Enrique de Malacca, also known as Enrique Negro, Black Henry, or Panglima Awang, was possibly the first person to circumnavigate the earth.

When he was a 13 year old boy, in Malacca on the Malaysian peninsula, he was captured and enslaved by Ferdinand Magellan, at some point around the year 1500. Enrique travelled with Magellan for years as his close personal servant.

In 1519 Magellan's expedition set out to discover a route sailing west from Spain to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands.

When the expedition reached the Visayan islands of the Philippines, Enrique was able to communicate with the islanders. Magellan was killed on the island of Mactan, betrayed by the Spanish officers in his service. Enrique then betrayed the officers to Humabon, Rajah of the neighboring island of Cebu, and jumped ship.

The question is, did Enrique know the language of the islanders, or did they know Malay, a popular trade language? The impression from Pigafetta's journal is that Enrique was communicating fluently with the islanders of Cebu.

Several explanations have been put forth that Enrique had been born in the Philippines, or in Sumatra, but had been sold into slavery, ending up in Malacca. There were Filipino immigrants living in Malacca at the time, too. If this is true, it's possible that he, not Juan Sebastian Del Cano, Antonio Pigafetta, and the other 16 survivors of the expedition, was the first to go all the way around the world. But it's only a theory. Personally I think it's more likely that the Filipinos were speaking Malay.

Enrique, the first circumnavigator?

The idea Magellan's slave, Enrique, had rounded the globe has so beguiled many writers and historians it has become in some a fanatical belief the fact it is false is for them not relevant or important or open to debate.

One hypothesis is he was Cebuano so when the fleet reached Cebu he ahead of anyone on earth became the first man to circumnavigate. The other hypothesis is he was Malay, either from Malacca or Sumatra or even the Moluccas, and after May 1, 1521 he somehow was able to hop unto a sailing ship—an event recorded by no man but absolutely imaginable--and reached his hometown at a date unspecified by even the most inventive mind ahead of Victoria, the nao of Magellan’s Armada that made it to Seville on Sept. 6, 1522.

The slave’s name is "Henrich" in Antonio Pigafetta's account (Page 89, R.A. Skelton English edition of the French Nancy-Libri-Phillipps-Beinecke-Yale codex, click http://books.google.com/books?id=RB4usvtAZrEC&pg=RA1-PT1&dq=Magellan%27s+Voyage+by+R.A.+Skelton&ei=V-utSa7-IZeOkAStnO2XBQ#PPA89,M1). It's "Henrich" as well in the extant Italian manuscript, called Ambrosiana, and found in the English translation of James Alexander Robertson, Page 183, click http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer;cc=philamer;q1=Henrich;rgn=full%20text;idno=afk2830.0001.033;didno=AFK2830.0001.033;view=image;seq=189;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset.

His name is Englished "Henry" in the English translation by Lord Stanley of Alderley of the French extant MS 5650, click http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=sea&cc=sea&idno=sea061&q1=Duarte+Barbosa&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=189.

He is "Henrique" on Page 66 of Martin Fernandez de Navarette's Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde, fines del siglo XV, con varios documentos inéditos concernientes á la historia de la marina castellana y de los establecimientos españoles en Indias, Tomo IV, click http://www.archive.org/details/coleccibonviages04navarich.

"Henrique" is most likely his baptismal name; it's how the Portuguese spells it. He was baptized when his master, Fernao de Magalhaes, was still a Portuguese subject and thus would have followed Portuguese ways. Eduoard Roditi (Magellan of the Pacific, P. 77) asserts he was named after St. Henry, patron of the childless, of Dukes, of the handicapped, and those rejected by the Church. If this is true, it’s most probable “Henrique” was captured on July 13, 1511 just a few days after the start of the siege of Malacca by the Portuguese under the leadership of Affonso d' Albuquerque. Thus it’s just as likely he was immediately baptized into the Catholic fold to obviate the possibility of Henrique’s being killed as a non-Christian during the fierce skirmishes. Such an eventuality would have been an intolerable burden on the conscience of Magellan.

Malaccan? Sumatran? Moluccan? What was his language?
Pigafetta states explicitly Henrich was Sumatran. The episode where Henrich was identified to be from Sumatra, that he spoke his native tongue, Malay, and was understood was at Mazaua, see Ambrosiana codex, edition of Theodore J. Cachey, Page 34, http://books.google.com/books?id=Mcgy9Xn2KkEC&pg=PA129&dq=Magellan+by+F.H.H.+Guillemard&lr=&ei=Fx2qSd6OEYGElQT_pOmUBA#PPA34,M1. This is on Page 113 of Blair & Robertson, Vol. 33, at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer&cc=philamer&idno=afk2830.0001.033&q1=Mazaua&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=119. This is corroborated in Stanley’s English translation of the extant French MS 5650 at http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=sea&cc=sea&idno=sea061&q1=Taprobana&node=sea061%3A5&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=162.

Magellan, in his Last Will and Testament signed on August 24, 1519 at Seville, states Enrique was a native of Malacca. The Will's English translation by F.H.H. Guillemard is in the book, The Life of Ferdinand Magellan and the First Circumnavigation of the Globe 1480-1521. London: 1890, Pages 317-326 (click Click http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofferdinandm90guil). Reference to Enrique is in the 4th paragraph on Page 321: “And by this my present will and testament, I declare and ordain as free and quit of every obligation of captivity, subjection, and slavery, my captured slave Enrique, mulatto, native of the city of Malacca, of the age of twenty-six years more or less, that from the day of my death thenceforward ....” Guillemard’s text was reprinted in Tim Joyner’s Magellan, International Marine: 1992, Pages 299-302.

Captured or bought?
The idea he was bought comes from Maximilianus Transylvanus’ 2ndhand account of the voyage. It's in Stanley's, Page 200. The English translation was done by Mr. James Baynes of the Printed Book Department of the British Museum, click http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=sea&cc=sea&idno=sea061&q1=Lord+Stanley+of+Alderley&node=sea061%3A1.3&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=288

Most accounts by historians several centuries removed from the event talk of Enrique having been bought. It's easy enough to resolve whether Magellan was wrong and Maximilianus was right. Magellan knew Enrique first hand, was with him from 1511 until April 27, 1521. Maximilianus neither met nor knew the slave, personally. He only heard of him from stories of the survivors of the voyage.

Was Henrich Cebuano?
Carlos Quirino in a speech at the University of the Philippines on July 16, 1980 (see attached Jpeg image) claimed Enrique could not have been understood if he spoke Malay at Mazaua. In fact Quirino fails to mention Mazaua, to avoid having to explain how he came to the notion Cebuano was spoken at this isle. This is because Malay, Quirino argues, is not understood in the Philippines today. Thus, he must have spoken Cebuano. Therefore he was born at Cebu: Therefore, when he reached Cebu, he had circumnavigated the globe.

There are several flaws here. Malay was spoken widely in Southeast Asia. In Language and Language-in-education Planning in the Pacific Basin by Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf, Ricard B. Baldauf Jr., the authors who are linguistics experts—Quirino has no credential in the field—state “Malay was lingua franca of the region for perhaps a thousand years…”, click http://books.google.com/books?id=FgCa3Rt19MQC&pg=PA83&dq=Malay+as+SEA+lingua+franca&ei=VGGnSbSuHZnClATrmrmPBA.

Carlo Amoretti, discoverer of the first true Italian Pigafetta account, states in a footnote on the Mazaua incident, “From the Philippines to Malacca the Malay tongue is universally spoken. It is therefore by no means astonishing an inhabitant of Sumatra should be understood in the Philippine Islands.” See John Pinkerton’s English tr., Page 328, http://books.google.com/books?id=KVG-d40WYesC&pg=PA288&dq=John+Pinkerton+on+Pigafetta%27s+Voyage+Round+the+World&ei=-mWnScHqNJLOlQTUkKSnBA#PPA328,M1

Gines de Mafra was explicit in saying the slave-interpreter (he doesn’t give a name) was pressed into service "because he was known to speak Malay, the language common to those parts." For both Spanish text and English translation of de Mafra, click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gin%C3%A9s_de_Mafra#Chapter_XI.2C_which_deals_with_what_transpired_after_Magellan.27s_departure_from_the_Ladrones_islands.

Quirino assumes the language used in Mazaua is Cebuano. This is wrong. The language of Mazaua is most likely Butuanon. The proof of this is it is among over a dozen languages and dialects within the band of latitudes from 12 deg. North down to 8 deg. North that has the word "masawa" from which the isle got its name. "Masawa" means brilliant light; the word’s significance may be seen in the context of Pigafetta's words, "On Thursday morning, March 28, as we had seen a fire on an island the night before, we anchored near it." Click http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer&cc=philamer&idno=afk2830.0001.033&q1=Ceilon&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=119.

Thus, going by the logic of Quirino, since Enrique spoke the language of Mazaua, Butuanon, he had rounded the world on reaching the isle. Not one of those who took up the cause of Quirino ever detected this flaw in his logic. But those closest to Henrich are explicit, he was a Malay either from Sumatra or Malacca. We can dismiss Maximilianus’ claim as hearsay.

The fallacy of the hypostatized proof
It's almost unthinkable that a historian whose knowledge of the past is derived from accounts of an event by eyewitnesses and secondhand sources can find contrary evidence from outside the body of established primary and secondary sources. It's not just unthinkable, but impossible.

Quirino was editor of a 1968 edition of the Pigafetta English of Robertson and the Stevens' Maximilianus. He knew the Last Will and Testament of Magellan. He had not read Gines de Mafra. How did he surmount the direct evidence coming from Magellan, Pigafetta, and Maximilianus?

Those who have espoused the "Enrique de Cebu" notion have not read Quirino's article in Philippines Free Press of Dec. 29, 1991. It’s here that one sees the logic behind Quirino's improbable enterprise of negating his primary sources. Here Quirino recounts an incident at a Malacca slave market where Magellan and Enrique converse. This event is not found anywhere outside of Quirino’s own imagination. Advocates of the "Enrique de Cebu" notion--many of whom have not read Quirino, do not cite him, do not even know him--are completely ignorant of this incident which is the basis for Quirino's being able to dismiss all known sources.

Quirino describes the phantom event: "After his return to Malacca from Sabah, he Magellan learned that there was a teen-age male to be bought at the slave market; one who, after he had conversations with him, said that he had come from an island farther east than Sabah on the same longitude as the Moluccas, but considerably north of it. The young slave, subsequently baptized with the name Enrique, must have told Magellan how he had been captured by Muslim pirates and that Europeans were unknown in his area of the Pacific Ocean. He must have come from one of the islands then known as the Luzones, about 12 days by sail northeast of Borneo. The idea of claiming that region, composed of a group of islands, must have entered the mind of Magellan. So he returned to Portugal in 1512, taking with him Enrique to propose to his master, King Emanuel of Portugal, that he be allowed to lead a seafaring expedition to those islands and claim them as part of the Portuguese empire."

This paragraph contains many falsehoods. One, longitude was not determined correctly until late in the 18th century with John Harrison's invention of a reliable chronometer around 1740. Ascribing an uncanny ability to know longitudes to this lowly slave is a case of projecting what we know today to someone over 400 years removed from us. The Pacific Ocean wasn't named so not until Magellan's voyage in 1519. In any case, this incident is belied by the fact Enrique wasn't bought in a slave market.

But Quirino reified--made real in his own mind--his own invented event which allowed him to dismiss Magellan's Last Will as the product of a liar, Pigafetta's account, Maximilianus assertion it was not Enrique who did the interpreting at Cebu but a native, and whatever contrary testimony one can present. Here is what Quirino said of Magellan's testimony Enrique was from Malacca: "Magellan obviously wanted to keep secret the real birthplace of Enrique as east of Borneo." Quirino had sense enough not to say outright “Enrique came from Cebu."

In this Free Press article Quirino's inventive mind allowed him to write pure fiction. "Enrique immediately recognized his father, one of the dons around the rajah Humabon. He held his hands together to his forehead, the customary salutation of a Malay to his elder; the father smiled as he recognized his son whom he had given up for dead. His mother was one of the attendants of the Ranee, and beside her was a young and pretty maiden whom he realized was once his teenage sweetheart."

Quirino's reification of his "Enrique de Cebu" tale ends, in the Free Press article, with a quotation of a passage in the biographical-psychological study on Magellan by the famous popular Austrian biographer, Stefan Zweig, that you can read at http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=tLoWg9mMh04C&pg=PA302&lpg=PA302&dq=Ferdinand+Magellan%27s+Last+Will+and+Testament&source=bl&ots=Ydlxdv0s6v&sig=GVYQJGnHmNOjXl56ebuVFyNXe1Q&hl=en&ei=7SqqSZ-9NJWukAXhu7jkDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA234,M1

But Quirino deliberately removed this portion, "the Malay slave was dumbfounded, for he understood much of what they were saying…he was torn from his home upon the island of Sumatra, was bought by Magellan in Malacca…”

What happened to Enrique after Cebu massacre?
Quirino's last stab at his Enrique brainstorm was a short piece in his book Who's Who in Philippine History. See cover, http://books.google.com/books?id=ZvO5AAAAIAAJ&q=Carlos+Quirino&dq=Carlos+Quirino&ei=iE6fSaTgEZ-OkASU-9WNAg&pgis=1.

Here Quirino completes the fairy tale, gives a date of Enrique's demise, what happened to him on May 1, 1521 after the massacre at Cebu took place and the remnant of the fleet left. Enrique's year of death Quirino tells us was 1563; he was from an specific place in Cebu, Carcar; he was caught by pirates while fishing off the coast of Cebu Quirino couldn't quite make up his mind what time of day and if it was sunny and if he had company. After May 1, 1521 Henrich served at the court of Humabon as Spanish and Portuguese interpreter. Enrique got married name of wife hadn’t occurred to Quirino’s mind and raised a family number of children unspecified. Enrique died in his seventies—why not 80s? Or 90s? Or better still 150?--just before Legazpi arrived in Cebu. If he had lived long enough, Quirino would probably have him meet McArthur at the beaches of Leyte, why not?

What does the record say?
Here are what contemporary accounts say what happened to Henrique:
1. In the extant French manuscript called Nancy-Libri-Beinecke-Yale codex, Antonio Pigafetta writes that massacre survivor João Serrão, who was pleading with his comrades to save him from the Cebuanos, said all who went to the banquet were massacred except Henrique. Click http://books.google.com/books?id=RB4usvtAZrEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Magellan%27s+Voyage&ei=B_GpSYmGC5-OkAT-q9ThBA#PPA90,M1.
This is also found in the Ambrosiana MS in the edition of Theodore J. Cachey Jr., click http://books.google.com/books?id=Mcgy9Xn2KkEC&pg=PA129&dq=Magellan+by+F.H.H.+Guillemard&lr=&ei=Fx2qSd6OEYGElQT_pOmUBA#PPA60,M1.

2. Accdg. to the Genoese Pilot, Henrique “had been killed with Fernan de Magalhaes.” Click http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=sea&cc=sea&idno=sea061&q1=Junk+of+Ciama&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=98. This is obviously wrong. He survived the April 27 battle of Mactan.

3. Martin Fernandez de Navarette, from official records of the Casa de Contratación de Las Indias, lists “Henrique, de Malaca” as one of 27 men killed in the May 1 massacre. Go to Page 66 of http://www.archive.org/details/coleccibonviages04navarich

4. Sebastian de Puerta, survivor of Loaisa expedition (1523-1535), narrated February 1528 to men of the Saavedra expedition (1527-1529) that “eight of Magellan’s men survived the massacre and had been sold as slaves to Chinese merchants in exchange for a fixed quantity of iron or copper.” See Martin J. Noone's story at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer;cc=philamer;q1=Sebastian%20de%20Puerta;rgn=full%20text;idno=adn6882.0001.001;didno=adn6882.0001.001;view=image;seq=207;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset. Noone’s source was Martin Fernandez de Navarette, Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV, con varios documentos inéditos concernientes á la historia de la marina castellana y de los establecimientos españoles en Indias, Tomo V, Page 115, click http://www.archive.org/details/coleccibonviages05navarich.

The historical record isn't clear. So it's all well to imagine along with Quirino. In fact I suspect Enrique was among those who received Legazpi with courtesy, elegance, and urbanity. Fairy tales are so much nicer.

Wikipedia tackles Enrique
At Wikipedia, editors had a terrible time trying to resolve if Enrique is indeed from Cebu. Some editors assert he wrote together with Pigafetta the Cebuano vocabulary (they forget it was started in Mazaua and contains Butuanon words), that he had inserted Cebuano words in the Malay vocabulary Pigafetta wrote. Where and how they got this notion is no different from Quirino’s conjuring anything his imagination could contrive.

The editors are aware of the primary and secondary accounts that puts the lie to the “Enrique de Cebu” tale but are hoping evidence will surface in some happy future that will affirm Quirino's "Cebu de Carcar." This is what is called in logic the fallacy of the possible proof. If they hold on to this frame of mind, there will be no resolution. Because the fallacy allows eternity as the deadline for these proofs to come in.

Can fairy tales ever end?
At Wikipedia, there’s one sucker born every day who defends Quirino’s tall tale or the other tale that he, a Malayan, had successfully gone home to Malacca or Sumatra. A number of sensible minds have been seduced by this enthralling tale—Laurence Bergreen, William Manchester, John Keay, Chitang Nakpil, Robert Headland, Benito Justo Legarda, William J. Bernstein, Alejandro Roces, Lincoln P. Paine, Charles J. Finger, Perry Diaz, and countless other lesser lights. It’s time we end this fairy tale before it claims any more victims.

To the credit of the linguistics world, no expert has even bothered to comment on Quirino’s basic assertion. It’s on its face an inanity. And as for the other, less obstinate claim, no one up to now has come up with a shred or hint of evidence when Enrique got back to Sumatra or Malacca and how…by speed boat, airplane, jet ski, etc.

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