THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINES – in 1 Hour

The Philippines is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean consisting of over 7,000 islands. It sits on a subduction zone in the Ring of Fire, a geologic belt that surrounds the Pacific and is the source of significant seismic activity experienced from Japan to Alaska to California. This geologic history has made the islands mineral-rich but also means that the inhabitants must deal with the destructive potential of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Of the 7,000 islands, only about 1,000 are inhabited, and most of those are around 1 square mile in size. The archipelago is divided into three island groups: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Mindanao is the southernmost group, the Visayas are the central set, and Luzon is the northernmost, named for the largest island in the group and in the Philippines as a whole. Luzon is the most populated and includes the capital, Manila.

The earliest trace of Homo sapiens in the Philippines dates back approximately 47,000 years. They were preceded by earlier hominids, such as Homo luzonensis, which is dated to approximately 134,000 years ago. Evidence suggests that Homo erectus was present on the islands as far back as 700,000 years ago. The ancestors of the modern native population established themselves around 3,000 BCE, having migrated from Taiwan, other nearby islands, and the Asian mainland. They were Austronesian, belonging to a sociocultural and language group spread across Maritime Southeast Asia and reaching as far west as Madagascar. Austronesian is the parent language of Malay, Indonesian, Taiwanese, Tagalog, and others spoken throughout the islands in the South Pacific.

Early settlements in the Philippines tended to stay along rivers and were somewhat isolated by geography. As a result, they did not develop an overarching political connection, instead maintaining communities through intermarriage and kinship relations. Trade between the islands and the mainland was well-established by 2000 BCE, evidenced by Philippine jade artifacts found throughout the local area, produced using techniques common to India. These objects, along with ideas and the people who carried them, traveled via the maritime jade road, a massive trade network that existed for approximately 3,000 years until 1000 CE. The last 1,500 years of this era appear to have been a time of extended peace throughout the Philippine islands and the nearby area, supported by a lack of archaeological finds of human bones showing evidence of violent death.

Written Philippine history begins around 900 CE, with the earliest document being the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which records the forgiveness of a debt. By this time, the people of the archipelago had begun to organize themselves into sociopolitical units called barangays, akin to city-states, which could be as small as 30 people or as large as 500. Some of these came together in confederacies ruled by a paramount leader chosen from among the rulers of the allied polities, called datus. In areas with greater contact with the Indian subcontinent, rulers were referred to as rajas, while in areas that adopted Islam, they were called sultans.

Society within these barangays was organized by class, with the highest being the maginoo, followed by freemen, the maharlika, and finally the enslaved, or alipin, each with subcategories to specify a person’s status. The early cultures of the Philippines practiced polytheistic animism, believing that all things have a spirit that must be attended to in order to maintain good fortune and avoid bad luck. Ancestor worship was also included, with ancestors sometimes taking on the aspect of animals and vice versa. Magic and witchcraft were widely believed to have influence, and those who practiced these could be highly respected or greatly feared.

Filipinos were introduced to Buddhism and Hinduism sometime before the 9th century CE. The archaeological record and documents found in China and India show that some Philippine barangays and islands owed tribute to the Srivijaya Empire, a powerful Indonesian Buddhist state that controlled maritime trade in the area between the 6th and 13th centuries. Their influence was followed by that of the Majapahit, a Hindu-Buddhist state centered on the island of Java. Both Buddhism and Hinduism influenced existing belief systems and culture, facilitated by language connections that seem to exist between the Philippines and Indian Sanskrit.

Islam first arrived in the Philippines via a missionary named Makhdum Karim in 1380, who accompanied merchants and preached Sunni Islam to people in the Sulu Archipelago. He is also credited with building the first mosque in the Philippines. A decade later, the Indonesian prince Rajah Bintulu also set up the Sulu Sultanate. In the early 15th century, the Chinese mariner Zheng He founded Chinese Muslim communities in the Philippines.

Philippine history is generally organized as pre-colonial and post-colonial. Most of the information we have on the centuries leading up to the Spanish arrival is provided through the chronicles and histories of other countries, notably China. Some of these records are in passing or only noted in trade records, while others provide more detail. The oldest document at Barangay Tondo, a large barangay located on the Pasig River delta in modern Manila Bay, is associated with the nearby Manila, which was an independent barangay with whom they shared monopolies on trade across Southeast Asia. This trade was sufficiently important to the Chinese that under the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, a governor was appointed to oversee it. Most documented information we have about the Philippines in the pre-colonial era comes from records of other countries with which the various barangays interacted. China provides the most extensive of these, but there is corroborating information from Japan, Champa, India, and others.

This kingdom had declined by the early 16th century and had been overtaken by the Luzon people, who took the opportunity of the conquest by Brunei to assert themselves. They were a militaristic culture involved in wars all over the Philippines, Indonesia, and mainland Asia, sometimes under the auspices of their state and sometimes as individuals and groups acting as mercenaries. Another largely documented state is the Sultanate of Sulu, which pre-existed the introduction of Islam and its political terminology in the 12th and 13th centuries. People from the Visayas area moved into the Sulu Archipelago in the Mindanao section of the Philippine Islands, establishing their state and trading throughout the area, including with the people of Champa on the Indonesian Peninsula.

There was a short war between the Sulu and Champa in the 12th century, after which trade was normalized again shortly before they were overtaken by an outside power in the 13th century. According to Chinese records, the area was under the control of the Bruneian Sultanate, along with Ma-i and Manila. Little else is said, except that they regained their independence at some later date, which they had certainly done by the early 15th century when its leader Rajah Bintulu converted to Islam and was independently ruling the now Sultanate.

Sometime before the 11th century, the Rajahnate of Butuan emerged on the island of Mindanao. It was a mixed kingdom with the majority of people practicing Hinduism but the leadership practicing Buddhism. They were known for their expertise with gold and had extensive trade ties with China and various kingdoms of the Indochina Peninsula. There were other major independent polities of whom less is known; they had separate agreements for trade with surrounding states and different cultural influences from them. The barangay system was greatly influenced by China and Japan, with clothing reflecting the styles of both, as did cultural norms like blackening teeth. Other polities like Ma-i and Palu were trade partners with China.

There was also evidence of conflict between the people of the Visayas section of the archipelago and towns on the Chinese coastline instigated by the Filipinos in the decades prior to European contact. The barangays again pushed into the Philippines, starting with Tondo and Manila Bay, with the idea of breaking their monopoly on the Chinese trade of certain goods. They were successful in establishing Sarangani, also known as the Kingdom of Manila, as a vassal state in 1500. Their leader Sultan Bulke married into the ruling family of the Sultanate of Sulu, thereby connecting those two powers.

The first contact between the people of the Philippines and Europeans was in 1521 when the Spanish expedition to circumnavigate the globe, led by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, stopped there. They anchored off Sulu Island in the central part of the archipelago on March 14, 1521. Magellan planted the Spanish flag, calling the islands the Islas de San Lazaro. The next day, they landed at nearby Homonhon Island, where Magellan met with the leaders of the Sulu and Limasawa peoples. Their leader, Rajah Humabon, spoke at length with Magellan and then decided to convert to Catholicism. Spanish priests in the expedition baptized him, his wife, and many of their household. In the tradition of taking a new or additional name at one’s baptism, the Rajah became Carlos in honor of King Charles I of Spain, and his wife took the name Juana in honor of the King’s mother, Joanna, daughter of the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. The Rajah then ordered the people of the nearby islands to welcome Magellan and his men, provide them with supplies, and convert to Catholicism. His level of influence is shown by the fact that most of these people followed his lead into the church.

However, Datu Lapu-Lapu, one of the chiefs on the island of Mactan, refused. Very little is known about him prior to these events, except that he was Humabon’s rival for influence in the area. He rejected the idea of conversion and also prevented his neighboring leader Datu Zula from sending gifts to Magellan. This prompted Humabon and Zula to suggest that Magellan force the issue with a personal visit, which Magellan saw as an opportunity to both show strength and a willingness to work in an alliance with the local peoples.

On April 27, 1521, Magellan and his force landed on Mactan and were immediately barraged with spears, rocks, and arrows. This initial attack was more demoralizing than deadly to the Spanish. Offshore, the Spanish saw this attack and shot with both muskets and crossbows but were too far away to have an effect. Magellan’s next move was to push toward the native village and set fire to some of the houses, which gave even more force behind the Mactan defense. Magellan was immobilized by a poisoned arrow to the leg, and many of his people were quickly killed. According to the account of his chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, they focused on Magellan himself, which allowed a few of the Spanish to escape. Lapu-Lapu also made a point of killing all of the natives who aided the Spanish in their attack, which did not include Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula, despite their promise to fight alongside the Spanish. They stayed away. The Rajah did try to ransom the body of the Portuguese navigator, but Lapu-Lapu refused any of his offers. Seeing the attitudes of his fellows, Humabon seemed to have refused his conversion, going as far as to kill some of the Spanish soldiers who escaped the battle.

The expedition continued on its way, returning to Spain the next year after completing the first circumnavigation of the earth. It was four decades before the Spanish or Portuguese again tried to take any Philippine territory after the disastrous experience of Magellan in the Philippines. The Spanish did not make another attempt to colonize until 1542. This expedition was led by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, who set out from Mexico with six ships and approximately 400 people. Against his navigator’s advice, he landed in Mindanao, but far away from any of the Chinese or Malay traders they had hoped to find. Isolated, they made repairs on their ships but were prevented from getting back out to sea by the weather. Without supplies, they resorted to eating whatever they could find, much of which made them sick. The survivors eventually left and landed on Sarangani, claiming the territory for Spain and naming it for Charles I, the son of the crowned Prince Philip.

Shortly after, they were greeted by a Portuguese ship with a letter from the government of Malacca in Indonesia, demanding to know why the Spanish were in Portuguese territory. This began a brief correspondence that consisted of the Portuguese asking the Spanish to leave and the Spanish explaining the elements of the treaties that allowed them to colonize in the region. The Villalobos expedition tried to return to Mexico but was captured by the Portuguese, who jailed Villalobos and sent the remaining Spaniards on a ship back to Lisbon to be returned to Spain.

Finally, in November 1564, an expedition under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi left Mexico, sailing west and reaching the Philippines in February of the next year. They arrived at Cebu in the central part of the archipelago, conquering it despite local opposition. This marks the first Spanish colony in the islands and the beginning of a colonial hold that would last until the end of the 19th century. They expanded to the island of Panay in 1568 and came into contact with Muslim pirates who attacked the settlement. He sent conquistador Martin de Goiti to conquer Manila and Tondo. Tondo surrendered in the face of the massive naval force, and Manila was taken and renamed Nueva Castilla or Newcastle, becoming the capital of the Spanish East Indies, which encompassed the Philippines and all Pacific Spanish territories. Despite the official name change, it has remained Manila, though with different spellings to the modern day.

The Spanish took the barangays little at a time, conquering through force and culture. The colonies grew rapidly through settlement directly from Spain and from the Americas. Like Britain, Spain used its colonies as a place to send undesirables, and many who came from Europe were criminals or debtors. There was also a large part of the population who came from New Spain, creating a Mexican-Filipino subculture. Catholic missionaries were hugely influential in this effort, as they built schools and hospitals alongside their churches. The Spanish also built presidios, or fortresses, which proved their worth to the locals when outsiders attacked.

This does not mean the islanders did not push back. In 1587, a group of local datus conspired to overthrow the Spanish. They tried to involve nearby Brunei and Borneo, playing on the conflict between their Muslim population and the Catholic Spaniards. They also had promises from the Japanese, but they did not follow through. The whole plan was revealed to the Spanish via a spy. The datus were executed, and their heads were displayed as a warning. The rest of the people involved were fined, imprisoned, or exiled.

There were also external forces fighting against the Spanish. The Portuguese were a major source of conflict until the 1580 Iberian Union, which brought the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal under the same government for a few decades. Chinese pirates were a constant annoyance but were not a serious threat. A few times, the Japanese claimed prior control over the territory and asked for tribute, but this ended with a normalization of trade relations between Japan and Spain in the early 17th century. The nearby Muslim states regularly attacked Philippine islands, both because they wanted to push out the Spanish due to their Catholicism and because they wanted the territory, a desire that existed long before the Spanish arrived.

The biggest external threat, however, was the Dutch. This was not solely a fight over colonial territory, as the Dutch and Spanish had longstanding conflict in Europe. The vagaries of inheritance meant that the Habsburgs, who ruled Spain, also gained control of the Netherlands in the early 16th century. The main conflict between the Dutch and their Habsburg rulers was religious; Spain and the Habsburgs were Catholic and demanded that everyone in their territories be Catholic as well, while many of the Dutch were members of the newly emerging Protestant sects. This ongoing conflict, known as the Eighty Years’ War, spilled over into Southeast Asia and the Pacific, where the Dutch held Indonesia and the Spanish held the Philippines. Three battles were fought between the Spanish and Dutch fleets, all indecisive. Ultimately, the conflict between Spain and the Netherlands was subsumed into the Thirty Years’ War and resolved within it.

In 1599, King Philip II ordered a referendum in the Philippines that would approve Spanish rule. Unsurprisingly, it passed. They could now claim to the rest of the world that their overlordship of the archipelago was legitimate in the eyes of the people who lived there. Spain used the Philippines as it did its other colonies, exploiting natural resources for the benefit of the empire, using it to reduce population pressure at home, and as a piece in the great colonial rivalry of the era. This required consistent governance across the entirety of the Spanish-held parts of the archipelago, which was established relatively quickly. The Philippines were then integrated into the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which oversaw all of the Spanish colonies in the Americas and the Pacific. Unlike their American colonies, however, the Philippines did not produce a great deal of wealth for the crown and often cost more to maintain than it contributed. This loss was deemed worth it, though, because of their strategic value, although it did mean that the maintenance, particularly of military fortifications, was not consistent.

The Spanish systems of agriculture were forced onto the native Filipinos, with the encomienda, or collective farm, at its center. In this system, all of the land belonged to the king, and the people worked it for him as well as for themselves, owing a portion of their crop to the crown after each harvest. For many, the focus was on cash crops like tobacco, coffee, indigo, and sugar, both for themselves and for trade. That trade and the trade of all goods coming out of the Philippines were limited to Spain and Spanish holdings.

In the 18th century, the Spanish Philippines were involved in more European conflicts. With the Seven Years’ War, Britain took the opportunity of their opposing sides to make a run at Manila in hopes of gaining control over what could be one of the most important trade cities in Asia. It was a logical extension of the East India Company’s unofficial rule over the subcontinent, backed by the might of the British Empire. A British fleet sailed into Manila Bay on September 24, 1762. Over the next 12 days, they bombarded the city’s fortifications, took control of some of the surrounding area, and assessed the Spanish ability to defend their capital, finding it wanting.

On the dawn of October 6, they pushed into the city with little effort. The Spanish contingent at the Royal Gate refused to surrender, and 180 of them were killed. Manuel Rojo de Villalobos, the Archbishop and temporary governor of Manila, agreed to surrender in hopes of stopping any more violence. He described the aftermath of the battle as a pillage that lasted over a day, noting that it was not only the British soldiers but also locals who took advantage of the moment of lawlessness. It ended only with an agreement to pay a $4 million ransom, which was only partially paid. The agreement between Rojo and British Lieutenant General William Draper