Andrés de Urdaneta had an adventurous life that included a voyage around the world under the most difficult of circumstances. Subsequent to that achievement, he joined the Order of Saint Augustine – the first man who was ever a Catholic priest after sailing around the world. Urdaneta (1508-1568) was a Spanish explorer who accompanied Garcia Jofre de Loaysa on the second sailing expedition around the world when he was 17 years old.
On this 1525 voyage, only one of the original seven ships survived. A Spaniard named Jean Sebastian Elcano had been the second in command of the voyage of Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, and Urdaneta was his secretary or servant. Urdaneta had spent much time in Timor and East Indonesia. Interested in navigation, he learned the local language and studied the tides. When he sailed to Portugal, customs officials confiscated all his papers, because navigational information of Portuguese sea routes being in the hands of a Spaniard was not acceptable to them.
He also was placed in prison by the Portuguese, but escaped over the border into Spain and rewrote his adventures in the East. He then settled in Mexico, and there became a member of the Order of Saint Augustine. Urdaneta found a sailing route from the Philippines to Mexico in 1565. Until the year 1821 when Spanish rule in Mexico ended, this route was extensively used by the sailing ships called Manila galleons. When Andrés de Urdaneta and four other Augustinians landed at Cebú in the Philippines in the year 1565, they at once began a very successful Christian mission (although Urdaneta himself was there only briefly). The first houses of the Augustinians in the Philippines were established at Cebú in 1565, and at Manila in 1571.
The beginning
Andrés de Urdaneta had an adventurous life that covered everything from military service in Italy, escaping from a prison in Portugal, visiting the royal palace at Valladolid in Spain, working for the church in Mexico, opening the first church built in the Philippines, and making a voyage around the world under the most difficult circumstances. He was born at Villafranca, in Guipúzcoa, which is within the Basque area of Spain, in the year 1498, which was only six years after Christopher Columbus had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and reached America.
An orphan, he initially studied Latin and philosophy, but then chose a military life. Fighting for Spain in the Italian wars, he had been promoted to the rank of captain. Returning to Spain he took up the study of mathematics and astronomy, which gave him an inclination for a life on the sea. This induced him to accompany Garcia Jofre de Loaysa (or Loaiza) in an expedition to the Molucca Islands in the East Indies. They voyage sailed from Coruna, on the north eastern tip of Spain, in 1525 (when Urdaneta was twenty-seven years of age).
Like de Urdaneta, Garcia Jofre de Loaysa was a Basque, as was another significant person in the expedition, Jean Sebastian Elcano (or El Cano, or del Cano). Elcano had survived the expedition led by Magellan in an attempt to sail around the world in 1517-1518. Elcano had been one of eighteen men to complete the entire journey in 1518, out of an original contingent of about 150 persons. In this new expedition of seven ships in 1525, Elcano owned four of the vessels, and was second in command.
When Jofre de Loaysa died off the tip of South America, Elcano took charge, but he too died four days later. On this voyage in 1525, only one ship of the original seven survived. Urdaneta spent eleven years in Timor and East Indonesia, which were controlled by Portugal. He learned the local languages and the tides. When he returned to Europe on a Portuguese vessel in 1536 or 1537, customs officials in Lisbon confiscated all of his writings about the East Indies. He was prosecuted by the government for revealing information.
Portugal saw itself as a rival of Spain for commerce, nautical information and maps about the East Indies. Urdaneta being prosecuted in Lisbon for sending information to New Spain (i.e., to Mexico), would seem to fit well in the cloak and dagger atmosphere around the Moluccas in the years 1525-1540 under the 6th and 7th Portuguese Captains Tristao de Ataíde and António Galvao. Actually, however, after Emperor Charles V (the King of Spain) had mortgaged his claim to the Moluccas in 1529 to Portugal, the Portuguese did not any longer impose as strictly the decree passed in 1504 that required the maintenance of secrecy about nautical information.
When a prisoner in Lisbon, Urdaneta escaped across the border to Spain, his country of birth. There he wrote once again about the disastrous enterprise by Garcia Jofre de Loaysa on behalf of Spain in 1525, and of his own subsequent experiences in the East Indies between the years 1525 and 1535. His report is the best and most succinct of all the early documents regarding the expedition of Loaysa. Urdaneta wrote it in the first person, and provided a very readable and interesting account of the expedition.
It bears the date, "Valladolid, Spain: 26th February 1537." The original copy still exists, as do the majority of the Loaysa documents, in the Archivo de Indias ("Archives of the Indies") in Seville, Spain. Contrary to the expectations of Urdaneta, Emperor Charles V of Spain did not give him a very favourable reception in Valladolid. Wearied by his many adventures, de Urdaneta went to live in Mexico in about the year 1840. Soon after his arrival in Mexico, he was offered command of the expedition then fitting out for the Moluccas, "but on terms which he could not accept." Villalobos was given command of the fleet in his place. Urdaneta later became a member of the Order of Saint Augustine. He made his first profession of religious vows on 20th March 1553 in Mexico City.
In Valladolid, Spain on 24th September 1559, King Philip II, the son of Emperor Charles V, called Andrés de Urdaneta back to sea. The new King wrote to him in Mexico to offer him the command of an expedition to search the Pacific Ocean and, importantly, to find a safe route back to Mexico. The letter to Andrés de Urdaneta stated that the king "has been informed that when you were a secular, you were in the fleet of Loaysa, and journeyed to the Strait of Magallanes (Magellan) and the spice regions, where you remained eight years in our service. In the projected expedition, the experience of Urdaneta would be very valuable "because of your knowledge of the products of that region, and as you understand its navigation, and are a good cosmographer (maker of maps)."
Urdaneta declined to take command. He wrote to Philip II and accepted the duty of participating in the expedition that was being imposed upon him. He told briefly of his connection with the expedition of Loaysa in 1525 and his experiences in, and his return from, the Moluccas in the East Indies during the eleven years afterwards. Urdaneta wrote, "And after my return from the spice region until the age of fifty two years, when our Lord God was pleased to call me to my present state of religion, I busied myself in your service, and most of the time here in Mexico."
He said that, even now at his advanced age of sixty years and his feeble health, he would undertake this new service. Urdaneta accompanied this expedition as a navigator and pilot of the fleet, and also with the title of "protector of the Indians," i.e., guardian of the treatment of the native people of the Philippines. The leaders in Mexico of the Order of Saint Augustine appointed Urdaneta as the leader of the Augustinians in the expedition. In a formal document, they were instructed to form the first community of the Order in the Philippines and to offer the Christian religion to the native people there.
It was thus anticipated that Urdaneta would serve the few remaining years of his life in the Philippines, but that did not in fact happen. The Viceroy in Mexico wrote to inform Philip II about the man he chose to lead the expedition once Urdaneta had declined to do so. The man selected was, like Urdaneta, a Basque, and one with whom Urdaneta was a friend. The letter to Philip II explained, "I have appointed Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, a native of the province of Lepuzcua, and a well-known gentleman of the family of Lezcano, as the general and leader of those embarking in these vessels -- who all told, soldiers, sailors, and servants, number from two hundred and fifty to three hundred people. He is fifty years old and has spent more than twenty-nine years here in New Spain (Mexico)."
"From what is known of his Christian character and good qualities hitherto, a more suitable man, and one more satisfactory to Andrés de Urdaneta, who is to direct and guide the expedition, could not have been chosen; for these two are from the same land, and they are kinsmen and good friends, and have one mind." The expedition composed of the galleon, "San Pedro", which carried on board Legazpi and Urdaneta, a second galleon "San Pablo," and the tenders "San Juan" and "San Lucas." They set sail from Puerto de Navidad, an island off the west coast of Mexico, on 21st November 1564. In a final letter to Philip II in Spain on 19th November just before the expedition departed, Urdaneta listed the number of ships and men involved. He said that there were four other members of the Order of Saint Augustine on the ships. There was to be a fifth one, but he had just died, and "God has taken him to himself here in this port." Urdaneta added, "Since the members of our Order of Saint Augustine are the first to embark in this undertaking (of establishing the Christian religion in the Philippines), and to undergo so many hardships for the service of God and your majesty, I beg your majesty to grant them favours."
On 25th November 1564, Legazpi at sea opened the official instructions given to him. This radically changed the course from the one that had been hitherto proposed with the support of Andrés de Urdaneta. The new course was the same route that Villalobos had taken in 1542, and directed them to the Philippines rather than to New Guinea. A subsequent report noted, "The religious (of the Order Saint Augustine) in the fleet were very sorry at this, saying that they had been deceived; and had they known this while yet ashore, that such a route was to be pursued, they would not have accompanied the expedition, for the reasons that Andrés de Urdaneta had advanced in Mexico."
Urdaneta had pressed for the expedition to explore New Guinea, which had been discovered almost twenty years previously, i.e., to sail less to the north, for Urdaneta thought that the Philippines was part of the territory assigned to Portugal by the agreement between the kings of Portugal and Spain. Only one week into the journey, on the night of the 29th November, the "San Lucas" became separated from the rest of the fleet,It was seen no more; it was the smallest ship in the fleet and speedier than the other vessels. The "San Lucas" took no further part in the expedition, and was next seen back in port in Mexico. This led to protest the ship had actually fled from the expedition, The expedition reached Cebu in the Philippines in 1565. A small statue of the Santo Niño (the Child Jesus) was discovered, and this was taken as a good omen. It was the one that had in 1521 been given by Ferdinand Majellan to the wife of a local leader, Rajah Humabon. The five members of the Order of Saint Augustine immediately began building a small church (cappella) in the vicinity where the Santo Niño had been found. It was completed quickly, and Andrés de Urdaneta was able to lead the celebrations when the Santo Niño was placed in this cappella (chapel) on 1st June 1565.
The historic voyage back across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico
Soon afterwards, Urdaneta, and one of the other four Augustinians, Andrés de Aguirre O.S.A., sailed east from the Philippines towards Mexico. Their purpose was to find a better return route and to obtain in Mexico further men and materials for the new settlement. The problem was that, in the only parts of the Pacific Ocean previously explored, the winds blew so strongly towards the west that sailing ships feared returning eastwards across the Pacific. Delayed by these unfavourable winds, ships faced the real possibility of exhausting their supplies of food and water.
Urdaneta and a second Augustinian, Andres de Aguirre O.S.A., left Cebu in the "San Pedro" on 1st June 1565. While previous in the Asia-Pacific as a young man, he had studied the winds and the tides, and had correctly developed the theory that the winds and currents moved in a circular pattern around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean. A solution to traversing the Pacific eastwards was found when Andrés de Urdaneta devised a western route at a considerably higher line of latitude, i.e., as far as 36 degrees north latitude.
He went far to the north near Japan, where he found the easterly trade winds and favourable currents, which bore the "San Pedro" back to the California coast of North America near the location today of the city of Santa Catalina, California. Those higher parts of the North Pacific Ocean, where there was no constant winds blowing to the west, therefore offered a practicable eastern sea route from Asia to the Americas. During these four months at sea, they covered about 1,892 leagues (about 4,400 miles) without setting foot on land. Fourteen sailors of the "San Pedro" died, mainly of malnutrition and of other medical complications it made worse.
When they reached the coast of lower California the captain of the "San Pedro" - Felipe Salcedo, a grandson of Legaspi - and the chief pilot also both died of disease. Urdaneta had to assume command of the ship himself. The ship reached the port of Acapulco on the coast of Mexico on 8th October 1565 "after all the crew had endured great hardships." Of the two hundred and ten persons who had originally sailed from Mexico on the "San Pedro," sixteen had died on the voyage. Less than a twenty were able to work when they arrived back at Acapulco eleven months later.
All of the rest were ill. Only Andrés de Urdaneta and a few others had strength enough to cast the anchors. The previous problem of finding a way back from the Moluccas in the East Indies to Mexico was now solved. This was what became known as the North Pacific Route, which avoided the winds in the South Pacific that blew towards the west. As it happened, Captain Alonso de Arellano and the "San Lucas" had deserted the other ships in the Philippines. A tiny ship of only 40 tons in weight, the "San Lucas" had actually reached Mexico before Urdaneta did. The progress of Urdaneta had been slowed by bad weather.
Andrés de Urdaneta, and not de Arellano, has been credited in history with the discovery of the North Pacific Route. This is because the task of finding the route had been specifically assigned to Urdaneta, because Urdaneta had made charts of his route, and because de Arellano had discredited himself by turning away from the expedition. In the following year he was despatched to Spain, to give an account to the government of what Legazpi had accomplished. One of the letters from Legazpi in Cebu that Urdaneta had brought back to Mexico for transmission to the king in Valladolid was a petition from Legapsi, a great admirer of Urdaneta, that the king press Urdaneta to come back and work in the Philippines.
Urdaneta returned to Mexico, but wished henceforth to serve in the Philippines, where he would have been in charge of the ministry of the Order of Saint Augustine. He was convinced not to do so by people in Mexico who were concerned about his old age and the condition of his health. By then he was about sixty eight years of age. They wanted him in Mexico, and also thought that further ministry by him in the Philippines at that age was too much to expect. Andrés de Aguirre O.S.A., however, who had sailed on the "San Pedro" with Urdaneta from Cebu to Mexico in June 1565 did return to the Philippines to join the other pioneers of the Order of Saint Augustine.
Aguirre spent the rest of his life in the Philippines. He probably was unique in his day, however, for having twice circumnavigated the globe by returning to Spain and going back to the Philippines by way of Mexico. Urdaneta wrote two accounts of these voyages. The one giving the account of the Loaiza expedition to the Philippines was published; the other, which gives the account of his voyage back to Mexico, exists as an original manuscript in the Archives of the Indies in Seville.
Andrés de Urdaneta died in Mexico City on 3rd June 1568, three years after his final voyage of discovery. He had been endowed with a keen intellect, and held to his opinions and convictions with great tenacity. To his abilities and sagacity are ascribed much of the success of Legazpi in the Philippines. He was the first man who was a member of a religious order (afterwards!) and a priest (afterwards) to travel around the world. In his lifetime accumulated enough travel that was equivalent to having sailed around the world twice.
The journeys of Andrés de Urdaneta.
1525: On Loaisa Expedition, from Spain to the Philippines via Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Age: 27 years.
1536: (?) East Indies to Spain via Indian Ocean. Age: 38 years. (Between 1525 and 1536, he had travelled all around the world in a westerly direction.)
1538: (?) Spain to Mexico via the Atlantic Ocean. Age: 40 years.
1542: Declined the invitation either to lead or even to take part in the expedition from Mexico to the Philippines that was then led by Villalobos instead.
1565: Legazpi Expedition. From Mexico west to Philippines via Pacific Ocean. Age 67 years.
1565: From Philippines east to Mexico via the North Pacific Route. Age: 67 years.
1565: (?) From Mexico east to Spain via Atlantic Ocean. Age: 67 years.
1566: (?) From Spain west via Atlantic Ocean to Mexico. Age: 68 years.
Links
Andrés de Urdaneta (1508-1568: his date of birth is variously given as 1498 and 1508). The first houses of the Augustinians were established at Cebú, in 1565, and at Manila, in 1571. In 1575, under the leadership of Father Alfonso Gutierez, twenty four Spanish Augustinians landed in the islands and, with the provincials Diego de Herrera and Martin de Rado, worked very successfully, at first as wandering preachers. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07281a.htm
Andrés de Urdaneta: Spanish navigator, born in Villafranca, Guipuzcoa, Spain in 1499; and died in Mexico on 3rd June 1568. He early attained reputation as a skilful navigator. He fought against the Portuguese until 1536, when he was shipwrecked on the coast of Portugal and imprisoned in Lisbon. He escaped, and went to Valladolid (Spain) where King Charles V held his court, but, unable to obtain recognition for his services, he entered the Order of St. Augustine….. Read more about him under the alphabetical letter "U" at: http://www.famousamericans.net/andresurdaneta
Urdaneta voyage and route. His journeys in both directions across the Pacific Ocean http://historicphilippines.com/people-places-things-events/people/garcia-jofre-de-loaisa-and-andres-de-urdaneta
Urdaneta, a Spanish 3rd Class Gunboat. Here is some useless information! Andrés de Urdaneta is probably the only Augustinian in history to have had a mighty 45-horsepower naval gunboat named after him. The "Urdaneta" (built 1884) was an Otalora Class gunboat.
OTALORA Class Gunboats: Displacement: 43 tons Dimensions: 20.59m x 3.58m x 1.17m Horsepower: 45 Speed: 9 knots Range: 700 miles Coal Bunker capacity: 5 tons Drive Shafts: 1
These iron-hulled coal-burning vessels were armed with one 25mm/42cal rapid-fire gun. They had a crew of 23 men. They were built at Cavite for service in the shaols and rivers of the Philippines. During Spanish American War, the "Urdaneta" was located in a remote location in the Philippines. In 1899, while on the Orani River, she was captured by insurgents and totally destroyed. Written by Nick Mitiuckov. http://www.spanamwar.com/span3rdclassgunboats.htm AN4380