While this book is interested primarily in the Moro feud with Spain and not with the Spanish conquest of the northern islands, it has been considered necessary to include a short chapter on the discovery, exploration and conversion of the Philippine Islands in general.

Many of the characters engaged in these northern campaigns were also closely identified with the southern Mohammedan islands. Their exclusion from the book would leave too many blank spaces for a reader unfamiliar with Philippine history.

  On August 10, 1519, Magellan set forth with 265 men from the port of San Lucar de Barrameda in Spain on a voyage which was to culminate in the "discovery" of the Philippine Islands. The object of the voyage was to seek a passage to the Pacific Ocean.

After passing through the straits which bear his name, Magellan sailed on to the Ladrone Islands and thence to the north coast of Mindanao. It also appears that Magellan must have made a brief contact with the pagan tribe of Manobos on the southeastern coast of Mindanao, for we learn from Pigafetta, that "at a cape near Butuan are found shaggy men who are exceedingly great fighters and archers. They use swords one palmo in length and eat raw human hearts with juice of oranges or lemons."

Magellan must also have touched at Sulu for we find Pigafetta describing the King of Jolo.

"The King was seated on a palm mat and wore a cotton breech-cloth and scarf, embroidered with the needle, about his head. He had a necklace and gold ear rings set with jewels. He was fat and short and tattooed and was eating turtle eggs from porcelain dishes. There were four jars of palm wine near him, with a small reed in each jar."

"Girls were playing instruments. Some were almost white. They wore a tree cloth about their waists which reached to the knees. Some were nude. All had holes in their ears and long hair wrapped in a short cloth."

Magellan had then proceeded to the uninhabited island of Homonhon, on to Limasawa Island, where a mass was said, to reach eventually the site of the present city of Cebu on April 7, 1521.

A treaty was signed with the Cebuanos, many of whom accepted the Christian faith. Among the tribes who refused to abandon the old pagan gods were the inhabitants of the island of Mactan, near Cebu.

The resistance of these natives provoked Magellan, and upon the insistence of the priests, he determined to conduct a religious crusade. Magellan had no doubts as to the outcome of the battle, and he was assured by the priests that the campaign would greatly aid the efforts to secure converts. A landing was therefore made on Mactan, with Magellan at the head of a force of fifty men. The massed natives on the beach opposed the interference with their tribal religion.

Magellan, obsessed with religious fervor, refused the assistance of 1,000 native Cebuanos, eager to aid him. The battle which ensued resulted in the rout of the Spaniards. Retreating to the water's edge, Magellan was sorely wounded in the leg by a poisoned arrow. In the shallow water near the shore a bitter fight was waged for more than an hour until Magellan, wounded again in the face, finally fell into the water as a result of a terrific kris wound in the leg. Pigafetta tells us "the Indians then threw themselves upon him with iron-poisoned bamboo spears and scimitars, and every weapon they had, and ran him through -- our mirror, our light, our comforter, our true guide -- until they killed him."

Following the death of the leader, command of the expedition passed to the various members of the party. A return to San Lucar de Barrameda under the command of Juan Sebastian Elcano on September 6, 1522, completed the first circumnavigation of the globe.

The initial discovery of the Philippines was followed by the failure of three succeeding expeditions.

The attention of the Spaniards was divided during this period between the new lands in the Philippines and the Mexican conquests of Cortez. April 25, 1521, was a momentous day in Spanish history. On that day two Spanish parties were waging terrific warfare on opposite sides of the world. Magellan died on Mactan Island on that day at almost identical moment that Cortez was sounding the charge for the attack on Mexico City. The gold of Mexico outweighed the glory of the Philippines, and as a result we find the succeeding expeditions to the new islands very poorly equipped and outfitted.

The first expedition to follow the path of Magellan was conducted by D. Fray Garcia Jofre de Loaisa, who sailed from Corima in Spain on July 24, 1525. Loaisa died en route to Mindanao and the expedition accomplished no result. Alvaro de Saavedra then outfitted and sailed from Mexico in 1527. The party ran short of food supplies, and a boatload of starving men finally sighted Mindanao. A difficult landing was effected upon a beach swarming with hostile Moros, after which the ships were blown by contrary winds to the Moluccas, where the crew had ample time in a Portuguese prison to meditate upon the expedition to Mindanao.

The last expedition conducted during the reign of King Charles was commanded by Ruy Lopez de Villalobus. It sailed from Navida, Mexico, on the first day of November, 1542. Months later a scurvy-ridden ship was rolling helplessly near the inhospitable coast of Sarangani Island off the southern tip of Mindanao. The expedition disembarked on Sarangani, where a fierce fight with the Moros resulted in the death of six of the Spaniards.

Villalobus held a council of officers in the great after-cabin of the galley which served as flagship. There in the shadows beneath the swinging cabin lamp, the officers drew lots to see who would win the doubtful honor of sailing a ship to Mindanao for food supplies. Even at that early date, the Spaniards knew that they faced inevitable conflict with the Moros.

As a result of this momentous throw of the dice, Bernardo de la Torre sailed a galley to the region of the Cotobato coast of Mindanao. A landing was effected and the mail-clad Spaniards entered the jungle, Toledo blade in hand.

Instead of food supplies, however, the men of the expedition found death. Ina narrow valley by a river the party was set upon by scores of Moro krismen and it was with difficulty that De la Torre withdrew the mangled remains of the party to the waiting ship. A more fortunate landing on an island of the Molucca group provided the starving Spaniards with food, and the expedition sailed on, also to pass from history in the confines of a Portuguese prison.

None of these early expeditions succeeded in establishing a colony in the new land. The conquest of the Philippines was to be delayed for more than twenty years.

The actual conquest began on November 21, 1564, with the departure from Navida of the fleet of Miguel Lopes de Legaspi. This expedition was composed of 385 persons, including six priests, one of whom, Andres de Urdanete, acted in the capacity of co-leader.

The ships reached the Philippines in February, 1565. Legaspi found the natives hostile, but after considerable cruising he determined to make a landing at Cebu. The first Spanish settlement was made there in April, 1565. The town of Cebu was taken by assault after it was found that peace overtures were impossible. The dethroned King Tupas was baptized into the Catholic faith and his daughter was given in marriage to one of the Spaniards. On the smoking ruins of the native town, the first Spanish fortification was raised late in 1565.

The island of Panay was soon reduced and by 1570 the Spaniards had the middle islands of Visaya well under control. Catholicism replaced the pagan religion the Spaniards found there.

During the year 1570, Juan de Salcedo, the grandson of Legaspi, accomplished a prodigy of valor by exploring the island of Luzon with a force of forty-five men. Peace treaties were signed in blood and most of the inhabitants came docilely under Spanish domination. One notable exception was the Rajah Soliman, who held the Moro stronghold at Manila.

The Spanish subjugation measures having proceeded smoothly in the middle islands of Visaya, Legaspi determined in 1570 to accomplish the reduction of the Moro fortress which a thorn in the side of the Spanish aims in Luzon.

Under the command of his lieutenant, Martin de Goiti, a party of several hundred Visayans and 130 Spanish soldiers was sent against Soliman. The history of this campaign is confusing and unreliable. Some authorities state that Goiti fired a cannon to recall a boat sent on an errand and the Moros mistook the fire for the beginning of hostilities. Other sources indicate that Soliman himself opened the battle upon sighting the Spaniards.

In the savage assault which followed, the town was burned and more than one hundred of the Moros were killed. Among the dead was Rajah Soliman.

Manila was declared the capital of the archipelago and the country was formally taken possession of in the name of the King of Spain.

Gaspar de San Agustin, a writer of the period tells us:

"Legaspi ordered the natives to construct a fort at the mouth of the Pasig River. He also ordered them to build a large house inside the battlement walls for his own residence and another large house for the priests. Besides these two large houses, he ordered them to construct one hundred and fifty small houses for the remainder of the Spaniards."

The Moros promised to do this but did not carry it out, and the Spaniards were forced to erect their own dwellings.

Following their defeat, the Moros withdrew to Mindanao and Sulu, leaving the Spaniards to carry on the successful reduction of the north. Legaspi died in 1572, but he had lived to see the conquest bearing on to a successful conclusion. When Salcedo followed him in 1576 as a result of an arrow wound aggravated by fever, the conversion of the northern islands had been accomplished.

At the death of Salcedo, Spain had conquered as much of the Philippines as was ever to come under her domination. In the space of eleven short years the combined activity of Legaspi and Salcedo had resulted in the conquest of an area containing more than seventy thousand square miles. One half of the Philippines was conquered by 1570.

It is small wonder that following this series of easy victories, the Spaniards turned to Mindanao and Sulu in 1596 with a feeling of assured self-confidence.

Filipiniana Reprint Series © 1985 Cacho Hermanos, Inc.

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