Ferdinand Magellan Dbq Essay

To be a leader, one must possess different attributes in order to lead or control a group of people. Ferdinand Magellan is known for being the first captain of a fleet to circumnavigate the globe, but he never survived to witness his great achievement. His main goal was to find a way to reach the Spice Islands in Asia by traveling west across the Atlantic Ocean. On his way around the world, Magellan was killed by villagers in the Philippines, and many of the men in his crew held back from coming to his recue. Magellan possessed many admirable traits such as good navigational skills, courageous leadership, and his ability to successfully complete his voyage that make him worth defending. In order to reach the Spice Islands, Magellan had to navigate through unknown waters and enter through what is now known as the Strait of Magellan, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, at the southern end of South America. Magellan’s three-year journey required good navigational skills in order to stay on course and complete the voyage (Doc. A). The four-hundred-mile strait took Magellan and his men thirty-eight days to circumnavigate through it due to the various bays that resembled the strait and other passages that delayed the voyage (Doc. C). He used his taste to identify the concentration of salt in the

Although there is much debate about Magellan and his crew, facts show that Magellan achieved great success and he proved that the world could be navigated by sea. He successfully routed and crossed the Strait of Magellan even though it was unknown to Europeans and despite the various obstacles (Doc. C). In total, the voyage of Magellan took three years, and although Magellan never returned to Spain, he discovered the route to Asia through the Western Hemisphere which opened up trade and expanded European knowledge about the