Did the Spanish invade the Philippines?
348444#76
The Philippines is predominantly a Christian society with a complicated history of relations between Islam and Christianity. Despite historic evidence of Islamization spreading throughout the islands in the 13th–16th centuries, the archipelago came under Spanish rule in the 16th century. The Spanish proselytized many natives, and labelled those who remained Muslims as "Moro", a derogatory term recalling the Moors, an Islamic people of North Africa who occupied parts of Spain for several centuries. Today, this term "Moro" is used to refer to the indigenous Muslim tribes and ethnic groups of the country. When the Spanish came to the Philippine islands, most of the natives in Luzon and Visayas were pagans with Muslim minorities, and while Spanish proselytized many natives, many Muslims in Luzon and Visayas were not exempted by the Spaniards from the Spanish Inquisition, wherein Muslims to become Catholics or die for their faith. Those who remained Muslims are only the natives of Mindanao and Sulu which the Spaniards did not invade or had control of only briefly and partially.
Persecution of Muslims
34163980#2
The Spanish initiated the conflict by conquering the Philippines and invading Moro territory in an effort to subjugate the region to their rule since the 1500s. When the Spanish conquered the Muslim Kingdom of Maynila, a vassal of the Sultanate of Brunei, the Islamic rajah, Rajah Sulayman resisted the Spanish. Manila then became the capital of the Spanish Philippines after the conquest, with the Spanish forcibly converting people to Catholicism. The Spanish–Moro Wars started with the Castille War, a war between Spaniards and the Sultanate of Brunei. (The term "Moro" at this time included Muslim Tagalogs who were ruled by the Sultanate of Brunei).
Spanish–Moro conflict
23888361#0
The history of the Philippines from 1521 to 1898, also known as the Spanish colonial period, was a period during which Spain controlled the Philippine islands as the Captaincy General of the Philippines, initially under New Spain until Mexican independence in 1821, which gave Madrid direct control over the area. It was also known as Spanish East Indies to the colonialists. It started with the arrival in 1521 of European explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailing for Spain, which heralded the period when the Philippines was a colony of the Spanish Empire, and ended with the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in 1898, which marked the beginning of the American colonial era of Philippine history.
History of the Philippines (1521–1898)
23441#44
The Spanish considered their war with the Muslims in Southeast Asia an extension of the Reconquista, a centuries-long campaign to retake and rechristianize the Spanish homeland which was invaded by the Muslims of the Umayyad Caliphate. The Spanish expeditions into the Philippines were also part of a larger Ibero-Islamic world conflict that included a war against the Ottoman Caliphate which had just invaded former Christian lands in the Eastern Mediterranean and which had a center of operations in Southeast Asia at its nearby vassal, the Sultanate of Aceh.
History of the Philippines
57074196#6
An early opportunity for Spain to enter China presented itself when the Chinese pirate Limahong attacked Manila in 1574. As Limahong was wanted by the Chinese authorities, officials in Fujian province were willing to let the Spanish establish a trade port on an island south of Xiamen in return for Limahong's capture. However, the governor of the Philippines at the time did not respond favourably, and the offer came to nothing when Limahong escaped from Manila. In the 1590s, the need for a Spanish base in China gained new urgency as Japan, ruled by the militant regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi, invaded Korea and threatened to conquer Ryukyu, China, Taiwan, and the Spanish Philippines. The "San Felipe" incident of 1596 and the subsequent execution of Franciscan friars in Nagasaki all but confirmed Japan's hostile intentions in Spanish eyes, and even the death of Hideyoshi in 1598 did not alleviate these fears. Thus, in 1598, governor Francisco de Tello de Guzmán sent Juan de Zamudio to the coast of China not only to establish trade, but also to warn Chinese authorities of possible Japanese aggression in its southern coast.
El Piñal
23440#32
They also defeated the Chinese warlord Limahong. To counteract the Islamization of the Philippines, the Spanish then conducted the Castilian War which was aimed against the Sultanate of Brunei and war was also waged against the Sultanate of Ternate and Tidore (in response to Ternatean slaving and piracy against Spain's vassal states: Dapitan and Butuan). The Spanish considered their war with the Muslims in Southeast Asia an extension of the Reconquista, a centuries-long campaign to retake and rechristianize the Spanish homeland which was invaded by the Muslims of the Umayyad Caliphate. The Spanish expeditions into the Philippines were also part of a larger Ibero-Islamic world conflict that included a just war against the Ottoman Caliphate which had just recently invaded former Christian lands in the Eastern Mediterranean and had a center of operations at its nearby vassal state, the Sultanate of Aceh which was the first missionary center of expanding Islam in Southeast Asia and had grew at the expense of older Animist, Hindu or Buddhist states that had remained loyal to their religions in the face of an encroaching Islam. These states were sought as allies by Christian newcomers. However, the Muslim Sultanates in the Philippines thought differently, to them, preserving and propagating Islam was a merely an act of self-defense against a Christian invader. Both sides had noble justifications in their wars against each other. In time, Spanish fortifications were also set up in Taiwan and the Maluku islands. These were abandoned and the Spanish soldiers, along with the newly Christianized natives of the Moluccas, withdrew back to the Philippines in order to re-concentrate their military forces because of a threatened invasion by the Japan-born Ming-dynasty loyalist, Koxinga, ruler of the Kingdom of Tungning. However, the planned invasion was aborted. Meanwhile, settlers were sent to the Pacific islands of Palau and the Marianas.
Spanish rule eventually contributed significantly to bringing political unity to the fragmented states of the archipelago. From 1565 to 1821, the Philippines was governed as a territory of the Mexico-based Viceroyalty of New Spain and then was administered directly from Madrid after the Mexican War of Independence. The Manila galleons, the largest wooden ships ever built, were constructed in Bicol and Cavite. The Manila galleons were accompanied with a large naval escort as it traveled to and from Manila and Acapulco. The galleons sailed once or twice a year, between the 16th and 19th centuries. The Manila Galleons brought with them goods, settlers and military reinforcements destined for the Philippines, from Latin America. The reverse voyage also brought Asian commercial products and immigrants to the western side of the Americas.
Philippines
34163980#12
Koxinga's threat to invade the Philippines and expel the Spanish resulted in the Spanish failure to conquer the Islamic Moro people in Mindanao. The threat of Chinese invasion forced the Spanish to stop their conquest of the Moros and withdraw their garrisons to Manila. Koxinga's death resulted in the invasion being cancelled. The Spanish retreated occurred in 1663. Zamboanga and Mindanao became devoid of Spanish soldiers after the Chinese threat against Manila. The Chinese threat effectively destroyed the Spanish plan to conquer and colonize the Moros in Zamboanga. Governor Bobadilla was the one who conducted the evacuation. Mindanao was just about to be colonised by Christians before Koxinga's planned conquest of the Philippines destroyed the entire Spanish plan to conquer Mindanao. Iligan and Zamboanga were given up by the Spanish.
Spanish–Moro conflict
34163980#3
Following the reconquista, a period during which Spanish and Christian culture were restored to those areas of Spain invaded by the Umayyad Caliphate, the Inquisition required Jews and Muslims to convert to Roman Catholicism, or face exile or the death penalty. Thus, the Spaniards tried to suppress Islam in areas they conquered. To this end, they attacked the Moro Muslim sultanates in the south at Mindanao. The Moro Datus and sultans raided and pillaged Spanish towns in the northern Philippine islands in retaliation for Spanish attacks, and terrorized the Spanish invaders with constant piracy. The Spanish were prepared to conquer Mindanao and the Moluccas after establishing forts in 1635, but the Chinese threatened the Spanish with invasion, forcing them to pull back to defend Manila. Several thousand Chinese who were evicted by the Spanish joined the Moros.
Spanish–Moro conflict
303062#87
The Spanish then conducted the centuries long Spanish-Moro Conflict against the Sultanates of Maguindanao, Lanao and Sulu. War was also waged against the Sultanate of Ternate and Tidore (in response to Ternatean slaving and piracy against Spain's allies: Bohol and Butuan). During the Spanish-Moro conflict, the Moros of Muslim Mindanao conducted piracy and slave-raids against Christian settlements in the Philippines. The Spanish fought back by establishing Christian fort-cities such as Zamboanga City on Muslim Mindanao. The Spanish considered their war with the Muslims in Southeast Asia an extension of the Reconquista, a centuries-long campaign to retake and rechristianize the Spanish homeland which was invaded by the Muslims of the Umayyad Caliphate. The Spanish expeditions into the Philippines were also part of a larger Ibero-Islamic world conflict that included a rivalry with the Ottoman Caliphate, which had a center of operations at its nearby vassal, the Sultanate of Aceh.
Spanish Empire
44716988#7
Although the king enforced laws to end Spanish slavery in the Philippines, he did not include laws that may end the native Philippine slavery between the Filipinos. Although it was not completely abolished, it underwent considerable changes during the Spanish occupation. The "mangangayaw" raids, which were the raiding of "barangays" for obtaining slaves and territories, disappeared. Tyrannical enslavement also disappeared since the "datus" were forced to free their slaves and the exchange of slaves in the weddings was not allowed after most Filipinos were converted to Christians. By the middle of the 18th century, Philippine slavery disappeared in areas under the Spanish control. In areas that were not under the Spanish control like mountains in Mindanao and Cordillera, however, it was still present.
History of Spanish slavery in the Philippines
23888361#36
Hispanization did not spread to the mountainous center of northern Luzon, nor to the inland communities of Mindanao. The highlanders were more able to resist the Spanish invaders than the lowlanders.
History of the Philippines (1521–1898)