Men and canoe in the Strait of Magellan

After departing from Annobon on 2 January 1599, the expedition of the Magellan Company under Simon de Cordes crossed the Atlantic Ocean. It reached the Rio de la Plata by late March and entered the Strait of Magellan on April 6th. Soon after, they killed several thousand petrels for food supplies and possibly some penguins and seals. However, adverse winds made it hard to make progress and De Cordes decided to shelter the ships in a bay now called Fortesque Bay, which the Dutch called Cordes’ Bay. Here they would stay under rough conditions until late August. The men hunted and sought for food, taking anything they could find. During the winter they lost over a hundred men. In early May a violent encounter took place between a crew of men sent ashore to search for seals and indigenous people, which the Dutch accounts describe as giants of 10 to 11 feet tall. The Dutch were not the first to describe the people of this region as giant. Many Europeans did so before the expedition of Cordes and Mahu, but no later evidence has ever been found of extraordinarily tall people in the region. Later that month several crew members of the expedition died in an attack by indigenous people. These were described as entirely naked, except one, who had the skin of a seal around his neck.

This image shows the indigenous people encountered by the Magellan Company’s expedition at the Bahía Fortescue area. It shows a tall man, naked except for a skin around his neck. He has long hair and a moustache. He carries a long harpoon-like spear. A similar-dressed man is in the canoe, which appears to have a fire lit inside it. The background shows the hilly landscape of the region.