Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Now was the time for reprisals and these created an even great-
er test for the captain general's leadership. He had to make ex-
amples, to demonstrate the power of 'cord and knife' bestowed upon
him as commander, and to break once and for all the back of incip-
ient rebellion. Yet he dared not indulge in draconian punishment.
Disease and shipboard accidents took a steady toll of life without
Magellan further depleting his crews with a spate of executions. His
solution was to use capital punishinent sparingly but dramatically.
As a first step he took the already dead body of Mendoza, had it
quartered and the portions displayed prominently on the ships of
the fleet. Next he ordered Gaspar de Quesada, captain of the
Con-
cepcion,
to suffer the indignity of being publicly beheaded by one
of his own servants. Two other ringleaders, he announced, would
be consigned to the lingering death of being marooned on the coast
of Patagonia, when the ships weighed anchor. Magellan sentenced a
further forty mutineers to death. It was only a gesture and within
days he commuted the penalty: the offenders were clapped in irons
and condemned to hard labour for the remainder of the five month
stay in St Julian's Bay.
Magellan did not win the hearts of his men nor had he put
an end to disaffection. There would be further crises of command
but the captain general had, for the time being, gained the grudging
obedience of his crews. The handful of sailors who survived the voy-
age brought back conflicting opinions of their tough little command-
er and historians have been divided ever since in their assessment of
Magellan's devious and mercurial character.
Before leaving the depressing haven of St Julian the fleet
suffered another setback. The
Santiago
was shipwrecked while re-
connoitring the coast to the south. Only after a group of men had
made an appalling four month journey across the snow-covered ter-
rain to bring Magellan news of the disaster could the crew be res-
cued.
