Circumnavigations of the Globe to 1800

Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay

---

Everyone learns in school that Ferdinand Magellan was the first to circle the globe and that Sir Francis Drake was second (technically, that's not correct - see below), but who was third? That information is surprisingly hard to uncover, but the reason is fairly obvious once known; many of the succeeding voyages, like Drake's, were piracy expeditions, simply retraced Drake's route, and made no new discoveries.

By the 1600's it was possible to go around the world as a paying passenger. Trans-Atlantic trade was firmly established. The Spanish had trade caravans regularly crossing Mexico to link Atlantic and Pacific ports, and they were sending ships regularly between the Philippines and Mexico across the Pacific. Trade between Europe and the Far East was being regularly conducted by several European nations. Thus, there was a continuous network of European trade routes circling the globe. However, it was rarely necessary or useful for a single ship or person to make the complete circuit. Thus, the total number of global circumnavigations to 1800 is surprisingly small. After 1800,thanks to American whalers and merchantmen trading with China via Cape Horn, round-the-world voyages become much more common. Two significant voyages from just after1800 are also listed.

A look at a map of winds and ocean currents shows that by far the easiest way to circumnavigate the globe is from west to east. That way you make the passage around Cape Horn, with its legendary foul weather, with the wind at your back. Almost of the voyages listed here went the opposite way. If all you wanted to do was explore the Pacific, by far the easiest and safest way was to round the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, then cross the Indian Ocean, returning the same way. Many illustrious expeditions did exactly that. The weather is better, ports of call more numerous, and help more likely to come by if you get stranded. The main reason for entering the Pacific by way of Cape Horn was secrecy; piracy in the earlier cases, but even some later purely exploration expeditions were secret to conceal colonization intentions or prevent attacks by hostile ships.

Ferdinand Magellan 1519-1522

• Nationality: Portuguese, sailing for Spain
• Departure:  Seville, Spain, August 10, 1519
• Return:  Seville, Spain, September 8, 1522
• Ships:  Five ships initially (Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepcion, Santiago, Victoria) of which only the Victoria returned
• Comments:  Magellan was killed in a battle with locals in the Philippines, but on a previous voyage to Indonesia he had sailed farther east than that point, so he did indeed circle the globe completely. The Victoria was commanded on the return trip by Juan Sebastian del Cano. Of the 240 men who sailed, 20 returned on the Victoria. 14 others, seized by the Portuguese in the Cape Verde Islands, were eventually released and returned home. Five more returned on a trading ship in 1527.
      On a previous voyage, Magellan had purchased a Filipino slave, Enrique, who traveled with him to Spain and Portugal and then sailed on this voyage, thereby earning an equal claim to the title of first to circumnavigate the earth. Magellan's will specified that Enrique was to be freed on Magellan's death, but Magellan's shipmates ignored the will. However, Enrique escaped and returned home. (Thanks to Celso V. Benologa for bringing this to my attention.)

Garcia Jofre de Loaysa 1525-1536

• Nationality: Spanish
• Departure:  Coruna, July 24, 1525
• Return:  Lisbon, June 26, 1536
• Ships:  Seven ships initially (Santa Maria de la Victoria, Santi Spiritus, Anunciada, San Gabriel, Santa Maria del Parral, San Lesmes, Pataje)
• Comments:  A very little known voyage, for good reason. The expedition was sent out with the same goals as Magellan's. Two ships were lost and two wrecked before the fleet reached the Pacific. After they got through the Straits of Magellan, one small boat (Pataje) became separated and headed north to Mexico (at that time the closest Spanish possession). The remainder of the expedition got to the Mollucas on the Santa Maria de la Victoria, where they became embroiled in native politics and conflicts with the Portuguese. This was the other side of the infamous Line of Demarcation whereby the Pope divided the globe between Spain and Portugal, except that with no accurate means of telling longitude, nobody had a clue where the line went on the Pacific side (and nobody but the Spanish and Portuguese complied anyway). Some of the crew defected to the Portuguese or went their own way. The Santa Maria de la Victoria was wrecked by the Portuguese in a raid. Meanwhile, having heard about the problems the expedition had at the Straits of Magellan, Cortez (yes, that Cortez) sent a ship across the Pacific to see what had happened to the expedition. That expedition had its own misadventures.
       450 men originally sailed from Spain; Fernando de la Torre and eight survivors finally returned in 1536 on a Portuguese ship. So technically this is a circumnavigation in that some members survived to make it all the way around the world, although none of the ships did. Juan Sebastian del Cano, who sailed with Magellan and could have become the first two-time circumnavigator, died in mid-Pacific. How many others straggled home later, and by what means, there may be no way of knowing.

Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  Plymouth England, September 15, 1577
• Return: Plymouth England, November 3, 1580
• Ships:  Five ships, the Pelican (100 tons), Elizabeth (80 tons), Marigold, Swan and Christopher. Only the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind, returned.
• Comments:  Up until now the Spanish had regarded the Pacific as their own private lake and considered it secure. Drake discovered the passage that bears his name between South America and Antarctica, a discovery so momentous that the English kept it a closely-guarded secret. To evade Spanish pursuers, Drake sailed up the coast of the Americas as far north as California. This was more a raiding and piracy expedition than one of discovery. Nowadays we would call it state-sponsored terrorism.

Sir Thomas Cavendish 1586-88

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  Plymouth England, July 21, 1586
• Return:  Plymouth England, September 9, 1588
• Ships:  Desire (140 tons), Content (60 tons) and Hugh Gallant (40 tons). The first two returned.
• Comments:  Sailed with a crew of 123, which became so depleted that the Hugh Gallant was scuttled off the west coast of South America for lack of crewmen. No new discoveries; more state-sponsored terrorism. This voyage was very celebrated in its day but proved of little lasting historical significance.

Simon de Cordes 1598-1601

• Nationality: Dutch
• Departure:  Rotterdam, Holland, July 2, 1598
• Return:  Rotterdam, Holland, August 26, 1601
• Ships:  Four ships initially of which one returned
• Comments:  No new discoveries, unless you count the discovery that the Dutch could raid Spanish shipping as well as the English; more state-sponsored terrorism.

Oliver Van Noort 1598-1601

• Nationality: Dutch
• Departure:  Rotterdam, Holland, July 2, 1598
• Return:  Rotterdam, Holland, August 26, 1601
• Ships:  Four ships initially of which one returned
• Comments:  No new discoveries; more state-sponsored terrorism.

George Spilberg 1614-17

• Nationality: German sailing for Holland
• Departure:  Zeeland, Holland, August 8, 1614
• Return: Holland, July 1, 1617
• Ships:  Six ships initially of which two returned
• Comments:  No new discoveries; more state-sponsored terrorism. If you think it's a shame that so much of early space exploration was driven by military rivalries, reflect on how many of the first circumnavigations of the world were driven by exactly the same forces.

James LeMaire and William Cornelius Schouten 1615-17

• Nationality: Dutch
• Departure:  Texel, Holland, June 14, 1615
• Return:   Texel, Holland, June 24, 1617
• Ships:  Concord and Horn; both returned
• Comments:  This was the first voyage that independently rediscovered the Drake Passage. They discovered a number of new islands in the Pacific, then reached Batavia (now Jakarta) in Indonesia. There they met Spilberg (see above) who sent the two captains home on Dutch East India Company ships. This happened to a number of Dutch voyagers and apparently had to do with violations of the Dutch East India Company monopoly. LeMaire died of a fever on the island of Mauritius; Schouten returned home. Their two ships under new command also made it back.

Jacob l'Hermite and John Hugo Schapenham 1623-26

• Nationality: Dutch
• Departure:  Goeree, Holland, April 29, 1623
• Return:  Texel, Holland, July 9, 1626
• Ships:  Eleven initially; only one completed the circumnavigation.
• Comments:  Not just a piracy expedition; these guys planned to conquer Peru. (If Pizarro could pull it off with his tiny force, why not?) l'Hermite died on the voyage home from Indonesia.

Henry Brouwer 1641-43

• Nationality: Dutch
• Departure: 
• Return: 
• Ships: 
• Comments:  This seems to have been an attempt to set up a Dutch outpost on the coast of Chile. Brouwer died off the coast of Chile on August 7, 1643.

Cowley 1683-86

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  Virginia, 1683
• Return:  England, October 12, 1686
• Ships: 
• Comments:  The first round-the-world voyage to start from America. Technically not quite a circumnavigation since the voyage ended in England, but we can be pretty sure the ships and crews originated there in the first place. This was the expedition that picked up William Dampier (below) so this and the next entry are difficult to untangle.

William Dampier 1679-91

• Nationality: English
• Departure: 
• Return:  16 September, 1691
• Ships:  Various
• Comments:  If you want confusion, try following this guy's adventures! Here goes: he left England to raid the Caribbean, crossed Panama, seized some Spanish ships, then raided up and down the Pacific coast of the Americas. He recrossed Panama and made his way to Virginia. In 1683 he and his companions were picked up by a ship (the one above?). The expedition then sailed to West Africa to capture a larger ship, then sailed back across the Atlantic and into the Pacific. They spent nearly a year raiding the Pacific coast of the Americas, picking up various privateers and at times having a fleet of up to ten ships. Dampier's ship then crossed the Pacific, the crew almost starving (and resolving to eat their officers if need be) on the way. After more raiding and trading in and around the East Indies, Dampier finally returned to England.

Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Carreri 1693-98

• Nationality: Italian
• Departure: 
• Return: 
• Ships: 
• Comments:  Sailed to Mexico, crossed by land to the Pacific, then returned on other ships via Asia. May be the first known commercial round-the-world passenger.

Beauchesne Gouin 1699

• Nationality:
• Departure: 
• Return: 
• Ships: 
• Comments: 

William Dampier 1703-07

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  11 September 1703
• Return:  1707
• Ships:  St. George (126 men) and Cinque Ports (63 men)
• Comments: Dampier probably became the first person to circumnavigate the globe twice. Chiefly famous because Alexander Selkirk, the model for Robinson Crusoe, was marooned on Juan Fernandez Island off Chile on this expedition. Selkirk had been the master of the Cinque Ports before running afoul of Dampier. Most accounts claim Selkirk asked to be put ashore because he feared for the seaworthiness of the Cinque Ports; if so, he made a good call because the Cinque Ports later sank with most of its crew. Dampier was a skilled observer and certainly bold, but an ineffective and sometimes unkind commander. He later served as pilot on the Woodes Rogers expedition (see below).

Woodes Rogers 1708-11

• Nationality: English
• Departure: Bristol, England, August 2, 1708
• Return:  The Downs, England, October 1, 1711
• Ships:  Duke and Duchess
• Comments:  Followed Drake's route with the same purpose. The preface to Bougainville's account (see References) lists a voyage by Edward Cooke in the same years, but this is simply a duplicate and rival account of this voyage. Rogers was in many ways an exact opposite of William Dampier, who served as pilot on the expedition and almost certainly became the first person to circumnavigate the globe three times. Despite having a motley crew and officers more rebellious than most, Rogers maintained good order and discipline throughout the voyage. He also rescued Alexander Selkirk, whom Dampier had marooned on Juan Fernandez Island eight years earlier. You have to wonder what they said when they met again.
       One odd legacy of this voyage is that Rogers' account of the voyage contains the first known use of "head" for a ship's toilet, a term that is still used.

Gentil de la Barbinais 1714-

• Nationality: French
• Departure: 
• Return: 
• Ships: 
• Comments:  Sailed on a private merchant ship to "carry on an illicit trade" (smuggling?) in Chile and Peru, then sailed on other ships to China, thence returned to Europe. Another early commercial round-the-world passenger.

Clipperton and Shelvocke 1719-21

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  February 13, 1719
• Return:  Galway, Ireland, June, 1721 (Clipperton); London, England, August 1, 1721 (Shelvocke)
• Ships:  Success (Clipperton) and Speedwell (Shelvocke)
• Comments:  Clipperton seems to have been a competent captain throughout; Shelvocke was incompetent and often close to mutinous, and the two maintained contact only intermittently throughout the voyage. While Clipperton seems to have been intent on following his military orders, Shelvocke was intent only on piracy. So it's a sad irony that Shelvocke seems to have a more detailed biography than Clipperton! One incident in Shelvocke's account was the nucleus for a literary image: the ship was followed by an albatross for several days, which a crewman finally shot, thinking it a bad omen. This incident was worked into Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, although Shelvocke's ship was not followed by the same misfortunes.

Roggewein 1721-23

• Nationality: German sailing for Holland
• Departure:  Texel, Holland, May 20, 1721
• Return:  Texel, Holland, July 11, 1723
• Ships:  Three
• Comments:  Discovered Easter Island among several others. His ships were confiscated by the Dutch East India Company in Batavia and Roggewein returned on one of their ships.

Lord George Anson 1740-44

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  St. Helens, England, September 18, 1740
• Return:  Spithead, England, June 15, 1744.
• Ships:  Six initially, but two failed to round Cape Horn and one, the Wager, was wrecked. The three survivors, the Centurion, Gloucester, and Trial, continued into the Pacific. Only the Centurion returned.
• Comments:  Of the 961 men who set out from England on the Centurion, Gloucester, and Trial, only 335 were still alive when the expedition reached Juan Fernandez Island. The Gloucester, and Trial were scuttled as unseaworthy in mid-Pacific. Despite his losses, Anson employed skillful tactics and deception to take a number of much more heavily-armed Spanish ships. About 200 crewmen survived the voyage. Anson went on to have a distinguished career, proving himself an innovative tactician on numerous occasions. Most biographers describe him as coldly efficient, but he seems to have been neither cruel nor uncaring about his crews, just competent and willing to persevere despite problems.

Commodore John Byron 1764-66

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  The Downs, England, June 20, 1764
• Return:  The Downs, England, May 9, 1766
• Ships:  Dolphin and Tamar. Tamar ended the return voyage in Antigua, because of rudder problems; Dolphin returned.
• Comments:  Byron had sailed on Anson's voyage. Arrived at Batavia November 28, 1765, and the Cape of Good Hope February 24, 1766. This was the shortest circumnavigation to date; only 22 months.

Samuel Wallis and Philip Carteret (Dolphin and Swallow) 1766-68

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  England, July 1766
• Return:  England, May 1768 (Wallace); June 1769 (Carteret)
• Ships:  Dolphin and Swallow
• Comments:  Carteret had sailed with Byron. The two ships were separated shortly after entering the Pacific. Wallis (also spelled Wallace), commanding the Dolphin, had a relatively uneventful voyage. The Dolphin thus became the first ship to sail around the world twice. Considering how many ships were lost, wrecked, or abandoned as unseaworthy, it's not surprising that it took almost 250 years after Magellan for shipbuilding to advance to the point where a ship could survive two such voyages. Carteret had complained at the outset that the Swallow was unseaworthy. He had a much harder time and lost most of his crew on the voyage. He did discover Pitcairn's Island, which in 1790 would be the refuge for the Bounty mutineers.

Louis de Bougainville 1766-69

• Nationality: French
• Departure:  Brest, December 5, 1766
• Return:  La Bondeuse returned to Nantes March 6, 1769; L'Etoile docked in Rochefort April 24, 1769
• Ships:  La Bondeuse, L'Etoile
• Comments: 

James Cook 1768-71

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  August 1768
• Return:  July 12, 1771
• Ships:  Endeavour
• Comments:  In an age when seamen did their utmost in trying to avoid service in the British navy, Cook left the merchant marine and volunteered. Lacking the formal training and social position of most career officers, he was made a warrant officer rather than a commissioned officer. On this voyage he accomplished the then-amazing feat of having no deaths from scurvy on the voyage.

James Cook 1772-75

• Nationality: English
• Departure:  July 13, 1772
• Return:  July 30, 1775
• Ships:  Resolution and Adventure
• Comments: Again, no deaths from scurvy on the voyage. Accomplished the first crossing of the Antarctic Circle. The most famous officer apart from Cook was William Bligh, whose own voyage in 1789-90 would be interrupted by the famous mutiny on the Bounty. (Bligh was not as brutal as often stereotyped, and was a courageous seaman, but sorely lacking in people skills, so much so that he was the cause of two mutinies. The second resulted from his policies as governor of a colony in Australia.)
• This seems to have been the first circumnavigation from west to east.
• Cook's third and last voyage, 1776-1780, deserves mention, though it was not a circumnavigation. The expedition departed on  July 12, 1776 with two ships,  Resolution and Discovery. On this trip, Cook carried a letter of safe-conduct from Benjamin Franklin, who was not about to let something as trivial as a mere war interfere with good science. Cook was tragically killed in a confrontation on the island of Hawaii on February 14, 1779. The expedition was then commanded by Charles Clerke, who returned via the route around Africa, rather than completing a circumnavigation. The expedition returned October 4, 1780.

Thomas-Nicholas Baudin

• Nationality: French
• Departure:  1800
• Return: 
• Ships:  Geographe and Naturaliste
• Comments:  Commissioned by Napoleon.

Robert Gray 1787-1790

• Nationality:United States
• Departure:  1787
• Return:  1890
• Ships:  Lady Washington and Coklumbia Rediviva
• Comments: First American circumnavigation. Explored Pacific Northwest and discovered the Columbia River. Laid the foundations for American claims in the Pacific Northwest.

Johann von Kruzenshtern and Yuri Fyodorovich Lisianski, 1803-1806

• Nationality: Russian
• Departure:  1803
• Return:  1806
• Ships:  Nadezhda (Kruzenshtern) and Neva (Lisiansky)
• Comments:  First Russian circumnavigation. Note that while the later voyages were largely for discovery rather than state-sanctioned piracy, they were still driven by national prestige and a desire to show off national capability rather than a quest for pure knowledge. The Russians had no practical reason to circumnavigate the globe except to show they could do it, too.

Hyppolyte Bouchard, 1817-1818

• Nationality: French-Argentine
• Departure:  1817
• Return:  1818
• Ship:  La Argentina

Comments: You cannot make this stuff up. Bouchard was a privateer and he persuaded the newly independent Argentine Republic to grant him a letter authorizing him to attack Spanish shipping. The plan was to cross the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and raid the Philippines, at that time still in Spanish hands. Manila was too heavily fortified to attack, so Bouchard settled for attacking ships. He then sailed to Hawaii to recruit additional crew.

He then sailed on to California. This is the time Argentina attacked California. I don't care how powerful they are, there are no drugs capable of causing this sort of hallucination. Remember how all circumnavigations went from east to west? This is why. The Spanish knew he was coming. He still managed to take Monterey and San Juan Capistrano, (the Spanish defense was pretty ineffective) and raided in Central America. He was arrested in Chile and later served in the Peruvian Navy. Some of his earlier privateering was in The Pacific so even though he didn't make it back to his departure point, he did circumnavigate the globe.

References

Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de, comte, 1772; A voyage round the world. (Translated fromthe French by John
Reinhold Forster), Published: N. Israel; Da Capo Press, 1967, 476 p. [Call # G420 .B681772]. This reference contains a useful summary of round-the-world voyages up to thattime.

The Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press (22 vol. plussupplements) is the source for information on most of the English figures mentioned.

Wikipedia has an article "List of Circumnavigations" that includes other and later voyages.

---

Ferdinand Magellan

Cameron, Ian, Magellan and the first circumnavigation of the world, Saturday ReviewPress, 1973, 224 p.

Pigafetta, Antonio, The voyage of Magellan; the journal of Antonio Pigafetta,Prentice-Hall, 1969, 149 p.

Garcia Jofre de Loaysa

Markham, Clements R.,1967; Early Spanish voyages to the Strait of Magellan, translated and edited with a preface, introduction, and notes by Sir Clements Markham. Nendeln, Liechtenstein, Kraus Reprint, 1967. Series: Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, 2d ser., no. 28.

Sir Francis Drake

Drake, Francis, Sir, The world encompassed, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; Da Capo Press,1969, 108 p.

Wilson, Derek A.,: The world encompassed : Drake's great voyage 1577-1580, Hamilton,1977, 240 p.

Sir Thomas Cavendish 1586-88

Last voyages--Cavendish, Hudson, Raleigh : the original narratives  Oxford : Oxford ; New York : Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, 1988

Hakluyt, Richard, The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques & discoveries of the English nation; made by sea or over-land to the remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse of these 1600 yeeres. Publisher: New York, AMS Press, 1965.

Simon de Cordes 1598-1600

Sluiter, Engel, 1933; The voyage of Jacques Mahu and Simon de Cordes into the Pacific Ocean, Ph.D. Thesis, University of California - Berkeley.

Oliver Van Noort 1598-1601

George Spilberg 1614-17

Spilbergen, Joris van,  The East and West Indian mirror, being an account of Jorisvan Speilbergen's voyage round the world (1614-1617), and the Australian navigations ofJacob Le Maire, translated with notes and an introd. by J. A. J. De Villiers,  KrausReprint, 1967, 272 p.

James LeMaire and William Cornelius Schouten 1615-17

Jacob l'Hermite and John Hugo Schapenham 1623-26

Henry Brouwer 1643-

Cowley 1683-86

William Dampier 1679-91

Wilkinson, Clennell, 1929: Dampier; explorer and buccaneer, New York, Harper & brothers, 257p.

Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Carreri 1693-98

Carletti, Francesco,  My voyage around the world. Translated from the Italian byHerbert Weinstock, Pantheon Books, 1964, 270 p.

Beauchesne Gouin 1699

Edward Cooke 1708-11

Woodes Rogers 1708-11

[Archibald] Fleming MacLiesh and Martin L. Krieger, The privateers, a raiding voyageto the great South Sea, Random House, 1962,: 368 p. (Account of the Woodes Rogers voyage)

Gentil de la Barbinais 1714-

Clipperton and Shelvocke 1719-21

Roggewein 1721-23

Roggeveen, Jacob,  The journal of Jacob Roggeveen; edited and translated by AndrewSharp, Clarendon Press, 1970, 193 p.

Lord Anson 1740-44

Walter, Richard,  A voyage round the world in the years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV byGeorge Anson, Oxford University Press, 1974, 402 p.

Commodore Byron 1764-66

Wallace and Carteret (Dolphin and Swallow) 1766-68

Robertson, George,  The discovery of Tahiti; a journal of the second voyage of  H.M.S. Dolphin round the world under the command of Captain Wallis, R.N., in theyears 1766, 1767, and 1768, written by her master. Edited by Hugh Carrington. KrausReprint, 1967, 291 p.

Louis de Bougainville 1766-69

News from New Cythera; a report of Bougainville's voyage, 1766-1769. Edited by L. DavisHammond, University of Minnesota Press, 1970,: 66 p.

Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de, comte, 1772; A voyage round the world. (Translated fromthe French by John
Reinhold Forster), Published: N. Israel; Da Capo Press, 1967, 476 p. [Call # G420 .B681772].

James Cook 1768-71

Journal of a voyage round the world in H.M.S. Endeavour 1768-1771. Reprint of the ed.London, 1771, N. Israel; Da Capo Press, 1967, 130 p.

Ledyard, John,  Journal of Captain Cook's last voyage. Edited by James KennethMunford , Oregon State University Press, 1964,  264p.

Marra, John, Journal of the Resolution's voyage in 1771-1775, N. Israel; Da Capo Press,1967, 328 p.

Cook, James,  The Journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery.Edited by J. C. Beaglehole. Published for the Hakluyt Society at the University Press,1955-1974. 4 v.

Muir, John Reid, The life and achievements of Captain James Cook, R. N., F. R. S.,explorer, navigator, surveyor and physician,  Blackie & son, limited, 1939, 310p.

==============================

Forster, Johann Reinhold,  Observations made during a voyage round the world, or,Physical geography, natural history, and ethic philosophy, G. Robinson, 1778, (microform)649 p.

La Perouse, Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de,  Voyages and adventures of LaPerouse. Translated from the French by Julius S. Gassner, Published for Friends of theLibrary of Hawaii by University of Hawaii Press, 1969, 161 p.

---

Return to Outline Index
Return to Professor Dutch's Home Page

Created 21 May 1997, Last Update 14 February 2025