Elcano & Magellan: The First Voyage Around the World

A film made to entertain and not worthy of the hatred of people who don't know how to see the past as it should be seen.

It is fashionable to insult past personalities because of their connection with Central Europe's colonial past. It's considered something “modern”, and also a sign of sensitivity towards offended peoples, that is, the natives of countries colonized by Europeans. First, let me make a note to those who were outraged by a film about “colonizers”: I am the Devil. I'm your worst nightmare, the incarnation of your hatreds, and I'm glad for it. Not only am I Portuguese, I am also a descendant of inquisitors, slave traders and navigators. But the most important thing (because I don't allow myself to be defined by my ancestors) is that I am a historian, for me the past is a serious matter.

As a historian, I say that the past is not judged, not censored, not rewritten to our liking and in the light of political correctness. The past is accepted as it is, so that we really learn something from it. And the truth is that until the 19th century (well, and even later sometimes), Europeans saw the world exclusively from their point of view. That is, if a newly discovered land had no Europeans living in it, it was from the European country that discovered and occupied it. This is wrong for us, because we see the rights of native peoples differently, but this is how Europeans thought, and it's not correct that we, today, are condemning them for acting in accordance with the mental and civilizational principles of their world and time! They could not have known that, five hundred years later, we would have completely different ideas, and we cannot expect men who lived in 1500 to behave like men from the year 2000. What I suggest, therefore, is that we know how to understand the past as he is, and understand the way of thinking of those men instead of judge them in light of what is right for us. It's the only way we don't say, or write, a lot of nonsense....