Transoceanic Leadership; Spain beyond the horizon

Summary:

On 23 April 2024, the Rafael del Pino Foundation and OpenSea organised the dialogue "Transoceanic Leadership. Spain beyond the horizon" with the participation of María Dolores Higueras Rodríguez, Americanist historian and pioneer of underwater archaeology; Manuel Maqueda, former captain of the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, currently professor of applied circular economy and regenerative economics in the division of continuing education at Harvard University, and Alex Pella, professional ocean navigator and the first and only Spaniard to win a solo transoceanic race, on the occasion of the commemoration of the first circumnavigation of the world, the Spanish expedition of Magellan-Elcano that gave birth to globalisation and boosted the progress of humanity.

María Dolores Higueras Rodríguez: Many people don't know it, but Magellan never had a round-the-world voyage in mind. Magellan was commander of an expedition to the Maluco, to open a Spanish route to access the Maluco, which was the great challenge between Portugal and Spain at the time. What Magellan offered the Spanish crown was a route through Spanish crown territory to reach the Moluccas, naturally across the Atlantic, finding a passage that had already appeared on some maps of the time.

The original maps were in the Portuguese archives. Magellan went into some secret archives and took documentation, which he later offered to the King of Spain as testimony that the project he was presenting was viable. The Portuguese hated him so much that they tried to stop him from offering this project to the King of Spain. They sent emissaries, they cornered him, they threatened him, but Magellan had already made his choice. He knows that the only empire that, in terms of means, technology and ships, can make his project prosper is Spain, and he has already made his choice.

Magellan becomes a vassal of Spain. He is not a foreigner when he commands the expedition to Moluco; he is a vassal of the King of Spain. It is a Spanish expedition from the very first moment. That is important because it is not generally known.

Magellan led the expedition with many merits. The most important of all is the achievement of finding the location of the strait that bears his name, which is labyrinthine, terrifying. Magellan demonstrates his genius here, with small ships going ahead to see which way the arms are going. He studies the salinity of the water to see which is going to lead him to the ocean and which is an arm that goes to land. He showed his perseverance, his training (he was a great sailor) and his genius.

He was the first European to sail the Pacific. That was going to have so much significance, because the world is gigantically enlarged by the Pacific, which was unknown. The world is much bigger than anyone imagined.

Alex Pella Valette: There are two things that impress me. One is the psychological aspect. They don't know what's ahead of them, they know what's behind them. Also, they were sailing in full self-sufficiency, that is to say, you are making progress, but the supplies are running out. You know where you can get supplies behind, you see the smoke plume and you know if the people living there are going to attack you or not. But you don't know what's ahead of you. That aspect of leading something seems to me to be beastly, how you hold on and control that.

The other aspect, which is difficult to assess, is intuition. We sail with very precise data on everything. But they didn't have all this. They had a perception of things that we don't have, for example, if the bird goes that way, there is land there; cloud so and so, there is land there: the seaweed has this colour, so and so. They had this, which is impossible for us to have because we don't come from that school. And they were adapted, integrated, absolutely integrated into the environment.

María Dolores Higueras Rodríguez: It is important to highlight the fact that Spain, at that time, was the world's leading scientific power. The Casa de Contrataciones, a science emporium, was the most important institution in Europe at that time in terms of astronomy and science. Spain had cutting-edge navigation technology at that time, but we are talking about the ballestilla, the astrolabe, the ampoule to measure time, but there were no manometers until the 18th century, which meant that longitude could not be calculated, latitude could be calculated, but not longitude. You have to think that these 16th century ships, which have a transformed technology, because oceanic navigation, which opened up Spain in the Modern Age, is one of the great feats in the history of mankind, change the systems of orientation towards the high seas. Ships also have to be adapted. Foodstuffs too. We are talking about a first threat of scurvy, which will be much greater in the Pacific, but also in the Atlantic. It is a world where Spain is going to be a pioneer in terms of the most cutting-edge science of the time, but which is incomparable with today's navigation technology. They are small ships.

One thing that was highly valued at that time was the experience of having sailed. What happens when Magellan emerges from that world of important sailors, whom Magellan has been setting aside, of captains appointed by the king, whom he has been setting aside, thus not complying with the signed capitulations? Magellan sailed the Portuguese way, that is to say, without counting on the company, the seafarers, the experience of the seamen. And Spain sailed in consultation with the company. From the outset, this created a monumental unease. Magellan had no empathy whatsoever with the crews, nor with the captains, it was total secrecy, they didn't know where they were going, he didn't communicate the defeats.

Magellan would have attempted to return across the strait. He did not have a round-the-world voyage in mind because he was wanted to death by the Portuguese.

Cape Verde is another focal point of Elcano's leadership. When Elcano emerges, they begin to sail the Spanish way. The first thing Elcano does is to consult the crew and there are disagreements, but Elcano listens and then takes responsibility for the decision. That's what a leader is, and when he makes that decision, he convinces the people who didn't agree that this is the solution. That's what a leader is. Elcano, as well as being a great navigator, was a leader (52:02). That's the first leadership tip.

The second is after that brutal navigation through the labyrinth of the Indian Ocean, through the Roaring Forties, which is one of the roughest, most brutal seas on Earth. But Elcano knew that if he went up the Portuguese route he would be captured. So he convinces them to go via the southern Indian Ocean, via the Roaring Forties, with a broken-down ship, with sick crews, with starvation and with a ship that can't get upwind, because the rigging is very simple. But Elcano convinces them again, stating that he knows the area, the winds and that they will go that way more safely than up there. The leader again.

There is a moment that is crucial for the round the world trip. After all these adventures, with the ship broken down, sick crews, discouraged to the point of exhaustion, there is a moment when the crews say they can't go on and ask to go to Mozambique and stay on an island they find with friendly Indians. This is the turning point of the round-the-world voyage because Elcano, once again, takes his men and tells them that they are exhausted, they seem defeated but honour is superior to life. He tells them that they have to return their spices to the king and make the expedition succeed. He tells them that honour is above life to men who are dying, and again he gets the men to tell him to go ahead. That is the turning point of the round-the-world voyage, because that is where they could have stayed for good.

There is one more very important element that characterises Elcano, and that is that he knows what he is doing, he is aware of the importance of achieving the round-the-world voyage. Awareness of what one is doing is very important, it gives it great value. Elcano knew this and was prepared to give his life to this endeavour. In Cape Verde, Elcano had planned to stop at the Portuguese base, because they were half dead, and to be victualled, to repair the ship a little. He had planned to tell the story that they had come from America and that a storm had blown them there. But some crew members who go ashore with a few spices to see if they can do some business discover the cake. The Portuguese realised that they had come from the Moluccas and not America, so they had to set sail as they were. Thirteen crew members were captured by the Portuguese. The rest set sail with what they had, without supplies or anything else, and in this situation they reached San Lúcar de Barrameda. As soon as they landed, Elcano wrote to the king and the two essential elements of this marvellous letter were that they had sailed the first round-the-world voyage and that he should negotiate with the king of Portugal for the release of the thirteen. Elcano demonstrates the courage of the leader who fights for his people. That is what a leader is, a man who convinces, who drags people along and then helps and recovers them.

Elcano made the right choice when he chose the round trip because the king had told them not to enter Portuguese territory. He had no other way to return, taking into account the condition of the ships and the men. This great Spanish exploit is the most important of the navigations of the Modern Age, which is the great age of navigation. This voyage really changed Renaissance Europe's conception of the world. The world is indeed round. It is the sea that dominates, not the land. The round-the-world voyage shows that three quarters of the Earth is sea, that the Pacific is gigantic, and adds almost a third more to the known circumference of the Earth. On the other hand, the Earth is navigable, peoples can connect by sea, trade opens up and Spain performs the last great feat of the Modern Age: the first globalisation. Spain sets up, across a continent, the first great East-West globalisation, which runs for the three centuries that Spain remains in the administration of America (1:00:35).

Manuel Maqueda Sánchez: The planet has become too small in terms of carrying capacity, that is, the elements it can grow, the number of people who can live there. The Earth's carrying capacity is measured in nine planetary limits, six of which have been exceeded and are in a critical situation. There is a lot of talk about climate change, which is only one of them. There is biodiversity, the integrity of the biosphere, genetic integrity, functional integrity, which is much more worrying; water cycles, geobiological cycles of phosphorus and nitrogen, which is what we need to feed ourselves. The 90% of human food depends on these limiting factors. We have extracted fossil fuels, but also fossil water. And the world has become too small.

In 2020, the weight of everything man-made for the first time equalled the weight of everything natural. The biological and the technological equalised their weight because everything that humans make, that somehow extracts-manufactures-pulls-out-extracts, all of that doubles every twenty years, it's an exponential function. It's the big bell curve that doesn't indicate that we're in another era, the Anthropocene (1:03:08). The mass of all the animals on the planet, including humans, their dehydrated weight is about four gigatons; the weight of all the plastics, which are a lightweight material, that we have manufactured in the last seventy years is eight gigatons, twice as much. The weight of all the vegetation on the planet is nine hundred gigatons. The weight of our buildings is eleven hundred gigatonnes. It's not just that nature is stressed, but there is less of it, it's shrinking, and we depend on it for everything that is ecosystem services, not just food, water, respiration. We are in a directional coupling with these systems.

We are beginning to become aware of our evolution. We are in an evolutionary valley of our awareness of sustainability, of natural systems, of how life works. We know enough to think we know, but not enough to know that we know too little, but our survival depends on it.

The sea is the 90% of the biosphere. Some four hundred and fifty million tonnes of plastic are produced each year, 40% of which are designed to become litter. It's packaging. We are using an eternal material for things that are rubbish. Some 30% of that ends up in the environment and some eight million tonnes enters the sea annually.

Our brains have not evolved very much, they are not ready for the understanding of those numbers. So, many of the key numbers that we need to understand to make the necessary changes we don't understand. There is no beach in the ocean where, taking a random sample of sand, you don't find micro plastics; or, a sample of water, you don't find toxic additives. The ocean is the last fractal in a series of water fractals that begin with the cellular environment. Each of us has several million million million cells. These cells, which are small oceans, are also in trouble.

There is no such thing as nature. What exists in reality are two-way coupled anthropo-terrestrial systems. It is illusory to think that there is climate here and economy there. We are facing a transformed world in which there is solastalgia, or a sense of loss, and a sense that we have to evolve, that we have to change, but we don't know how.

In the face of such great changes, of which we are just beginning to become aware, with climate change being the tip of the iceberg, we must embark with great leadership and courage towards uncertain horizons. Just as globalisation was an inevitable and unimaginable change, a civilisation that lives in radical alliance with living systems in a regenerative way, that can continue to provide value for generations and generations, is inevitable but unimaginable.

We have to bring out the best in us to assume where we are and embark somewhere where, maybe, a lot of people don't want to follow you.

The Rafael del Pino Foundation is not responsible for the comments, opinions or statements made by the people who participate in its activities and which are expressed as a result of their inalienable right to freedom of expression and under their sole responsibility. The contents included in the summary of this conference are the result of the debates held at the meeting held for this purpose at the Foundation and are the responsibility of their authors.

The Rafael del Pino Foundation is not responsible for any comments, opinions or statements made by third parties. In this respect, the FRP is not obliged to monitor the views expressed by such third parties who participate in its activities and which are expressed as a result of their inalienable right to freedom of expression and under their own responsibility. The contents included in the summary of this conference are the result of the discussions that took place during the conference organised for this purpose at the Foundation and are the sole responsibility of its authors.

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