Enrique

Enrique, First Man to Go Around the World

The first man to go around the world is always subject to dispute. Isit Ferdinand Magellan or Sebastian Elcano? Behind these two Europeans, there is a possibility that Enrique was the first man to go around the world. What is even amazing is there is a possibility that Enrique was a Filipino. Magellan before coming to the Philippines sailed for Portugal. He volunteered foran expedition to the Moluccas, known as Spice Islands. His ship reached Malacca and had he gone hundred more miles north he could have landed in the Philippines that he did years later coming from the opposite direction. Sometime during his stay in Moluccas he picked up a Malay boy who came back with him to Europe. The boy was given the name Enrique and this is just another speculation of mine that this was probably done after the great Portuguese , King Henry, the Navigator (angilized for Enrique). Magellan left Portugal and persuaded the King of Spain to finance his westward voyage. The rest is history but Magellan was killed in Mactan Island before he could really complete thecircumnavigation of the word. Sebastian Elcano successfully steered the onlyremaining vessel, Victoria back to Seville, Spain. Where did Enrique fitin this historic voyage? He was aboard the ship when it landed in the Philippinesin 1521. He served as Magellan interpreter and even Pigafetta the expedition'shistorian didnot trust him because the way he mingled with the local Filipinos.He wasveryfriendly and spoke the dialects well with the natives. Tradeand commercebetweenthese islands as far as Indonesia was already well established.Peoplefromthe Philippines were already sailing the region. It is very probablethatEnrique was visiting Malucca Island when Magellan first came in contactwithhim . When Magellan discovered the Philippines, it was also Enrique'shomecoming.That day should be as marked as the day when the first man wentaround theworld as significant as man landing in the moon. It is only fittingthat thefirst man to accomplice the feat would come from the descendantsof the ancientmariners of the Pacific.

One of the Magellans Biographers wrote:
The landing in the Philippines on his westward voyages around the world:

....Now came the wonder. The Islanderssurrounded Enrique chattering and shouting, and the Malay slave was dumbfounded,forthe understood much of what they were saying. He understood much of whattheysaying. He understood their questions. It was a good many years sincehe wassnatched from his home, a good many years since he had last hearda word ofhis native speech. What amazing moment, one of the remarkable inthe historyof mankind! For the first time since our planet begun to spinupon its axisand to circle in its orbit, a living man, himself circlingthat planet, hadgot back to his homeland. No matter that he was underling,a slave, for hissignificance lies in his fate and not his personality. Heis known to us byhis slave-name Enrique; but we know, likewise, that hewas torn from his homeupon the island of Sumatra, was brought by Magellanin Malacca, was takenby his master to India, to Africa, and to Lisbon; traveledthence to Braziland to Petagonia; and first of all the population of theworld, traversingthe oceans, circling the globe, hereturned to the regionwhere men spokea familiar tongue. Having made acquaintanceon the way withhundred of peopleand tribes and races, each of which had different way ofcommunicating thought,he had got back to his folk, whom he could understandand could understandhim.
(I could not explain it any better)

William Manchester's best-selling book, A World Lit Only by

Fire,there is a compelling chapter about the discovery of the

Philippines and the man who was the first circumnavigator of the

world. You will be stunned to learn that it wasn't Ferdinand Magellan

whofirst circled the globe, but a Filipino. Manchester wrote and Gemma Cruz

quotes:

"Shortly after they had landed in the Visayan Islands of theenormous

Philippine archipelago, Magellan heard a great cheering and, moving ontoward the noise, found his servant Enrique surrounded by merry natives. It took a while to sort things out. Born in the Visayas,Enrique had been sold into slavery in Sumatra and sent to Malacca, where Magellan had acquired him. Since leaving the Malayan Peninsula in 1512, he had accompanied his owner to India, Africa, Portugal, Spain and, the past eighteen months on this voyage. An apt linguist, he was fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish, but here on Limasawa, for the first time since his childhood, he had overheard people speaking his native language. He had joined in, and they had welcome him as one oftheir own.

"The significance of this incident was enormous. Magellan was ecstatic. By sailing westward, they had returned to the lands where theyfirst met. Obviously, Enrique was the first circumnavigator of the world. By completing the circuit of the globe, the expedition had provided the first empirical proof that it was a sphere."

phix7@yahoo.com Nestor Palugod Enriquez

First Circumnavigation of the World
The ChildrenVersion of Enrique
   Froman Inquiring Mind
    From Other Sources
First UnderwaterCircumnavigation of the World
Mazaua:Magellan's Lost Harbor-Vicente de Jesus
     Commentaries

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Nestor Palugod Enriquez, greatxgreat grandson