History of the Philippines (900–1565)

The Laguna Copperplate Inscription measures around 20 cm by 30 cm and is inscribed with ten lines of writing on one side. The text was mostly written in Old Malay with influences of Sanskrit, Old Javanese and Old Tagalog using the Kawi script. Dutch anthropologist Antoon Postma deciphered the text. The date of the inscription is in the "Year of Saka 822, month of Vaisakha", corresponding to April-May in 900 AD.

The text notes the acquittal of all descendants of a certain honourable Namwaran from a debt of 1 kati and 8 suwarna, equivalent to 926.4 grams of gold, granted by the Military Commander of Tundun (Tondo) and witnessed by the leaders of Pailah, Binwangan and Puliran, which are places likely also located in Luzon. The reference to the contemporaneous Medang Kingdom in modern-day Indonesia implies political connections with territories elsewhere in the Maritime Southeast Asia.

This document is the earliest record of a Philippine language and the presence of writing in the islands.[5]

Idjang

Maynila

Madja-as

Butuan

Sulu

Ma-i

Dapitan

Maguindanao

Sugbu

Namayan

Tundun

Lanao

Igorot

Cainta

Caboloan

Ibalon

Samtoy

Taytay

Kingdoms, sultanates and principalities in the Philippine archipelago before the Spanish conquest

Early settlements, referred to as barangays, ranged from 20 to 100 families on the coast, and around 150-200 people in more interior areas. Coastal settlements were connected over water, with much less contact occurring between highland and lowland areas.[6] By the 1300s, a number of the large coastal settlements had emerged as trading centers, and became the focal point of societal changes.[7] Some polities had exchanges with other states across Asia.[8][9][10][11][12]

Polities founded in the Philippines from the 10th–16th centuries include Maynila,[13] Tondo, Namayan, Pangasinan, Cebu, Butuan, Maguindanao, Lanao, Sulu, and Ma-i.[14] Among the nobility were leaders called "Datus," responsible for ruling autonomous groups called "barangay" or "dulohan".[7] When these barangays banded together, either to form a larger settlement[7] or a geographically looser alliance group,[8] the more esteemed among them would be recognized as a "paramount datu",[7][15] rajah, or sultan[16] which headed the community state.[17] There is little evidence of large-scale violence in the archipelago prior to the 2nd millennium AD,[18] and throughout these periods population density is thought to have been low.[19]

Depiction of a noble Visayan couple in the 16th-century (Boxer Codex)

The early polities were typically made up of three-tier social structure: a nobility class, a class of "freemen", and a class of dependent debtor-bondsmen:[7][8]

• Datu (ruling class)
• Maginoo (noble class, where the datu ascends from)
• Maharlika (Warrior class)[20]
• Timawa (freemen)
• Alipin (dependent class), classified into aliping namamahay (serfs) and aliping saguiguilid (slaves) [21]

In the Cagayan Valley, the head of the Ilongot city-states was called a benganganat, while for the Gaddang it was called a mingal.[22][23][24]

The Ilocano people in northwestern Luzon were originally located in modern-day Ilocos Sur and were led by a babacnang. Their polity was called Samtoy which did not have a royal family but was headed as a chieftaincy.

The people of the Cordilleras, collectively known by the Spanish as Igorot, were headed by an apo. These civilizations were highland plutocracies with distinct cultures where most were headhunters. According to literature, some Igorot people were always at war with the lowland Ilocano people from the west.[25][26]

The Lumad people from inland Mindanao are known to have been headed by a datu.

The Subanon people in the Zamboanga Peninsula were ruled by a timuay until they were overcame by the Sultanate of Sulu in the 13th century.

The Sama-Bajau people in Sulu who were not Muslims nor affiliated with the Sultanate of Sulu were ruled by a nakurah before the arrival of Islam.

Trade with China is believed to have begun during the Tang dynasty, but grew more extensive during the Song dynasty.[27] By the 2nd millennium CE, some Philippine polities were known to have sent trade delegations which participated in the Tributary system enforced by the Chinese imperial court, trading but without direct political or military control.[28][8] The items much prized in the islands included jars, which were a symbol of wealth throughout South Asia, and later metal, salt and tobacco. In exchange were traded feathers, rhino horns, hornbill beaks, beeswax, bird's-nests, resin, and rattan.

Brahmic scripts influenced the use of the Kawi script and the creation of several native writing systems.[30] The Laguna Copperplate Inscription was written using the Kawi script.

The Baybayin script

By the 13th or 14th century, the Baybayin script used for the Tagalog language. It spread to Luzon, Mindoro, Palawan, Panay and Leyte, but there is no proof it was used in Mindanao.

There were at least three varieties of Baybayin in the late 16th century. These are comparable to different variations of Latin which use slightly different sets of letters and spelling systems.[31]

In 1521, the chronicler Antonio Pigafetta from the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan noted that the people that they met in Visayas were not literate. However, in the next few decades the Baybayin script seemed to have been introduced to them. In 1567 Miguel López de Legaspi reported 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."[32]

Muslim traders introduced Islam to the then-Indianised Malayan empires around the time that wars over succession had ended in the Majapahit Empire in 1405. However, by 1380 Makhdum Karim had already brought Islam to the Philippine archipelago, establishing the Sheik Karimal Makdum Mosque in Simunul, Tawi-Tawi, the oldest mosque in the country. By the 15th century, Islam was established in the Sulu Archipelago and spread from there.[36] Subsequent visits by Arab, Malay and Javanese missionaries helped spread Islam further in the islands.

The Sultanate of Sulu once encompassed parts of modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Its royal house claims descent from Muhammad.

Around 1500, the Sultanate of Brunei controlled a western portion of the Philippine archipelago

Early in the 16th century, the Bruneian Empire under Sultan Bolkiah attacked the Kingdom of Tondo.[1][37]

Ferdinand Magellan

Although the archipelago may have been visited before by the Portuguese (who conquered Malacca City in 1511 and reached Maluku Islands in 1512), the earliest European expedition to the Philippine archipelago was led by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan in the service of King Charles I of Spain in 1521.[38]

The Magellan expedition sighted the mountains of Samar at dawn on the 17th March 1521, making landfall the following day at the small, uninhabited island of Homonhon at the mouth of the Leyte Gulf.[39] On Easter Sunday, 31 March 1521, in the island of Mazaua, Magellan planted a cross on the top of a hill overlooking the sea and claimed the islands he had encountered for the King of Spain, naming them Archipelago of Saint Lazarus as stated in "First Voyage Around The World" by his companion, the chronicler Antonio Pigafetta.[40]

Magellan sought alliances among the people in the islands beginning with Datu Zula of Sugbu (Cebu), and took special pride in converting them to Christianity. Magellan got involved in the political conflicts in the islands and took part in a battle against Lapulapu, chief of Mactan and an enemy of Datu Zula.

At dawn on 27 April 1521, Magellan with 60 armed men and 1,000 Visayan 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, telling Datu Zula and his warriors to remain on the ships and watch. Magellan underestimated the army of Lapulapu, and, grossly outnumbered, Magellan and 14 of his soldiers were killed. The rest managed to reboard the ships.

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.

After Magellan's expedition, four more expeditions were made to the islands, led by García Jofre de Loaísa in 1525, Sebastian Cabot in 1526, Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón in 1527, and Ruy López de Villalobos in 1542.[41]

In 1543, Villalobos named the islands of Leyte and Samar Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain, at the time Prince of Asturias.[42]

Philip II became King of Spain on January 16, 1556, when his father, Charles V, abdicated both the Spanish and HRE thrones. The latter went to his uncle, Ferdinand I. On his return to Spain in 1559, the king ordered an expedition to the Spice Islands, stating that its purpose was "to discover the islands of the west".[43] In reality its task was to conquer the Philippine islands.[44]

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 at Cebu on February 13, 1565.[45] It was this expedition that established the first Spanish settlements. It also resulted in the discovery of the tornaviaje return route to Mexico across the Pacific by Andrés de Urdaneta,[46] heralding the Manila galleon trade, which lasted for two and a half centuries.