COMMENT | Globalisation’s beginnings are symbolised by Ferdinand Magellan’s near circumnavigation of the world half a millennium ago. But its history is not simply of connection and trade, but also of intolerance, exploitation, slavery, violence, aggression and genocide.

The Philippines today struggles with this history. Some Filipinos highlight the warm native reception extended to Magellan’s fleet and the first Catholic mass, reminiscent of American Thanksgiving mythology. For others, native resistance to conquistador aggression, captured by Danilo Madrid Gerona’s biography of Magellan, is more memorable.

In 1494, Pope Alexander VI, now of Borgias TV series infamy, united the Iberian Catholic kings behind the Inquisition. His Tordesillas treaty, after Christopher Columbus’ 1492 ‘discovery’ of the New World under Spanish royal auspices, gave the Portuguese rights to Brazil and all lands east of it, with Spain getting the rest of the Americas.

Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498 with the help of an Arab trader. In February 1502, he returned to demand that the ruler of Calicut (Kozhikode) expel all Muslims. When rejected, da Gama bombarded the port city and severely maimed those he captured.

Under Portugal’s second Viceroy to the East, Afonso d’Albuquerque, Fernão de Magalhães (Magellan in Portuguese) distinguished himself in several Portuguese naval sieges, attacks and sackings of ports in southern India and beyond.

Portugal had its eyes on Malacca well before arriving there. For the Portuguese chronicler Tome Pires, Malacca then was the greatest port in the world. Magalhães arrived with the first Portuguese expedition to Malacca in 1509, returning in 1511 with a thousand men under Albuquerque’s command to capture it...