Enrique of Malacca

Enrique of Malacca (; ), was a Malay member of the Magellan–Elcano expedition that completed the first circumnavigation of the world in 1519–1522. He was acquired as a slave by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1511 at the age of 14 years, probably in the early stages of the Siege of Malacca (1511). Although Magellan's will calls him "a native of Malacca", Antonio Pigafetta states that he was a native of Sumatra. Magellan later took him to Europe, where he accompanied the circumnavigation expedition in 1519. According to many historians, there is a possibility that he is the first person to circumnavigate the globe.
The Italian historian Antonio Pigafetta, who wrote the most comprehensive account of Magellan's voyage, named him "Henrique" (which was Hispanicised as "Enrique" in official Spanish documents). In Portuguese, he was called "Henrique". 
 This name appears in Pigafetta's account, in Magellan's Last Will, and in official documents at the "Casa de Contratación de las Indias" of the Magellan expedition to the Philippines. Eyewitness documents of Antonio Pigafetta, Ginés de Mafra, the Genoese pilot, Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Juan Sebastián Elcano, and Bartolomé de las Casas, and secondary sources such as João de Barros and Francisco López de Gómara, refer to him as a slave.
In Malaysia, he is popularly known as Panglima Awang, a name given by a historical novel author, Harun Aminurrashid in his same novel titled "Panglima Awang" which was written in 1957 and first published in 1958 by "Pustaka Melayu" (under brand: "Buku Punggok"). According to the author, he gave Enrique the Malay name "Awang" to match his presumed ethnicity, while the title "Panglima" () refers to Enrique's wisdom, strength and activeness.
Magellan expedition.
Enrique accompanied Magellan back to Europe and onwards on Magellan's search for a westward passage to the East Indies, and he served as an interpreter for the Spaniards. American historian Laurence Bergreen cites Magellan's claim to the Spanish court that his slave Enrique was a native of the Spice Islands; Magellan produced letters from a Portuguese acquaintance, Francisco Serrão, who located the Spice Islands so far to the east of Spain, that they lay in the area granted to Spain, rather than Portugal; in other words, the Earth was round. This gave Spain an opportunity to claim the Spice Islands.
Ginés de Mafra explicitly states in his first hand account that Enrique was taken on the expedition primarily because of his ability to speak the Malay language: "He [Magellan] told his men that they were now in the land he had desired, and sent a man named Herédia, who was the ship's clerk, ashore with a Native they had taken, so they said, because he was known to speak Malay, the language spoken in the Malay Archipelago." The island in the Philippines where Enrique spoke and was understood by the natives was Mazaua, which Mafra locates somewhere near Mindanao.
After Magellan's death.
Magellan had provided in his will that Enrique was to be freed upon his death. But after the battle, the remaining ships' masters refused this bequest.
The Genoese pilot of the Magellan expedition wrongly stated in his eye-witness account that the Spaniards had no interpreter when they returned to Cebu, because Enrique had died on Mactan along with Magellan during the Battle of Mactan in 1521. However, Enrique was very much alive on 1 May 1521, and attended a feast given by Rajah Humabon to the Spaniards. Antonio Pigafetta writes that the survivor João Serrão, who was pleading with the crew from the shore to save him from the Cebuano tribesmen, said that all those who went to the banquet were slain, except for Enrique. A discourse by Giovanni Battista Ramusio claims that Enrique warned the Chief of Subuth [sic] that the Spaniards were plotting to capture the king and that this led to the murder of Serrão and others at the banquet.
Possibility of the first circumnavigation.
Enrique accompanied Magellan on all his voyages, including the voyage that circumnavigated the world between 1519 and 1521. On 1 May he left in Cebu, with the presumed intention to return to his home island, and there is nothing more said of Enrique in any document.
If he succeeded in returning to his home, he would have been the first person to circumnavigate the world and return to his starting point. According to Maximilianus Transylvanus and Antonio Pigafetta documents, Elcano and his sailors were the first to circumnavigate the globe. Enrique is only documented to have traveled with Magellan from Malacca to Cebu in two segments—from Malacca to Portugal in 1511 and from Spain to Cebu in 1519–1521. The distance between Cebu and Malacca is 2500 km (approximately 20 degrees of longitude), which is left to complete the circumnavigation. It is not known if he ever had a chance to complete it.
Ethnicity and identity.
In his last will, Magellan describes Enrique as a mulatto and native of Malacca, part of modern Malaysia today. Alternately, Pigafetta described him as coming from Sumatra, which is part of modern Indonesia today. Either way, Enrique is generally accepted to have been an ethnic Malay. However, it has been asserted by Filipino historian Carlos Quirino that Enrique was himself a Visayan Filipino, a Cebuano or native of Cebu in the Philippines, on the mistaken assumption that Enrique must have conversed with the Cebuanos in their Cebuano language instead of the Malay language as attested by primary sources (the Malay language was the lingua franca of the region).