was a young gentleman from Vicenza who joined the voyage at his own request, to see the world. He was not a sailor or an officer, which is why he had time to watch and write. He admired Magellan, and was one of only eighteen men to complete the voyage.

Why the voyage came. Spain sent Magellan west to reach the Spice Islands without crossing the half of the world that the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 had given to Portugal. The islands now called the Philippines were a stop on the way, but Magellan stayed to make allies and converts, and it cost him his life.

What makes the account valuable. He was an eyewitness, writing from notes kept at the time, with dates, names, prices and words in the languages he heard. For many places in the islands it is the earliest written record.

What to be careful of. He saw the islands through European and Catholic eyes, wrote for European patrons, and took Magellan’s side; he never even names Juan Sebastián Elcano, who brought the Victoria home. He understood people only through an interpreter, and some events he did not see himself, such as the banquet in Cebu. Historians read him alongside other sources, such as the pilot Francisco Albo’s log.

The text. He wrote the account after he returned to Spain in 1522. Four manuscripts survive, one in Italian and three in French. The quotations in this book are from James Alexander Robertson’s English translation of 1906, published in Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898.

Places then and now

Zamal: Samar
Humunu: Homonhon
Zuluan: Suluan
Mazaua: Limasawa, Southern Leyte
Zubu: Cebu
Matan: Mactan
Bohol: Bohol
Butuan and Calagan: Butuan and Caraga, on Mindanao
Palaoan: Palawan
Burne: Brunei, on Borneo

Read the Philippine chapters →

For the whole voyage in brief, see the summary, chapter by chapter. For what came next, the Spanish expedition of 1565 that stayed, read Legazpi’s Log.