History of the Philippines

The history of the Philippines between 900 and 1565, also known as the pre-colonial

period or pre-Hispanic, begins with the creation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription (LCI) in
900 and ends with the Spanish colonization in 1565. The LCI is the first written document found
in an ancient Philippine language. The inscription itself identifies the date of its creation, and its
deciphering in 1992 made it possible to put the end of prehistorical Philippines around 900 AD.
Prior to the LCI, the earliest record of the Philippine Islands corresponded with the arrival
of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521.

Magellan was a Portuguese explorer in charge of a Spanish expedition to

circumnavigate the globe. Spanish forces were defeated by the chieftain Lapulapu at
the Battle of Mactan, and the Spanish conquest was delayed until a new expedition in
1565 during the reign of Philip II of Spain. Prior to the Spanish conquest, the Philippines
were composed of different kingdoms, rajahnates, and sultanates. Some were even part
of a larger Empire outside of the modern day map of what is now the Philippines. For
example, Manila was once part of the Bruneian Empire, and many parts of the modern
day Mindanao are theorized to have been part of the Majapahit empire with its capital being
located in East Java in modern-day Indonesia. It was the Spaniards who named the
collection of Southeast Asian islands they conquered as "Las Islas Filipinas" after the
aforementioned Philip II of Spain, the geographical locations of which the modern day
country of the Philippines based its territories today.
Other sources of pre-colonial history include archeological findings, records from contact
with the Song Dynasty, the Bruneian Empire, Japan, and Muslim traders, genealogical
records of Muslim rulers, and the collected accounts which were put into writing by
Spanish chroniclers in the 17th century, as well as then-extant cultural patterns which
had not yet been swept away by the coming tide of hispanization. The period prior to
Spanish colonization made the Philippines a part of both the Indosphere and Sinosphere.
[1][2][3][4]

Pre-colonial-era Philippines
 Horizon Philippine history

Geographica Southeast Asia

l range

Period c.900–1560s

Dates c. Before 900 AD

Major sites Tundun, Seludong, Pangasinan, Limes

tone tombs, Idjang
citadels, Panay, Rajahnate of
Cebu, Rajahnate of Butuan, Kota
Wato, Kota Sug, Ma-i, Dapitan, Gold
artifacts, Singhapala, Ifugao
plutocracy

Characterist Indianized kingdoms, Hindu and

ics Buddhist Nations, Islamized
Indianized sultanates Sinicized
Nations

Preceded by Prehistory of the Philippines

 Followed by Colonial era

The Laguna Copperplate Inscription and its context (c. 900)y

Laguna Copperplate Inscription (c. 900)

Main articles: Laguna Copperplate Inscription and Suyat

In January 1990, the Laguna Copperplate, then just a thin piece of crumpled and blackened
metal, was offered for sale to and was acquired by the National Museum of the Philippines after
previous efforts to sell it to the world of antiques had been unsuccessful. On examination, it was
found to measure about 20 cm square and to be fully covered on one side with an inscription in
ten lines of finely written characters. Antoon Postma deciphered the text and discovered that it
identified the date of its creation as the "Year of Sakya 822, month of Vaisakha." According
to Jyotisha (Hindu astronomy), this corresponded with the year 900. Prior to the deciphering of
the LCI, Philippine history was traditionally considered to begin at 1521, with the arrival of
Magellan and his chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta. History could not be derived from pre-colonial
records because such records typically did not survive: most of the writing was done on
perishable bamboo or leaves. Because the deciphering of the LCI made it out to be the earliest
written record of the islands that would later become the Philippines, the LCI moved the
boundary between Philippine history and prehistory back 600 years.[5][6][7]
The inscription forgives the descendants of Namwaran from a debt of 926.4 grams of gold, and
is granted by the chief of Tondo (an area in Manila) and the authorities
of Paila, Binwangan and Pulilan, which are all locations in Luzon. The words are a mixture of
mostly Sanskrit along with some Old Malay, Old Javanese and Old Tagalog. The subject matter
proves conclusively that a developed society with traders, rulers and international trading existed
in the Philippines prior to the Spanish colonization. The references to the Chief of Medang
Kingdom in Indonesia imply that there were cultural and trade links with empires and territories
in other parts of Maritime Southeast Asia, particularly Srivijaya. The copperplate indicate the
presence of writing and of written records at the time, and the earliest proof of Philippines
language.[5]
Barangay city-states and thalassocrait

Idjang

Maynila

Kedatuan of Madja-as

Rajahnate of Butuan

Sultanate of Sulu
 Ma-i

Kedatuan of Dapitan

Sultanate of Maguindanao

Rajahnate of Cebu

Namayan

Tondo

Sultanate of Lanao

Igorot Plutocracy

Cainta

Caboloan

Ibalon

Samtoy

Chiefdom of Taytay
Locations of pre-colonial principalities, polities, kingdoms and sultanates in the Philippine archipelago

Further information: Barangay state and Dambana

A Visayan couple of the nobility caste, dressed in embroidered silk and with various gold jewellery, depicted in the 16th-
century Boxer Codex

Since at least the 3rd century, the indigenous people were in contact with the other Southeast
Asian and East Asian nations. Fragmented ethnic groups established several polities formed by
the assimilation of several small political units known as barangay each headed by a Datu, who
was then answerable to a Rajah or a Lakan, who headed the city state. Each barangay consisted
of about 100 families. Some barangays were big or city-sized, such
as Zubu (Cebu), Maktan (Mactan), Butuan, Ogtong (Oton)[8] and Halaud (Araut or Halaur,
which is Dumangas at present) in Panay,[9] Mait (Ma-i), Bigan (Vigan) and Selurong (Manila).
Each of these big barangays had a population of more than 2,000. The city-statehood system was
also used by the freedom-loving Waray people of Samar and eastern Leyte, the head-hunting
Ilongots of the Cagayan Valley (now primarily live in Nueva Viscaya and Nueva Ecija after the
Ilokano migrations to the Cagayan Valley), and the peacock-dressed Gaddang people of the
Cagayan Valley. Unlike other areas in the country like Tondo or Cebu which had royal families,
the ancient city-states of the Warays, Ilongots and Gaddangs were headed through an indigenous
leadership system. Both civilizations developed their own tools and craftsmanship as proven by
archaeological evidence in central Cagayan Valley and southwest Samar. The head of the Ilongot
was known as the Benganganat, while the head of the Gaddang was the Mingal.[10][11][12]
The Ilokano people at the northwest side of Luzon, who classically were located in what is now
Ilocos Sur, was headed by the Babacnang. The traditional name of the polity of the Ilokano
was Samtoy. The polity did not have a royal family, rather, it was headed by its own chieftaincy.
The polity had trade contacts with both China and Japan.[citation needed]
The people of the Cordilleras, collectively known by the Spanish as Igorot, were headed by
the Apo. These civilizations were highland plutocracies with their very own distinct cultures,
where most were headhunters. According to literature, some Igorot people were always at war
with the lowlanders from the west, the Ilokanos.[13][14]
The Subanons of Zamboanga Peninsula also had their own statehood during this period. They
were free from colonization, until they were overcame by the Islamic subjugations of the
Sultanate of Sulu in the 13th century. They were ruled by the Timuay. The Sama-Bajau peoples
of the Sulu Archipelago, who were not Muslims and thus not affiliated with the Sultanate of
Sulu, were also a free statehood and was headed by the Nakurah until the Islamic colonization of
 the archipelago. The Lumad (autochthonous groups of inland Mindanao) were known to have
been headed by the Datu.
By the 14th century, these polities were organized in strict social classes: The Datu or ruling
class, the Maginoo or noble class from which the Datu came, the middle class consisting of the
warrior class the Maharlika and the Timawa or freemen, and the dependent class or Alipin which
is divided into two: the Aliping Namamahay (Serfs) and Aliping Saguiguilid (Slaves). [15]
In the earliest times, the items which were prized by the people included jars, which were a
symbol of wealth throughout South Asia, and later metal, salt and tobacco. In exchange, the
people would trade feathers, rhino horn, hornbill beaks, beeswax, bird's-nests, resin, and rattan.

Indianization and the emergence of Suyat scripts (800 onwards)Edit

Main articles: Suyat and Baybayin

Baybayin, one of the many suyat scripts formed in the Philippines

The script used in writing down the Laguna Copperplate Inscription is Kawi, which originated
in Java, and was used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia. But by at least the 13th century
or 14th century, its descendant known in Tagalog as Baybayin was in regular use. The term
baybayin literally means syllables, and the writing system itself is a member of the Brahmic
family.[16] It is clear that Baybayin was used in Luzon, Palawan, Mindoro, Pangasinan, Ilocos,
Panay, Leyte and Iloilo, but there is no proof supporting that Baybayin reached Mindanao. It
seems clear that the Luzon and Palawan varieties have started to develop in different ways in the
1500s, this puts Luzon and Palawan as the oldest regions where Baybayin was and is used. There
were three somewhat distinct varieties of Baybayin in the late 1500s and 1600s, though they
could not be described as three different scripts any more than the different styles of Latin script
across medieval or modern Europe with their slightly different sets of letters and spelling
systems. [17] [18] Although one of Ferdinand Magellan's shipmates, Antonio Pigafetta, wrote that
the people of the Visayas were not literate in 1521, the Baybayin had already arrived there by
1567 when Miguel López de Legazpi reported from Cebu that, "They [the Visayans] have their
letters and characters like those of the Malays, from whom they learned them; they write them on
bamboo bark and palm leaves with a pointed tool, but never is any ancient writing found among
them nor word of their origin and arrival in these islands, their customs and rites being preserved
by traditions handed down from father to son without any other record."[19]
Sinicization and Chinese trade (982 onwards)Edit
The earliest date suggested for direct Chinese contact with the Philippines was 982. At the time,
merchants from "Ma-i" (now thought to be either Bay, Laguna on the shores of Laguna de Bay,
[20] or a site on the island of Mindoro[21][22]) brought their wares to Guangzhou and Quanzhou.
This was noted in the Sung Shih (History of the Sung) by Ma Tuan-lin, who compiled it with
other historical records in the Wen-hsien T'ung-K'ao somewhere between the transition from the
Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty.[21]
Present-day Siquijor also had its fair share of royalties during this period. The island kingdom
was called 'Katugasan', from tugas, the molave trees that cover the hills, which abounded the
island along with fireflies. During this time, the people of the kingdom were already in contact
with Chinese traders, as seen through archaeological evidence such as Chinese ceramics and
other Chinese objects. The art of traditional healing and traditional witchcraft belief systems also
developed within this period.[23] During the arrival of the Spanish, the ruler of the island
was King Kihod, as recorded by de Legazpi's chronicles. Out of natural hospitality, the Spaniards
were greeted by King Kihod, who presented himself with the words 'si Kihod' (I am Kihod). The
Spaniards mistakenly thinking that he was talking about the island, adopted the name Sikihod,
which later changed to Siquijor as it was easier to pronounce.[24][25]
Islamization and the growth of Islamic sultanates (1380 onwards)Edit

Muslim Tagalog women in tudong (headscarves) from Manila in the mid-1500s), Boxer Codex

In 1380, Makhdum Karim, the first Islamic missionary to the Philippines brought Islam to the
Archipelago. Subsequent visits of Arab, Malay and Javanese missionaries helped strengthen the
Islamic faith of the Filipinos, most of whom (except for those in the north) would later become
Christian under the Spanish colonization. The Sultanate of Sulu, the largest Islamic kingdom in
the islands, encompassed parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The royal house of
the Sultanate claim descent from Muhammad.
Around 1405, the year that the war over succession ended in
the Majapahit Empire, Muslim traders introduced Islam into the Hindu-Malayan empires and for
about the next century the southern half of Luzon and the islands south of it were subject to the
various Muslim sultanates of Borneo. During this period, the Japanese established a trading post
at Aparri and maintained a loose sway over northern Luzon.
 Attack by the Bruneian Empire (1500)Edit

By the 16th century, the Sultanate of Brunei controlled the western shores of the Philippines

Around the year 1500, the Sultanate of Brunei (Tagalog: bunláy[26])

under Sultan Bolkiah attacked the Kingdom of Tondo and established a city with the Malay
name of Selurong (later to become the city of Maynila)[1][27] on the opposite bank of Pasig River.
The traditional Rajahes of Tondo, the Lakandula, retained their titles and property but the real
political power came to reside in the House of Soliman, the Rajahs of Manila.[28]
Spanish explorations (1521–1565)Edit
LapulapuEdit

Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippines on March 16, 1521.

Although the Portuguese reached the Maluku Islands in 1511, the earliest documented European
expedition to the Philippines was the one led by Ferdinand Magellan, in the service of the King
of Spain, in 1521.
Magellan's expedition sighted the mountains of Cebu at dawn on the 17 March 1521, making
landfall the following day at the small, uninhabited island of Homonhon at the mouth of
the Leyte Gulf.[29] On Easter Sunday, 31 March 1521, at Mazaua (today believed to
be Limasawa island in Southern Leyte) as is stated in Antonio Pigafetta's Relazione del
potragues viaggio intorno al mondo (First Voyage Around the World), Magellan solemnly
planted a cross on the summit of a hill overlooking the sea and claimed for the King of Spain
possession of the islands he had seen, naming them Archipelago of Saint Lazarus.[30]
Magellan conquered and sought alliances among indigenous Filipinos beginning with Datu Zula,
the chieftain of Sugbu (now Cebu), and took special pride in converting them to Christianity in
 form of Catholicism. Magellan's expedition became involved in the political rivalries between
the Cebuano natives and took part in a battle against Lapulapu, chieftain of Mactan Island and a
mortal enemy of Datu Zula. At dawn on 27 April 1521, the Battle of Mactan occurred. Magellan
with 60 armed men and 1,000 Cebuano warriors had great difficulty landing on the rocky shore
of Mactan where Lapulapu had an army of 1,500 waiting on land. Magellan waded ashore with
his soldiers and attacked Lapulapu's forces, ordering Datu Zula and his warriors to remain on the
ships and watch. Magellan seriously underestimated Lapulapu and his men, and grossly
outnumbered, Magellan and 14 of his soldiers were killed. The rest managed to reboard the
ships.[citation needed]
The battle left the expedition with too few crewmen to man three ships, so they abandoned the
"Concepción". The remaining ships – "Trinidad" and "Victoria" – sailed to the Spice Islands in
present-day Indonesia. From there, the expedition split into two groups. The Trinidad,
commanded by Gonzalo Gómez de Espinoza tried to sail eastward across the Pacific Ocean to
the Isthmus of Panama. Disease and shipwreck disrupted Espinoza's voyage and most of the
crew died. Survivors of the Trinidad returned to the Spice Islands, where the Portuguese
imprisoned them. The Victoria continued sailing westward, commanded by Juan Sebastián
Elcano, and managed to return to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain in 1522.
From Magellan to LegazpiEdit
Legazpi was responsible for establishing the first Spanish settlements, the Captaincy General of
the Philippines, and the Spanish East Indies. Between Magellan's voyage and Legazpi's conquest,
four expeditions were dispatched to the islands: that of García Jofre de Loaísa in 1525,
of Sebastian Cabot in 1526, of Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón in 1527, of Ruy López de Villalobos in
1542.[31]. As the historian Ambeth Ocampo noted, although Magellan's arrival in 1521 marked
the first documented arrival of European colonizers to this country, it was not until the arrival
of Miguel López de Legazpi in 1565 that the Europeans had any marked impact on the lifestyle
of the residents of the Philippine Archipelago.[32]

Historic expeditions reaching the Philippines

Wh
Who Ship(s) Where
en

Trinida
d, San
Antonio,
/   F Concep Visayas (Eastern
152 Samar, Homonhon, Limasa
erdinand cion,
1 wa, Cebu)
Magellan Santiag
o and
Victoria

152 García Santa Surigao, Islands

5 Jofre de María of Visayas and Mindanao
Loaísa de la
Victoria
,
 Espiritu
Santo,
Anuncia
da, San
Gabriel,
Jayson
Ponce,
Santa
María
del
Parral,
San
Lesmes
and
Santiag
o

Álvaro 3
152
de Saavedra unknow Mindanao
7
Cerón n ships

Santiag
o,
Jorge,
San
Ruy Antonio, Visayas (Eastern
154
López de San Samar, Leyte), Mindanao (S
2
Villalobos Cristób aranggani)
al, San
Martín,
and San
Juan

San
Pedro,
San
Miguel first landed on Eastern
156 Pablo,
López de Samar, established colony
4 San
Legazpi as part of Spanish Empire
Juan
and San
Lucas

Conquest under Philip IIEdit

Main article: History of the Philippines, 1565-1898

In 1543, Ruy López de Villalobos had named the islands of Leyte and Samar Las Islas
Filipinas in honor of Philip of Spain, at the time Prince of Asturias.[33] Philip became Philip II of
Spain on January 16, 1556, when his father, Charles I of Spain (who also reigned as Charles V,
 Holy Roman Emperor), abdicated the Spanish throne. Philip was in Brussels at the time and his
return to Spain was delayed until 1559 because of European politics and wars in northern
Europe. Shortly after his return to Spain, Philip ordered an expedition mounted to the Spice
Islands, stating that its purpose was "to discover the islands of the west".[34] In reality its task
was to conquer the Philippines for Spain.[35]
On November 19 or 20, 1564 a Spanish expedition of a mere 500 men led by Miguel López de
Legazpi departed Barra de Navidad, New Spain, arriving off Cebu on February 13, 1565,
conquering it despite Cebuano opposition.[36]:77 The Legazpi expedition was successful as it
established the first colony in the Philippines and resulted in the discovery of the tornaviaje route
on the return trip to Mexico across the Pacific by Andrés de Urdaneta.[37] This discovery started
the Manila galleon trade, which lasted for two and a half centuries.