Chapter One
Introduction | Arrival of Islam | Spanish Incursions | 1600-1850 Spanish Occupation
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting
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Initial Spanish Incursions
In 1578, the Spanish colonial authorities turned their attention to the southern Philippines.
Given that the initial impetus for the voyages of discovery and exploration was for access to and control of the spice trade and given that the southern Philippines was much closer to the Moluccas and Amboina (the Spice Islands), such a development was inevitable.
On the other hand, the "Maguindanaos and the Sulus were just settlingdown to the profitable business of supplying the slave markets of the Malay Archipelago with Visayan captives when the Spaniards arrived." (De la Costa). The fairly large but poorly defended communities to which the Spanish authorities had gathered the Visayan population were to prove most tempting to the sea-faring Moslem inhabitants of the Cotabato region and the Sulu archipelago.
In order to establish Spanish power nearer the prized Spice Islands and at the same time to punish and contain the raids on the Visayan settlements by Moslems from the southern Philippines, Governor General Sande sent in 1578 the first expeditionary force to Mindanao and Sulu. This was led by Captain Esteban de Figueroa.
According to Gowing (Mandate in Moroland), Sande's instructions to Figueroa spelled out four things that the Spanish colonial authorities sought to accomplish with respect to the Moros:
1. Get them to acknowledge Spanish sovereignty over their territory;
2. Promote trade with them, limiting their trade to the Philippine islands and exploring natural resources of Moroland with a view to their commercial exploitation;
3. Bring an end to Moro 'piracy' against Spanish shipping and an end to Moro raids on the Christianized settlements of the Visayas and Southern Luzon;
4. Hispanize and Christianize the Moros, along the same lines followed with respect to other lowland Filipino groups. Carrying out such instructions would set the Spaniards smack against the strong currents of earlier developments among the people of southern Philippines: their Islamization, their growing trade with their southern neighbors of which the Visayan captives were their principal articles of trade; and their emerging political unity.
The Spanish colonial authorities were to spend some three hundred years trying to implement such instructions in the face of the fierce Moro resistance. In the Cotabato region, it would only be towards the close of Spanish colonial rule, that they would obtain some meager success. Figueroa met initial but temporary success in Sulu forcing its sultan to agree to acknowledge "himself and his descendants as vassals" of the Spanish king and to pay an annual tribute. But Figueroa could not leave any permanent garrison in Jolo thus conditions in the southern Philippines reverted to its earlier state. "During the next two decades the colonists were too busy consolidating their rule in the northern islands to pay much attention to the Moros." (De la Costa, Readings in Philippine History).
In 1596, Figueroa was able to obtain enough ships and men for another expedition against the Moros. This time, he turned his attention to the Moros of Maguindanao. His expedition sailed up the Rio Grande and laid siege to Buayan, the principal stronghold of the upriver Maguindanaos. Figueroa was killed in the siege and his expedition returned to Tampakan, at the mouth of the Rio Grande then transferred to La Caldera, at the tip of the Zamboanga peninsula.
The expeditionary force would subsequently be brought back to Tampakan. By this time some kind of confederacy had been organized between the downriver and upriver Maguindanaos and the force was sorely besieged. According to De la Costa (The Jesuits in the Philippines), the new commander, Ronquillo was able to break the siege and even sallied forth again up the great river to Buayan and like Figueroa was able to get the Raja Muda to submit to the authority of the Spanish crown. Again like Figueroa, Ronquillo was unable to exploit his success. His expedition returned to Manila, leaving just a small garrison in La Caldera, at the tip of the Zamboanga peninsula.
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Introduction | Arrival of Islam | Spanish Incursions | 1600-1850 Spanish Occupation
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting