Like Magellan, Barbosa spent time in India and East Africa before departing on the Magellan-Elcano expedition that completed the first circumnavigation.
Back in Europe, Barbosa wrote a travelogue of sorts, in which he introduced the geography and conditions of towns along the East African coast, the Malabar Coast, and upward along the Red Sea.
No doubt parts of Barbosa's manuscript were borrowed. It included substantial information on the kingdom of Prester John, a mythical wealthy Christian king in the East who Europeans by this point had believed in for several centuries.
Barbosa's callousness as he describes Portuguese atrocities and piracy in the region are a record of the Portuguese mind-set of the time. They regarded any non-Christians as inferior, to be treated as needed. And Portuguese fleets traveled with standing orders to wage war on Muslims wherever possible, plundering and murdering them.
With the Magellan-Elcano expedition for Spain, Duarte Barbosa made it as far as Cebu, in the Philippines. He fought beside Magellan at the Battle of Mactan up to Magellan's death, as did Enrique of Malacca, Magellan's slave-interpreter, and Antonio Pigafetta, the expedition's chronicler.
Barbosa was killed in the massacre at Cebu days later.
Other links on Duarte Barbosa:
Duarte Barbosa Preface to "Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar"
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