Juan Sebastián Elcano (Elkano in modern Basque; also known as del Cano; 1486/1487 – 4 August 1526) was a Spanish navigator, ship-owner and explorer best known for having completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth in the ship Victoria on the Magellan expedition to the Spice Islands.
The expedition had orders to return through the Pacific Ocean, remaining in the Spanish hemisphere. Elcano's decision to continue westward across the Indian Ocean led to the circumnavigation. He received recognition for his achievement by Charles V of Spain with a coat of arms bearing a globe and the Latin motto Primus circumdedisti me (You were the first to circumnavigate me).
Despite his achievements, information on Elcano is scarce and he is the subject of great historiographical controversy, because of the scarcity of original sources on his private life and personality. Even in Spain, his first biographies were written in the second half of the 19th century, after three centuries of neglect.
Following his success, the king entrusted him with another large expedition to the Spice Islands, headed by the nobleman García Jofre de Loaisa, which was not completed. Elcano died of scurvy in the Pacific Ocean during this venture.
Name Elcano's name has been written in different ways by historians. His signature seems to read Delcano, or possibly Del Cano, although it is difficult to be sure: Enrique Santamaría shows that his lack of dexterity when signing his name leads him to leave gaps between the letters, so sometimes he signed "del ca no". In Spanish historiography it most commonly has been interpreted as "Del Cano" (or de Cano), but also as simply "Cano".
In the Basque language the form "Elkano" is used. Mitxelena, in his book Apellidos vascos, interprets the surname Elkano from Basque. Between the suffixes -ano and -no, he provides arguments for the latter, the diminutive suffix. He proposes that the first part of the surname is elge. Mitxelena reconstructs the previous form of this elge, and argues that the surname Elkano developed from the association of these two morphemes and that it is also a toponym. It exists in different areas of the Basque Country as a minor place name, but also as the name of a village in Navarre.
Family
Juan Sebastián Elcano's mother was Catalina del Puerto or Catalina Portu, and his father was Domingo Sebastián Elcano. The Portu or Puerto were a powerful family of clergy and scribes. Elcano's grandmother, Catalina's mother, was Domenja Olazabal. Formerly it was believed that she belonged to a noble family of the Tolosa area. It is known that Catalina, who was alive at the time of Elcano's death, asked the king upon her arrival in Getaria 10 years later for the pension that had been promised to Elcano, legally due her according to his will.
Domingo Sebastián Elcano and Catalina Portu had eight children, their first son being born in 1481, and Juan Sebastián being the fourth born son. Next came Domingo Elcano, who was given the name of his father and became a priest in Getaria. The four other sons in the family were Martín Pérez, Antón Martín, Juan Martín, and Ochoa Martín. Martín Pérez, Antón Martín and Ochoa Martín were also mariners, and sailed with Juan Sebastián Elcano in the second expedition to the Moluccas. The daughters, i.e., Juan Sebastián's sisters, were Sebastiana de Elcano and Inés de Elcano. Apparently Elcano also had a half-sister, María, Domingo's illegitimate daughter.
Elcano had two children: a son, Domingo Elcano, with María Hernández de Hernialde in Getaria, and a daughter, María, with a woman called María Bidaurreta in Valladolid. In his will, he bequeathed 100 ducats to his son's mother, María Hernández de Hernialde. To his daughter he left 40 ducats, conditional on her coming to live in Getaria before she was 4 years old.
Family social position and economic status
Some historians have said that the Elcanos were a family of maritime transporters who operated in the Mediterranean. Their ownership of a vessel is suggested by the amount of taxes the family paid the Crown in 1500.
Some 19th century sources say that the Elcano family belonged to the nobility, but this is questionable. Elcano asked the king for the right to bear arms, a privilege of the nobles, and for his brothers to accompany him on his next expedition, indicating that the Elcano brothers, on their father's side at least, were neither nobles nor hidalgos, and that the Portus, on their mother's side, were probably not nobles either. However, the Olazabal family on his grandmother's side may have been hidalgos, but since nobility was not inherited in the matrilineal line, the Portus, through Catalina the daughter of Domenja, would not be hidalgos nor would be the Elcanos, the grandchildren of Domenja.
Fernandez de Navarrete states that, in addition to being a fisherman and a mariner, Elcano acted as a smuggler on board a French ship, but no original sources are given to confirm this. Some biographies point out that the Elcano family experienced economic hardship because Elcano's father died young and his mother had to support eight siblings, but this assertion is unfounded.
As attested in documentation, in 1500, when Elcano was about 14 years old, a large tax was levied in Getaria, with his father Domingo Elcano appearing in the thirteenth position on the tax rolls, having paid 23½ maravedís. It seems, therefore, that they were quite solvent, since they are named among the richest families of the town. Another indication of his family's wealth is that the royal document later granting him a pardon states that when Elcano was young and acting as a merchant in the Mediterranean, he was the owner of a 200-ton vessel.
Elcano got rich from the circumnavigation voyage, earning 613,250 maravedis. This was an immense fortune, an amount equivalent to the salary of a sea pilot for 20 years, as compared to the 23½ maravedis paid by his father in municipal taxes. Of that fortune, 104,526 maravedis was his shipmaster's and captain's wage, while the rest was earned by selling the cloves imported from the Moluccas.
Biography Birth
The date of Elcano's birth is unknown, but it can be inferred with a fair amount of certainty that his year of birth was 1486 or 1487. Spanish historiographers have written that he was 42 years old when he sailed with Magellan in 1518, which would place his birth year in 1476. However, before setting sail Elcano himself had confirmed that he was "approximately" 32 years old, as recorded in a document of August 1519; therefore, it is reasonable to believe that he was born in 1486 or 1487.
There is little doubt about Elcano's place of birth because in his will, drawn by Elcano himself, he mentions that his birthplace is Getaria. It is usually said that he was born in the house located in San Roque Street in the municipality of Getaria, today called the "Birthplace of Juan Sebastián Elcano". There is a plaque commemorating the event next to the house. Even if he was born there, the house did not belong to the Elcano family, but to his maternal grandfather's family, the Portus.
In the chronicles of the time, Elcano is also presented as a "Getarian". In 1601, the chronicler Juan de Mariana, after writing that Elcano was from Getaria, adds: "from Biscay by nationality or Guipuscoan". At that time the Basques were called 'Vizcaínos' or 'Biscayans'. It has been deduced from indirect information that the Basque language was his mother tongue, but it is unequivocally true that he also communicated in Spanish, as can be seen in the letters he wrote to the king, and in the interrogations he underwent in Seville and in Valladolid. It appears that he could read Latin as well, because the two books referred to in his will were written in that language.
Early life Little is known about Elcano's youth. As a young man he owned a large ship and sailed in the Mediterranean. He sold the ship to the Savoyards to resolve legal problems he had incurred because the king had not paid him a salary for 'services rendered' on the kings's orders. It is often repeated, for example, that in 1509 he participated in the conquest of Oran, in the Mediterranean, under the direction of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, commanding his own his two-hundred-ton ship. However, in the register of ships participating in the conquest of Oran, no captain Elcano, or anything similar, is recorded. According to Spanish historiography, Elcano participated with his ship in the Italian wars under the leadership of Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova, known as The Great Captain (El Gran Capitán) (1495–1504). This is also doubtful because there are no primary sources to prove it, and, above all because Elcano was then 8 years old (17 according to the Spanish historiography), and it is impossible that an 8-year-old boy was already a ship owner or fought in the war.
The certificate of pardon that the king issued to Elcano has been preserved. It mentions that he acted in the service of the king "in the Levante and Africa", but these actions are not further specified. It also states that since the king had not paid him the promised salaries, he was forced to sell his ship to the House of Savoy. Presumably when he had asked for money from the merchants of Savoy he had to offer them the ship as a guarantee. Therefore, in the case of his participating in a military campaign in the Mediterranean 'in the service of the king', perhaps the events of the catastrophe of Gelves (1510) was a factor, since that military defeat would explain Elcano's debt. Forced to pay for the ship and the crew's wages, but with no war prizes, this could have been the cause of his getting into debt. At the age of twenty-three, unable to pay off his financial obligation and still on board the ship in Italy, he had to hand it over to the Savoyards to satisfy the debt. Another hypothesis is that Elcano performed the 'royal services' in the autumn of 1516, during the battle to take Algiers, also a military defeat, and that he then had to relinquish his ship.
It is known that in the summer of 1515 Elcano joined the local militia. The Royal Corregidor asked 500 Gipuzkoans to go to Hondarribia and San Sebastian to face the threat of the French. Elcano went there, along with 11 compatriots, charging 30 maravedís per day. It would appear that if he had to enroll in the local militia in 1515 and he did not own a ship at the time, his engaging in the battle to take Algiers is unlikely. Being in his twenties during the 1510s, it is unusual that Elcano already owned a ship of 200 tons, and for such a young man to have this responsibility, but it is clear that Elcano was a precocious sailor who rose very quickly as a professional mariner. Nonetheless, he committed a serious infraction by selling his ship to the Savoyards, an illegal action at a time when wars were fought with ships. This infringement would cause him numerous problems in the following years.
After returning from the Mediterranean campaign, as he had legal problems it is likely that he remained in the Mediterranean, in Catalonia or in the Valencian Country, or perhaps also in Alicante. (In his will he left 24 ducats to the Alicante church of Santa Veronica.) However, at the end of June 1517 he appeared again in Getaria, as is known since he signed as a witness to the debt letter of a compatriot. It is possible his son with the young Getarian María Hernández Hernialde was conceived at that time, between 1517 and 1518, although they were not married, probably because Elcano did not have a stable residence. At the end of 1518 Elcano left Getaria and traveled to Seville to join Magellan's expedition. However, after returning from the expedition, at the age of 35 or 36, the king would forgive him that legal debt on February 13, 1523, and he was able to stabilize his situation in Valladolid.
Voyage of circumnavigation