Francisco Serrão
Francisco Serrão reached the Spice Islands, stayed there, and supplied the letters that persuaded Magellan to sail west. He was a Portuguese soldier and captain, a close friend and probably a cousin of Ferdinand Magellan, and the two served together in India and at the capture of Malacca in 1511. Albuquerque sent three ships east from Malacca that year under António de Abreu to find the Moluccas, the small islands that were the world's only source of cloves and nutmeg and whose location the Portuguese had been trying to establish for years. Serrão commanded one of them. He wrecked it, seized a local vessel with the survivors, and was carried to Ternate. The sultan of Ternate was in permanent conflict with the neighbouring sultan of Tidore over the clove trade, and took him on as a military adviser. Serrão never went home. He married locally, had children, built a fortified house, and effectively became a Ternatean official for the rest of his life. He wrote to Magellan describing the islands, their position and their wealth — and, by Magellan's own later account, encouraging him to come. Magellan's argument to the Spanish crown was that the Moluccas lay in the Spanish half of the world under the Treaty of Tordesillas and could be reached by sailing west. The longitude was not measurable, and the claim was arguable. Serrão died at Ternate in 1521, probably poisoned, weeks before Magellan was killed at Mactan. Neither knew of the other's death. His widow and children were later brought into Portuguese service.
- Lived: 1480 CE – 1521 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: explorer, captain, diplomat
