[1] Barbosa was killed in 1521, at a banquet held by Rajah Humabon in the Philippines, a few days after the Battle of Mactan on Cebu Island.

Barbosa served as the interpreter for Alfonso de Albuquerque's contact with the Rajah of Cannanore the next year (1503).

[2] In 1515, Albuquerque sent Barbosa to Kozhikode to oversee the construction of two ships that would serve on an expedition to the Red Sea under the new governor.

According to Italian writer Giovanni Battista Ramusio's preface, Barbosa completed his manuscript in 1516 with detailed accounts of foreign cultures.

Previously known only through the testimony of Ramusio, the original manuscript was discovered and published in the early nineteenth century in Lisbon, Portugal.

On 10 August 1519 Duarte Barbosa sailed from Seville on Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation, along with his friend João Serrão.