Spanish Expeditions to the Philippines

Spanish Expeditions to the Philippines

Lectures on Philippine HistoryHannibal F. Carado

University of Santo Tomas

The Magellan Expedition

• Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese in the service of the Spanish crown, was looking for a westward route to the to the Spice Islands of Indonesia.

• On March 16, 1521, Magellan's expedition landed on Homonhon island in the Philippines.


• Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly with Magellan and embraced Christianity, but their enemy, Lapu-Lapu was not. Humabon wanted Magellan to kill Lapu-Lapu while Magellan wanted to convert Lapu-Lapu into Christianity.

• On April 17, 1521, Magellan sailed to Mactan and in the ensuing battle Magellan was killed by the natives lead by Lapu-Lapu.

The Protagonists in the Battle of Mactan


• Out of the five ships and more than 300 men who left on the Magellan expedition in 1519, only one ship (the Victoria) and 18 men returned to Seville, Spain on September 6, 1522.

• Nevertheless, the said expedition was considered historic because it marked the first circumnavigation of the globe and proved that the world was round.

Spain Sends Other Expeditions

• Five subsequent expeditions were sent to the Islands. These were led by:– Garcia Jofre Loaisa (1525)– Sebastian Cabot (1526)– Alvaro de Saavedra (1527)– Rudy Lopez de Villalobos (1542)– Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (1564)

Spain Sends Other Expeditions

• Only the last two actually reached the Philippines; and

• Only Legazpi succeeded in colonizing the Islands.

The Villalobos Expedition

• Ruy Lopez de Villalobos set sail for the Philippines from Navidad, Mexico on November 1, 1542.

• He followed the route taken by Magellan and reached Mindanao on February 2, 1543.

• He established a colony in Sarangani but could not stay long because of insufficient food supply.

The Villalobos Expedition

• His fleet left the island and landed on Tidore in the Moluccas, where they were captured by the Portuguese.

• Villalobos is remembered for naming our country “Islas Filipinas,” in honor of King Charles’ son, Prince Philip, who later became king of Spain.

The Legazpi Expedition

• Since none of the expedition after Magellan from Loaisa to Villalobos had succeeded in taking over the Philippines, King Charles I stopped sending colonizers to the Islands.

• However, when Philip II succeeded his father to the throne in 1556, he instructed Luis de Velasco, the viceroy of Mexico, to prepare a new expedition.


• This expedition was to be headed by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, who would be accompanied by Andres de Urdaneta, a priest who had survived the Loaisa mission.

The Legaspi Expedition

• On February 13, 1565, Legazpi's expedition landed in Cebu island.

• After a short struggle with the natives, he proceeded to Leyte, then to Camiguin and to Bohol. There Legaspi made a blood compact with the chieftain, Datu Sikatuna as a sign of friendship.

• Legaspi was able to obtain spices and gold in Bohol due to his friendship with Sikatuna.


• On April 27, 1565, Legazpi returned to Cebu; destroyed the town of Raja Tupas and established a settlement.

• On orders of King Philip II, 2,100 men arrived from Mexico. They built the port of Fuerza de San Pedro which became the Spanish trading outpost and stronghold for the region.


• Colonization began when Legazpi, arrived and formed the first European settlements in Cebu.

• In 1571, the Spanish occupied the kingdoms of Maynila and Tondo and established Manila as the capital of the Spanish East Indies.


• Spanish power was further consolidated after Legazpi's conquest of the Confederation of Madya-as, his subjugation of Rajah Tupas the King of Cebu and Juan de Salcedo's ransacking of the Chinese warlord Limahong's pirate kingdom in Pangasinan.


• This grab for power eventually culminated with the mass murder and exile of the royal families of the Dynasty of Tondo and the Kingdom of Maynila when the Tondo Conspiracy of 1587-1588 failed in which a planned grand alliance with the Japanese admiral Gayo, Butuan's last rajah and Brunei's Sultan Bolkieh, would have restored the old aristocracy.


• Its failure resulted in the hanging of Agustín de Legazpi (nephew of Lakandula and the initiator of the plot) and the execution of Magat Salamat (the crown-prince of Tondo).

Why the Philippines was Easily Conquered?

• Through largely outnumbered, the Spaniards who came to colonize the Philippines easily took control of our country. How did this happen?

• The best possible explanation is that the natives lacked unity and a centralized form of government.


• Although the barangays already functioned as units of governance, each one existed independently of the other, and the powers that each Datu enjoyed were confined only to his own barangay.

• No higher institution united the barangays, and the Spaniards took advantage of this situation.


• They used the barangays that were friendly to them in order to subdue the barangays that were not.

REFERENCES:

• http://www.philippine-history.org/• The Roots of the Filipino Nation, Vol. 1; Onofre D.

Corpuz• The Philippines: A Past Revisited, Vol. 1; Renato

Constantino• http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?

title=Tondo_Conspiracy_of_1587• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

History_of_the_Philippines

Spanish Expeditions to the Philippines

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