Ginés de Mafra

Ginés de Mafra (c. 1493– c.1546) was a Spanish mariner who sailed with the Magellan expedition in search of a western passage to Asia. His later account of the voyage is an important supplement to the historical record. In 1536 he served as the chief pilot for Pedro de Alvarado on a voyage to Peru and in 1542 he sailed with Ruy López de Villalobos to the Philippines.

Biography
Ginés de Mafra was born in the town of Jérez de la Frontera and later became a resident of Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain. In court documents dated August 1527, Mafra stated he was 33 years old, indicating he was probably born around 1493 or 1494.

Voyage to the Philippine Islands
In 1519, he became a crew member of the Magellan expedition. Mafra started as a seaman in the galleon Trinidad, the armada's flagship. In 1521, after many hardships, the expedition reached the Philippines where Magellan was killed in a battle with the islanders. The only remaining ships, the Victoria and Trinidad (with Mafra still on board) decided to split up and find their own ways home. The Victoria continued west and eventually became the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. Meanwhile, the Trinidad planned to retrace their path across the Pacific but were unable to make much headway and were eventually captured by the Portuguese in the Moluccas.

Mafra and his surviving crewmates were held captive in the Moluccas and then in 1523 transported to Cochin on the east coast of India where most of his companions died from mistreatment and disease. After two more years of imprisonment, Mafra was finally brought by the Portuguese to Lisbon along with Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa and Hans Bergen.

Upon their arrival in Portugal in 1526, Mafra and his crew members were thrown in prison. Bergen died in jail while Espinosa was later released that year. Mafra himself was detained due to his possession of important documents which included the books and papers from the Trinidad. The manuscripts included navigational notes of Andrés de San Martín, who was the fleet's chief pilot and astrologer.

These manuscripts were later transferred to Spain during the Iberian Union in 1580-1640. The letters were accessed by several Spanish chroniclers, including Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. These papers have been lost and now exist only in quotes, references, and citations by these historians.

Finally freed only to find his wife had remarried
After numerous pleas by Mafra to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V of Spain to have him released, he was freed in early 1527, and immediately proceeded to Spain. He was given an audience with the emperor after which he went straight to Palos only to discover his wife, Catalina Martínez del Mercado, believing he had died during the voyage, had remarried, and sold their personal fortunes, and land properties. Mafra wrote to the emperor complaining of his marital trouble, and asking for his intercession for the return of his possessions. The emperor agreed, and ordered an investigation be made by officials, and to have the matter resolved.

Expedition to the New World
Mafra went back to the sea in 1531 and sailed to the Americas. The governor of Guatemala, Pedro de Alvarado, in a letter written on November 20, 1536, told the emperor he had hired the services of Mafra as pilot, who was considered as one of the best sailors due to his experiences with the Magellan voyage. It's not clear where the expedition went but most scholars believe the fleet sailed to Peru.

Villalobos expedition (1542–1546)
In 1542 Mafra joined the expedition of Ruy López de Villalobos as pilot of the San Juan de Letrán, one of six ships bound for the Philippines. The galleon was separated from the fleet during a severe storm as they sailed between Eniwetok and Ulithi. While stranded in one of those islands, he wrote an account of the Magellan voyage and discussed meeting Rajah Siaiu, chieftain of Mazaua. Mafra wrote, "This same chief [Rajah Siaiu] we saw in the year 1543 by those of us in the fleet of general Ruy López de Villalobos, and he still remembered Magellan, and displayed to us some of the things he [Magellan] had given him." According to historian Antonio Pigafetta, "Magellan's gift consisted of a garment of red and yellow cloth made in the Turkish fashion, a red cap, knives, and mirrors".

Mafra and his crew members stayed on the island for about 5–6 months. There Mafra, age 53, elected to stay together with 29 other crew members. The other survivors sailed for Lisbon in a Portuguese ship. Mafra handed his manuscript to an unnamed sailor. This eventually reached Spain after having been transcribed by an unknown editor, where it remained unnoticed for many centuries in Madrid's Archive of the Indies. It was eventually discovered and published in 1920.

Assessment of Mafra's document
Mafra's document has been examined by American geographer Donald D. Brand. Brand dismissed it as nothing more than what Mafra recalled on Andrés de San Martín writings, which Mafra had with him until these were confiscated in Lisbon. "It should be pointed out here that the previously unknown, Description de los reinos, Libro que trata del descubrimiento y principio del estrecho que se llama de Magallanes, por Ginés de Mafra, published in Madrid, 1920 in Tres Relaciones could not be based on more than Mafra's memory of what he might have read in a Tratado begun by San Martín." This dismissive charge unargued, and unproved, was echoed by Martín Torodash, and Philippine religious historian John N. Schumacher, and influenced the thinking of many other scholars.