[18] Despite his achievements, information on Elcano is scarce and he is the subject of great historiographical controversy, because of the scarcity of original sources which illuminate his private life and personality.

Fernandez de Navarrete states that, in addition to being a fisherman and a mariner, Elcano acted as a smuggler on board a French ship,[31] but no original sources are given to confirm this.

It is usually said that he was born in the house located in San Roque Street in the municipality of Getaria, today called the "Birthplace of Juan Sebastián Elcano".

It has been deduced from indirect information that the Basque language was his mother tongue, but it is unequivocable that he also communicated in Spanish, as can be seen in the letters he wrote to the king, and in the interrogations he underwent in Seville and in Valladolid.

It is often repeated, for example, that in 1509 he participated in the conquest of Oran, in the Mediterranean, under the direction of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, commanding his own his two-hundred-ton ship.

[38][39][6] According to Spanish historiography, Elcano participated with his ship in the Italian wars under the leadership of Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova, known as The Great Captain (El Gran Capitán) (1495–1504).

[25] This is also doubtful because there are no primary sources to prove it, and, above all because Elcano was then 8 years old (17 according to the Spanish historiography),[38] and it is impossible that an 8-year-old boy was already a ship owner or fought in the war.

The Magellan-Elcano expedition (1519 - 1522), which completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth, started with 5 ships (Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria and Santiago) along with 234 crewmen (some sources raise the number of sailors to 247.

During the six-month listless journey after Magellan died, and before reaching the Moluccas, Elcano's stature grew as the men became disillusioned with the weak leadership of Carvalho.

They did not succeed, because after sailing over 20,000 km (12,000 mi), their supplies, health and the condition of Victoria had become impossible; the sailors decided by vote to stop and recover at Cape Verde.

Most of the original accounts, including Elcano's, speak only of food, but Bustamante, the doctor-barber on board, says that they went down to look for slaves because of the imperative need for labor to pump out the water filling the bilges.

[32] As soon as the ship Victoria arrived in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Elcano began writing a 700-word letter addressed to Charles V, in which he never mentions himself, emphasising that the expedition had achieved its goal of bringing back the desired spices, had "brought peace" to those islands, and had obtained the friendship of their kings and lords, attested by their signatures on documents.

Elcano claimed three gifts from the king as a reward for his achievement, namely an annual pension of 500 ducats which he never received, two armed men to escort him and an official statement pardoning him for the sale of his ship to the Savoyard bankers.

The negotiating team included Sebastian Cabot (Sebastián Caboto), Juan Vespucio, Diogo Ribeiro, Estêvão Gomezs, Simón Alcazaba and Diego López de Sigueiro.

These meetings were unsuccessful because the attendant parties were unable to agree on the exact location of the Moluccas Islands, as it could not be deduced from the ships' logs, and in any case the Portuguese did not recognize Elcano's authority.

[61] Its purpose was securing a military foothold in the Maluccas, and forming alliances with the native rulers to gain control of the local spice trade with the establishment of a base for the Spanish Crown's mercantile and colonial agents.

[62] Although Elcano had more experience, the king chose García Jofre de Loaísa as commander of the expedition because he was a nobleman, his status in line with the royal objective of establishing a Castilian authority in the Moluccas.

Of the seven ships, four had been built in Basque territory and the number of natives of the Gipuzkoan coast in the crew had increased considerably, including those in positions of responsibility, compared to the first expedition.

The Sancti Spiritus, piloted by Elcano, ran aground in a storm and was abandoned, with its men being distributed among the other ships, and the San Gabriel deserted the expedition, returning to Castile after sailing up the Brazilian coast.

In one of the documents that appeared later in Laurgain, dated January 29, 1529, the king calls "Johan Ochoa Martínez del Cano" to go on the expedition of Simón de Alcazaba to the Moluccas.

[69] According to the Basque historian Xabier Alberdi Lonbide, Elcano was relegated to a secondary role in French and Spanish historiography of the 19th century and there remains a minor figure.

[71] Nor did the book, Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo, by Antonio Pigafetta, the Venetian scholar who sailed with Magellan and who was among the 18 men that survived the expedition and returned to Spain, mention Elcano.

[72][73] In its received form, his chronicle exaggerates his own role, perhaps explaining why in Italian historiography Elcano disappears and Capitano Pigafetta himself appears as an important character.

In Spain this sentiment had a conservative component supported by the monarchy, that in its retrospective view, held that the Spanish people needed to construct a new national historiography; this task fell to Martín Fernández de Navarrete, director of the Royal Academy of History.

[6] At a time when Spain was experiencing the decolonization of America, the Spanish government desired to present a national historical narrative that legitimized the power of the ruling elites, a message that inevitably would diminish the position of the lower classes.

In Navarrete's telling Magellan became an exemplar of those elevated persons who must struggle against the incapacity of common men to understand the complexities of governance, portraying him as of noble character, an upholder of the Christian faith, and a leader in the advancement of civilization.

In contrast to these virtuous qualities he attributed to Magellan, Elcano was a man in the habit of deciding important matters democratically by vote, one who had never conquered another race of people that could be evangelized and civilized, nor had he ever even tried.

Thus, in Navarrete's account, crediting Elcano with the completion of the first circumnavigation is understood as an injustice to the memory of Magellan's achievements, and Navarette's history is an attempt to rectify this error.

With the acceptance of this fabricated birth date by historians, the false information that Elcano participated in the Oran campaign has been widely published in history books.

[79][80] As part of the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation of the Earth on September 6, 1522, the Basque Maritime Museum, with the support of the Elkano Foundation, has published a new book: Elcano y el País Vasco.