Before Ferdinand Magellan set foot in the Philippines on his historic journey across the Pacific, his crew discovered the Mariana Islands. Yet, the exact spot where they dropped anchor remains a topic of debate among scholars, with some arguing it was Guam while others favor the Northern Marianas, citing details from chronicler Antonio Pigafetta’s account.
In 1935, Hans Hornbostel, who had served at the Bishop Museum’s field office in Guam from 1922 until his departure for the Philippines in 1929, firmly asserted that Magellan’s crew had anchored off Saipan, not Guam. Through a series of articles for a Philippine magazine, Hornbostel shared his experiences traveling through the Marianas, recalling how the sound of the schooner’s anchor chain evoked a sense of connection to the harbor where Magellan had arrived 414 years earlier. Arriving on Saipan from Rota after six weeks of fieldwork, Hornbostel boldly declared, “This is the spot where Magellan landed,” challenging the prevailing belief in a Guam landing.
It has become the fashion in the more modern American school books to state that Magellan had made his landfall at Guam, but this is not the case,” wrote Hornbostel.
He dismissed the Guam claim, citing a “careful study of available early sources” and asserted, “He (Magellan) came to anchor off the island of Saipan, and the description of the anchorage given tallies accurately with the position we found ourselves in.”
Hornbostel criticized the naval governor of Guam for erecting a monument commemorating Magellan’s supposed stopover on Guam’s shores, labeling it as misinformation. He saw this action as typical of American naval governors on Guam, recalling other surprising decrees such as the 1920 ban on whistling within the limits of Agana.
Despite his critique, Hornbostel refrained from portraying the governors as unreasonable autocrats, acknowledging their training was tailored to command battleships and sailors, not oversee a civilian population of 20,000. He expressed awe at Magellan’s remarkable feat in crossing the Pacific despite facing protests, mutinies, starvation, and disease.
To him, the only seafarers who could rival Magellan’s courage were the Polynesians, who navigated thousands of miles of open ocean in small canoes, making even Eric the Red seem timid in comparison.
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