WHEN Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan left Seville, Spain, on Aug. 10, 1519, for the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda — where the mouth of the country's Guadalquivir River is — to begin in earnest on September 20 that year what would be later called the Magellan-Elcano expedition to open an alternate route to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, he had five ships — lead vessel 'Trinidad,' 'Victoria,' 'San Antonio,' 'Concepcion' and 'Santiago' — and approximately 265 men under his command.

Of these men, 170 — or 64 percent of the total — were Spanish; 26 were Italian, including chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, who was registered as Antonio Lombardo; 25 were Portuguese; 19 were French; nine were Greeks and men from what is now the Middle East; three were Irish; one was English; others were other Europeans; and four or five were Indigenous people serving senior offers in the fleet. Among the Indigenous crew was Enrique of Malacca, who had been serving Magellan since 1511 and later acted as an interpreter for the various peoples encountered in what is now the Philippine Islands.