"The great Malacca" a Melaka Travel Page by city_guy

Was the first man to sail around the world a Malay?

Over the years, there has been considerable debate about who actually was the first man to sail around the world. We were all taught this historic honour belongs to Ferdinand Magellan (Fernao de Magalhaes, in his native Portuguese) who led the expedition of five ships and over 270 men out of Spain in 1519 and sailed westwards, reaching the Philippines, where he was killed. However, Magellan was thought to have travelled to as far as Sabah before, and one can argue that he had indeed actually completed circumnavigating the globe. There are also those who argue that the accolade should rightly belong to Sebastian del Cano, a mutineer from Magellan's crew, who led the one surviving ship, Victoria, and 17 other men, and limped back to Spain on September 8, 1522.

However, only one individual can truly claim to have been the first man to leave his home, sail around the globe and arrive at a part of the world where his mother tongue was spoken. That man was a Malay, Magellan's able servant and interpreter, called Enrique of Melaka or Henry the Black.

If there is any single Malay ever who has had the greatest impact on world history, it would probably be Enrique. It is therefore ironic that we know so little of the man. He is called Panglima Awang in Malay literature but there is no mention of him in any credible Malay historical records. There is brief mention of Enrique in the official Spanish crew lists, as well as Magellan's last will and testament. Almost all of the certain facts that we know of Enrique come from the most comprehensive chronicle of Magellan's voyage, the narrative by Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian volunteer who joined Magellan's crew.

Pigafetta does briefly mention Enrique's origins - he was a Malay who had lived in Melaka but was originally from 'Zamatra' (Sumatra). Magellan was among the crew of the Portuguese squadron of five ships under Diego Lopez de Sequeira which sailed into Melaka on September 1, 1509, and became the first Europeans to have contact with the Malay Peninsula. Magellan also took part in the capture of the city by the Portuguese in 1511 and it was probably then that he acquired a Malay slave, whom he gave the name Enrique.....

Interesting eh? If you want more of this, please email me here on VT.

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As far as could be ascertained there are no less than three versions as where the State of Malacca derived its name. The least probable of the three was from Gaspar Correa made in the 16th century.

He contended that Malacca (Melaka) was derived from Mulagas which was a kind of salted fish exported from the state.

A version mildly accepted was that the name came from Mulagah which is Arab for a meeting. The acceptance of this version was attributed to Malacca being a meeting place in the 15th and 16th centuries for merchants from countries near and far..

There were, however, scholars who contended that the Malays then would not have accepted an Arabic term because the Arab merchants at the time were not a prominent community.
More scholars and historians were agreed that Malacca (Melaka) derived its name from a tree, the 'pokok Melaka'. Their reasoning was that the local inhabitants at the time were fond of naming places after plants or trees. The Melaka tree was then also growing in abundance along the banks of Air Lereh.

Some of the places that bear the names of trees or plants to this day are Kampung Alai, Kampung Bertam, Pengkalan Kempas, Kampung Merlimau and Kampung Kundang.

Still, this last version is not necessarily the correct one as there is no positive proof that it is...

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