Note 147 — PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO

João Serrão, the brother of Magalhães’s staunchest friend Francisco Serrão, and a firm supporter of the great navigator. Pigafetta errs in calling him a Spaniard (see p. 183), though he may have become a naturalized Spaniard, since the register speaks of him as a citizen of Sevilla. One document (Navarrete, iv, p. 155) calls him a Portuguese pilot, and Brito (Navarrete, iv, p. 308) a Castilian. He was an experienced navigator and captain, and had served under Vasco da Gama, Almeida, and Albuquerque. Vasco da Gama (on his second voyage, 1502–1503) made him captain of the ship “Pomposa” which was built in Mozambique where he was left to attend to Portuguese affairs. On this expedition he saw the coast of Brazil for the first time, for Vasco da Gama’s fleet, ere doubling the Cape of Good Hope, crossed to the Brazilian coast, which they followed as far as Cape Santo Agostinho. He fought bravely in the battle of Cananor under Almeida (March 16, 1506, in which Magalhães also participated). He was chief captain of three caravels in August, 1510, in Eastern water, and was in the Java seas in 1512, but must have returned to Portugal soon after that, for he was there in 1513; although he seems to have been appointed clerk at the fortress of Calicut in the latter year. He embarked with Magalhães as captain and pilot of the “Santiago,” but after the wreck of that vessel near port San Julian was given command of the “Concepcion,” in which he later explored the strait. Failing to dissuade Magalhães from attacking the natives of Matan, he became commander, with Duarte Barbosa, of the fleet at Magalhães’s death, and was murdered by the Cebuans after the treacherous banquet given by them to the fleet. See Guillemard (ut supra), and Stanley’s Three voyages of Vasco da Gama (Hakluyt Society publications, London, 1869).