|
Enrique of Melaka
Was the
first man to sail around the world a Malay?
Over
the years, there has been considerable debate about who actually was
the first man to sail around the world. We were all taught this
historic honour belongs to Ferdinand Magellan (Fernao de Magalhaes, in
his native Portuguese) who led the expedition of five ships and over
270 men out of Spain in 1519 and sailed westwards, reaching the
Philippines, where he was killed. However, Magellan was thought to have
travelled to as far as Sabah before, and one can argue that he had
indeed actually completed circumnavigating the globe. There are also
those who argue that the accolade should rightly belong to Sebastian
del Cano, a mutineer from Magellan's crew, who led the one surviving
ship, Victoria, and 17 other men, and limped back to Spain on September
8, 1522.
However, only one individual can truly claim to have been the
first man to leave his home, sail around the globe and arrive at a part
of the world where his mother tongue was spoken. That man was a Malay,
Magellan's able servant and interpreter, called Enrique of Melaka or
Henry the Black.
If
there is any single Malay ever who has had the greatest impact on world
history, it would probably be Enrique. It is therefore ironic that we
know so little of the man. He is called Panglima Awang in Malay
literature but there is no mention of him in any credible Malay
historical records. There is brief mention of Enrique in the official
Spanish crew lists, as well as Magellan's last will and testament.
Almost all of the certain facts that we know of Enrique come from the
most comprehensive chronicle of Magellan's voyage, the narrative by
Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian volunteer who joined Magellan's crew.
Pigafetta does briefly mention Enrique's origins - he was a
Malay who had lived in Melaka but was originally from 'Zamatra'
(Sumatra). Magellan was among the crew of the Portuguese squadron of
five ships under Diego Lopez de Sequeira which sailed into Melaka on
September 1, 1509, and became the first Europeans to have contact with
the Malay Peninsula. Magellan also took part in the capture of the city
by the Portuguese in 1511 and it was probably then that he acquired a
Malay slave, whom he gave the name Enrique.
The
young Enrique may have been about 18 at the time - Magellan's will and
testament made eight years later cited Enrique as being "of the age of
twenty-six years, more or less". The will also stated specifically that
Enrique was a "captured slave" - indicating that Enrique was not bought
in a slave market by Magellan. He may have been one of the defenders of
the city who was taken captive in the final Portuguese assault.
Prisoners of war would have been regarded as slaves and could be
divided as booty among the officers and men of the victorious
Portuguese expedition. He may also have been a slave before the fall of
the city. There were thousands of slaves in Melaka belonging to the
merchants and Malay nobility, and Portuguese records indicate that
Sultan Mahmud of Melaka alone had over three thousand 'ambarages'
('Hamba Raja' or royal slaves). Many of the 'hamba raja' were in fact
prisoners of war brought back from Melaka's successful campaigns
against the kingdoms of Sumatra, Enrique's birthplace.
The
new slave must have been a useful guide and interpreter when Magellan
then travelled to different parts of the East Indies after Melaka's
capture, reaching as far as Sabah. He then sailed back to Lisbon in
1512, with his loyal Malay servant in tow, and was dispatched to the
Portuguese campaigns against the Moors in Morocco. There, Magellan was
wounded in battle and walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
Accused of corruption while he was there, he bitterly left the service
of the King of Portugal and offered his services to King Charles I of
Spain in 1517. Portugal controlled all the eastward routes to the rich
Spice Islands of the Malay archipelago and Magellan presented the King
of Spain with his daring plan - to find a route sailing westwards to
the Spice Islands, avoiding the Portuguese. It is said that he even had
Enrique presented to the King and his Privy Council, to convince them
that accompanying him on the voyage would be a man with the local
language, knowledge and experience needed to make the voyage a success.
Up to then, it does appear that Enrique was a loyal and able
servant, and that his relationship with his master was a good one -
perhaps even one of friendship. It was certainly good enough for
Magellan to declare in his will and testament that, upon his death,
Enrique "shall be free and manumitted, and quit, exempt, and relieved
of every obligation and subjection, that he may act as he desires and
thinks fit." Magellan even left Enrique a comfortable share from his
estate, "the sum of ten thousand maravedis in money for his support".
The
Spanish king was won over with the plan. Magellan was provided with
five sailing ships - San Antonio, Conception, Victoria, Santiago and
his flagship Trinidad - and crews comprising over 270 men. They left
the Spanish port of Sanlucar de Barrameda on September 20th, 1519 and
began perhaps the most daring and historic voyage of exploration ever -
a voyage whose significance can only be equaled to Man's landing on the
moon 450 years later.
Across
the Atlantic, down the coast of South America and upwards across the
Pacific, they sailed and suffered many hardships - thirst, starvation,
disease, storms, desertion, hostile natives, even mutiny. Finally, on
March 16th , 1521 - eighteen months after they left Spain - they
sighted Samar, the most easterly of the Philippine islands. They
continued their exploration of the islands and encountered a number of
natives - but Enrique's Malay was unintelligible to them and they had
to communicate using sign language. Magellan must have despaired,
thinking that they were still far from their goal - the islands of the
Malay archipelago.
But on March 28th, a momentous event occurred. Pigafetta
wrote: ".... we saw approaching two long boats, which they called
Ballanghai, full of men, and in the larger was their king seated below
an awning made of mats. And when they came near the captain's ship, the
said slave (Enrique) spoke to that king, who understood him well."
From
that moment onwards, Enrique became the sole ears and voice of this
band of explorers. As they continued their voyage to the surrounding
island kingdoms, it was Enrique alone who, on behalf of Magellan and
the Spanish crown, spoke with kings and traders - requesting
provisions, bartering goods to trade, offering messages of peace,
delivering threats of war.
It was after delivering one such threat that Enrique lost his
master and friend, Magellan. Magellan had befriended the ruler of Cebu,
Raja Humabon and was asked to punish a large band of rebellious natives
in the village of Mactan, under the leadership of a warrior named Lapu
Lapu. On Saturday, the 27th of April, Magellan attacked Lapu Lapu's
village with 60 men-at-arms - cannon, muskets, crossbows and steel
swords against bamboo spears and poison-tipped arrows. But the small
Spaniard force suddenly found itself overwhelmed by over 1,500 of Lapu
Lapu's warriors.
Pigafetta noted that Lapu Lapu's men were converging their
attacks on the Spanish captain himself - Magellan was first struck in
the right leg by an arrow and later a spear stabbed him in the arm. For
some reason, his cannon had now stopped firing and, despite being
pressed by attacks for nearly an hour, no reinforcements had arrived
from his waiting ships. Then, many of his men began to flee for the
safety of their ships. The Filipinos rushed forward and, with a wounded
arm that was barely able to raise his sword in defence, the limp
Magellan trailed behind his fleeing soldiers. Wading knee-deep in the
surf, he was finally pierced by a spear in the right leg and he
collapsed face down. A wall of spears converged upon the fallen captain
and he was dead.
Enrique
himself was wounded in the battle. Devastated by the death Magellan, he
went into deep mourning. Pigafetta writes that "he no longer went
ashore to do necessary business but was always wrapped in a blanket." A
new commander was elected to replace Magellan - a Portuguese by the
name of Duarte Barbosa - and he was determined to show the Malay slave
that the new captain would not tolerate such behaviour. Shouting at
Enrique, Barbosa told him that although his master was dead, he was not
to be freed but was to remain a slave. Duarte ordered him to go ashore
whenever he was needed or he would be driven away.
Pigafetta then writes that Enrique was then suspected of
plotting the downfall of his ship mates but he did not elaborate on the
reason behind this conspiracy. Enrique may have suspected that the
captains who remained on the ships may have plotted the death of his
master during the battle - intentionally not sending him any
reinforcements or supporting cannon fire. He may have been enraged at
Barbosa for denying him his liberty - having been promised by his
master that he should be set free upon his death. He may have felt that
a master whom he had loved and admired was now dead, and there was no
longer any reason to remain a slave - it was now time to start a new
life as a free man.
Whatever
the reason - whether it was loyalty, revenge, rage or just an attempt
at freedom - the plot was hatched just three days after Magellan's
death. Pigafetta writes that Enrique went ashore and told Humabon that
the Spaniards were about to depart immediately "but, if he would follow
his advice, he would gain all their ships merchandise ... and so they
plotted a conspiracy."
The next day, Enrique told the Spaniards that Humabon had
prepared jewels and presents to be brought to the King of Spain and
asked them to come ashore to receive these. A party of Spaniards led by
Barbosa did come, accompanied as usual by Enrique, but they were
attacked. A lone survivor fled back towards the ships and, when asked
if there were any others who survived the attack, he said all were
dead, except the interpreter.
Official Spanish records list Enrique of Melaka as one of the
27 men massacred in that attack, so we really do not know if Enrique
did survive that attack, as Pigafetta claims. What we do know is that
was the last we hear of Enrique in Pigafetta's diary - and he
disappears into the mists of history. No one knows if he remained in
Cebu, or found his way back to Melaka or maybe even returned to his
homeland in Sumatra. If he had indeed made his way home, he would have
arrived there much earlier than del Cano - making the Malay slave the
first man ever to have sailed around the world, rather than Magellan or
del Cano
One
could also argue that the Spaniards may have indeed changed the
official crew lists to ensure that this was not a possibility - how
could a Malay slave have beaten the flower of Spanish manhood in the
race around the globe? Certainly, Enrique was to be just a footnote to
the heroic deeds of Magellan and del Cano that were told in countless
books about this remarkable voyage written over the next few hundred
years. It was only in this century that questions were raised about
this Malay interpreter and his role in this historic achievement.
Little was known about him even in Malaya until, in 1958, the writer
Harun Aminurrashid published one of the greatest historical novels in
modern Malay fiction, "Panglima Awang".
Despite there being no written evidence indicating that
Enrique had any origins in or connections with the Philippines - and
Pigafetta's quite clear statement that he was from Sumatra - Filipino
writers and historians are now claiming Enrique as one of their own
countrymen. Some suggest that he may have been abducted from Cebu and
brought to Sumatra or Melaka as a slave. Others think that he may have
been a member of the small Filipino community living in Melaka at the
time of its fall to the Portuguese. The most convenient feature of
these theories is that if Enrique was indeed from Cebu, that would
without any doubt make a Filipino the first man to have sailed around
the world.
The
main argument behind these theories is that Enrique could speak in the
language of the people inhabiting the islands around Cebu - Bisayan -
and therefore must have been from Cebu himself. There is a fatal flaw
in this argument - Pigafetta's narrative above does show that Enrique
could not communicate at all with the natives in his first encounter
with them. It was only when he spoke with royalty - in this case, their
king - or with traders that they suddenly found a common language among
them. This is certainly not surprising - Malay was, by then, the
'lingua franca' of the whole Archipelago, and the official language of
international diplomacy and trade for the whole region. All references
to Enrique in Pigafetta's chronicle have him speaking with kings,
chiefs or traders - rather than the common folk who may not have known
the international language of Malay.
But
the continuing controversy of whether he was Malay or Filipino does not
detract from the monumental achievements of this man. Burning with the
unquenchable wanderlust and seafaring passion of his race, Enrique of
Melaka had sailed the seas of the East Indies with his master; followed
him across the Indian Ocean and around the rim of the African
continent; loyally fought alongside him in North Africa; lived in the
splendour of the royal courts of Portugal and Spain. He embarked upon
the greatest adventure ever - to circle the globe, the final frontier;
to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new
civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Having done that, he had returned full circle, to a land where
he could understand the people and they could understand him. And there
is just still the possibility that this humble Malay slave was indeed
the first human ever to have sailed around the world.
Sources:
Pigafetta, Antonio, journal, quoted in Skelton, R.A.,
'Magellan's Voyage--A narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation',
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969
Zweig, S. Magellan. 'Der Mann und seine Tat',
Wien-Leipzig-Zürich, 1937 and Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1983
Pintado, M J, 'Portuguese Documents On Melaka', National
Archives of Malaysia, 1993.
Write to the author: sabrizain@malaya.org.uk
The
Sejarah Melayu
website is
maintained solely by myself and does not receive any funding
support from any governmental, academic, corporate or other
organizations. If you have found the Sejarah Melayu website useful, any
financial contribution you can make, no matter how small, will be
deeply appreciated and assist greatly in the continued maintenance of
this site.
|
|