By this time Spain claimed that the Line of Demarcation extended around the globe, but no one knew where it fell in the Eastern Hemisphere. A Portuguese captain, Ferdinand Magellan, believed there might be a water passage through the New World that would lead to the Orient. He convinced the king of Spain that the richest lands in the Far East lay in the region reserved for Spain by the papal
line. The king commissioned Magellan to find a western route.
In 1519 Magellan sailed from Spain to Brazil. Then he proceeded south along the coast to the tip of the continent and passed through the strait that now bears his name. He sailed into the ocean which he named the Pacific. Magellan was killed in the Philippine Islands, but one of his ships went on to India and finally in 1522 to Spain by way of the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope.
The voyage established Magellan as the foremost navigator in history. For the first time the globe was circled and the vast expanse of the Pacific was revealed. No longer could America be regarded as an outlying part of Asia.
Spain and Portugal each claimed that the rich Spice Islands of the East lay within its allotted territory. Spain's westward route was so much longer than Portugal's eastern route that Spain could not profit from the trade. In 1529 Spain surrendered to Portugal its claims in Asia and received the Philippine Islands in return. Magellan's voyage thus failed to break Portugal's supremacy in the Orient.