In the 16th century, Spain settled the Caribbean islands and conquistadors soon toppled native empires such as the Aztecs and Incas on mainland North and South America. Later expeditions established an empire that stretched from present-day Canada in North America to the southern tip of South America, including the Falklands or Malvinas islands. The Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation started by Ferdinand Magellan in 1519, and completed byJuan Sebastian Elcano in 1522, achieved what Columbus had longed for, a westward route to Asia, and brought the Far East to Spain's attention, where it established colonies in Guam, the Philippines and surrounding islands. During its Siglo de Oro , the Spanish Empire comprised the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Italy, parts of Germany, parts of France, territories in Africa, Asia and Oceania, as well as large areas in North and South America. By the 17th century Spain controlled an empire on a scale and world distribution that had never been approached by its predecessors.
In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, maritime expeditions searching for Terra Australis led to the discovery of the Pitcairn Islands, the Marquesas, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea in the South Pacific, which were claimed for the Spanish Crown but not effectively settled. Some of Spain's European possessions were given up at the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, but Spain retained its vast overseas empire. In 1741, a massive victory over Britain at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in modern day Colombia prolonged Spain's hegemony in the Americas until the 19th century. During the late 18th century, Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reached Canada and Alaska, resulting in a settlement on Vancouver Island and the discovery of several archipelagos and glaciers.
The French occupation of Spain in 1808 under Napoleon cut off its American colonies temporarily, and a number of independence movementsbetween 1810 and 1825 resulted in a chain of newly independent Spanish American republics in South and Central America. The remainder of Spain's then–four hundred year empire, namely Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Spanish East Indies, continued under Spanish control until the end of the 19th century, when most of these territories were annexed by the United States after the Spanish-American War. The remaining Pacific islands were sold to Germany in 1899.
By the early 20th century Spain only held territories in Africa, namely Spanish Guinea, Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco. Spain withdrew from Morocco in 1956 and granted independence to Equatorial Guinea in 1968. When Spain abandoned Spanish Sahara in 1976, the colony was annexed by Morocco and Mauritania at first, and wholly by Morocco in 1980, though according to the United Nations it is still technically under Spanish administration. Today, the Canary Islands and two enclaves on the North African coast, Ceuta, and Melilla, are administrative divisions of Spain.
MAGELLAN DIED
Once having made landfall on the islands that are now the Philippines, Magellan and his crew took a well deserved rest, and were befriended by the Rajah of Cebu. Magellan agreed to help the Rajah fight his enemies, and with three boats and 60 men joined a native war party of 30 boats. His confidence and bravado would be his undoing as he told the Rajah to leave his men at sea while he went to fight over 1000 natives with just his 60 men, saying "Now see how we [Europeans] fight." Unfortunately for him a reef exposed by the tide being out made it impossible for him to get his boats to the beach leaving his crossbows, muskets, and small cannon out of range for effective use, and eliminating the usual opportunity for escape by boat should things go badly.
His landing party had to wade the almost 100 meters to the shore through thigh deep water in armor and carrying their weapons. Nonetheless the small armored party made quite a battle of it considering the odds, and fought for more than an hour against natives armed with bamboo spears with fire hardened charred points. With about six men by his side, Magellan fought on as the rest of his men retreated. Eventually Magellan's lance was ripped from his hands by the falling body of a native he had killed, and he was unable to raise his arm high enough to draw his sword due to a bamboo spear wound. He fell under a rushing onslaught of native warriors.
Thus died Magellan having discovered the passage which he sought, sailed westward across unknown waters, named the Pacific Ocean, and reached waters he knew would lead him to the Indian Ocean and home having proven (as many already knew) that the world was round, and that men could circumnavigate it. Thus, he usually gets the credit, although his slave, Enrique, who was native to Maylaysia, had already become the first man to circumnavigate the globe. Also, Juan Sebastion del Cano would lead the 18 men who actually survived to set foot back in Spain, and who are truly the first Europeans to circumnavigate the globe.
Discovering the Philippines
The basic tenet you’ll find even in the earliest annals of Philippine history would give you an early history stating that Ferdinand Magellan discovered the islands of the Philippines. The rest of the story would show Magellan clashing with a local chieftain by the name of Lapu-lapu of Cebu. This is the story you’ll find in many history books about the country.
It is true that Magellan landed in Samar and Leyte and laid claim to the islands in the name of Spain. However, there are those who challenge the legitimacy of the claim of having discovered the Philippines. There are those who claim that the early annals only depicted or gave credit to Ferdinand Magellan since the earliest historic records were written by the Spanish. This puts the question forward regarding who discovered the Philippines if not the Spanish.
Challenged Claim
The challenge to the idea of crediting Ferdinand Magellan having discovered the Philippines is so strong that some web sites and history books have been revised. Even official tourism sites in the country have revised their sections on early Philippine history. However, you’ll also find that there are those who still stick to the original idea of giving credit to Magellan as the explorer who discovered the Philippines.
It is argued that even before Magellan came to the islands, the people of the country already have established culture and trading relations with other Asian countries. This simply means that even before the Spanish came to the islands, someone else discovered the Philippines. Evidence of which are trade relations with nearby Asian countries and the many villages and kingdoms already established.
The earliest evidence that the islands were already inhabited and settled dates back to about 40,000 years ago with artifacts of a civilized life in the cave of Tabon in the island of Palawan. Negritos are also known to have settled in the islands around 30,000 years ago.
Other Asian settlers have already made it into the country even hundreds of years before any Spanish explorer has ever set foot on the country’s shores. As further evidence against the claim, several highland villages and the sultanates of the island of Mindanao were never conquered by the Spanish.
The West Discovers the Philippines
Thus, if you really want to interpret the history of the country, you would be forced to conclude that the western world discovered the Philippines in the year 1521. However, you should take note that the real person who discovered the Philippines and her islands is still unknown.
By: Lacky Z. Del Rosario
in 1521 Ferdinand Magellan returned to Southeast Asia, this time employed by Spain, and he came from the east instead of the west. Magellan was looking for a way to reach the Spice Islands by sailing west, and he found it when he sailed down the South American coast to the strait that now bears his name. Morale was high as his three tiny ships entered the Pacific, but the trip took much longer than anyone expected; both the winds and the sea were calm, and no land larger than a coral atoll was sighted along the way.
At last, after three months of perfect weather and perfect misery they came to Guam, where they took on supplies and continued west. One month later they sighted the Philippines, and Magellan felt like he had been raised from the dead, so he named the archipelago "San Lazaro" (St. Lazarus), after the resurrected friend of Jesus. No European had seen these islands before, but Magellan knew he was close to the Moluccas, because his personal Moluccan slave, Enrique, understood some of the language of the natives.(1)
Magellan did not stop anywhere for long until he reached the central island of Cebu. There he baptized the local chief, Humabon, and two thousand of his followers. The price of Humabon's conversion was aid in fighting an enemy chief, Lapu-Lapu of Mactan island, one mile away. Magellan was so confident of victory that he only took sixty men to Mactan. Humabon brought 600 warriors to help, but Magellan told him to stay on the sidelines. His crew could do the job by themselves.
Lapu-Lapu heard they were coming and assembled 1,500 warriors of his own to meet them. The resulting battle was one-sided; the Spaniards never even got to Mactan's shore, and only eight of the sixty men survived. Magellan was not among the survivors. Today the Filipinos venerate Magellan for discovering their islands, and Lapu-Lapu because he was the first Filipino to resist colonialism.
Magellan's death gave Humabon second thoughts about the alliance. He invited 24 officers to a banquet, plied them with palm wine and women, and then attacked them, killing all but two or three. Now only 100 of the original 270 crewmen were left to the expedition. This was not enough to man all three ships, so they burned the one in worst shape, the Concepcion, and divided her crew and provisions between the other two, the Trinidad and the Victoria. It only takes a week to sail from the Philippines to the Moluccas, but the crew had no idea where to go, so they wandered aimlessly around Borneo and the Sulu Sea for three months. Finally they reached the Spice Islands and loaded a cargo of cloves; overloaded, in fact, for the Trinidad sprung a leak and could go no farther. Juan Sebastian del Cano, the expedition's new commander, chose not to wait for repairs and took theVictoria alone, a wise move since the Trinidad was captured by the Portuguese not long after that. He and 17 men made it back to Spain, 10 months and 11,000 miles later. Add to that the 17 men captured and later released by the Portuguese, and you have 35 survivors for the whole expedition.
When it came to spices the Philippines only had cinnamon, so at first Spain was more interested in Indonesia. But for a few years it was uncertain who was allowed to have both. In 1494 the Pope tried to prevent quarrels between Spain and Portugal by issuing a treaty that divided the whole non-European world between them. The dividing line was drawn at longitude 45o West, giving most of the New World to Spain and Africa and Brazil to Portugal. Once European ships entered the Pacific, it became necessary to draw a similar property line there. It seemed logical to simply continue the first line to the other side of the world, where it becomes longitude 135o East. The problem was that nobody knew for sure where the 135th meridian actually ran. The news from Magellan's expedition caused Spanish geographers to draw maps with the crucial meridian passing through Malaya, putting both the Philippines and the Spice Islands on the Spanish side of the line. Actually they are on the Portuguese side, since 135o East really runs through New Guinea, but before the invention of accurate chronometers the only way one could determine longitude was by guessing ("dead reckoning"). Magellan had erred by overestimating the size of Asia and underestimating the size of the recently discovered Pacific.
On this evidence Spain sent two naval expeditions to conquer the Moluccas: one followed Magellan's route, and one sailed directly from Panama. Both failed for logistical reasons; the Spanish route from Europe to Indonesia was 5,500 miles longer than the Portuguese one around Africa, giving Portugal the advantage. Finally at the Treaty of Sarragosa (1529), Spain accepted a Portuguese offer of 350,000 ducats (about $16,450,000 in 1994 dollars) to forget the claim. However, the Spaniards eventually got a foothold in the Spice Islands, when the natives of Ternate became so angry at Portuguese clumsiness and cruelty that they expelled their masters in 1574. The Spaniards immediately moved in and set up their own outpost on the island, which lasted until the Dutch took it in 1663.
Stone-Age—humans arrive (30000 BC)
The most widely known theory of the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines is that of H. Otley Beyer, founder of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines. Heading that department for 40 years, Professor Beyer became the unquestioned expert on Philippine prehistory, exerting early leadership in the field and influencing the first generation of Filipino historians and anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists, and students the world over[According to Dr. Beyer, the ancestors of the Filipinos came in different "waves of migration", as follows:
1. "Dawn Man", a cave-man type who was similar to Java man, Peking Man and other Asian homo sapiens of 250,000 years ago.2. The aboriginal pygmy group, the negritos, who arrived between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago via land bridges.
3. The sea-faring tool-using Indonesian group who arrived about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago and were the first immigrants to reach the Philippines by sea.
4. The seafaring, more civilized Malays who brought the Iron age culture and were the real colonizers and dominant cultural group in the pre-Hispanic Philippines.Unfortunately, there is no definite evidence, archaeological or historical, to support this "migration theory". On the contrary, there are sufficient reasons for doubting it, including the following:
1. Beyer used the 19th century scientific methods of progressive evolution and migratory diffusion as the basis for his hypothesis. These methods have now been proven to be too simple and unreliable to explain the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines.
2. The empirical archaeological data for the theory was based on surface finds and mere conjecture, with much imagination and unproven data included.
3. Later findings contradicted the migration theory and the existence of the "Dawn Man" postulated by Beyer.
4. Undue credit is given to Malays as the original settlers of the lowland regions and the dominant cultural transmitter.
The earliest human remains known in the Philippines are the fossilized fragments of a skull and jawbone of three individuals, discovered on May 28, 1962 by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum.These fragments are collectively called "Tabon Man" after the place where they were found on the west coast of Palawan. Tabon Cave appears to be akind of Stone Age factory, with both finished stone flake tools and waste core flakes having been found at four separate levels in the main chamber. Charcoal left from three assemblages of cooking fires there has been Carbon-14 dated to roughly 7,000, 20,000, and 22,000 BCE.(In Mindanao, the existence and importance of these prehistoric tools was noted by famed José Rizal himself, because of his acquaintance with Spanish and German scientific archaeologists in the 1880s, while in Europe.)
Tabon Cave is named after the "Tabon Bird" (Tabon Scrub fowl, Megapodius Cumingii), which deposited thick hard layers of guano during periods when the cave was uninhabited so that succeeding groups of tool-makers settled on a cement-like floor of bird dung. That the inhabitants were actually engaged in tool manufacture is indicated that about half of the 3,000 recovered specimens examined are discarded cores of a material which had to be transported from some distance. The Tabon man fossils are considered to have come from a third group of inhabitants, who worked the cave between 22,000 and 20,000 BCE. An earlier cave level lies so far below the level containing cooking fire assemblages that it must represent Upper Pleistocene dates like 45 or 50 thousand years ago.
Physical anthropologists who have examined the Tabon Man skullcap are agreed that it belonged to modern man, homo sapiens, as distinguished from the mid-Pleistocene homo erectus species. This indicates that Tabon Man was Pre-Mongoloid (Mongoloid being the term anthropologists apply to the racial stock which entered Southeast Asia during the Holocene and absorbed earlier peoples to produce the modern Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, and "Pacific" peoples). Two experts have given the opinion that the mandible is "Australian" in physical type, and that the skullcap measurements are most nearly like the Ainus or Tasmanians. Nothing can be concluded about Tabon man's physical appearance from the recovered skull fragments except that he was not a Negrito.
The custom of Jar Burial, which ranges from Sri Lanka, to the Plain of Jars, in Laos, to Japan, also was practiced in the Tabon caves. A spectacular example of a secondary burial jar is owned by the National Museum, a National Treasure, with a jar lid topped with two figures, one the deceased, arms crossed, hands touching the shoulders, the other a steersman, both seated in a proa, with only the mast missing from the piece. Secondary burial was practiced across all the islands of the Philippines during this period, with the bones reburied, some in the burial jars. Seventy-eight earthenware vessels were recovered from the Manunggul cave, Palawan, specifically for burial. Jar burials found in a dozen or more Philippine provinces include such a range of cultural variations that it is illogical to attribute their presence to any such event as a migration of "jar burial people.
Southeast Asia, as seen on the display globe at the Field Museum of Natural HistoryChicago, Illinois
About 30,000 years ago, the Negritos, who became the ancestors of today's aetas, or Aboriginal Filipinos, descended from more northerly abodes in Central Asia passing through the Indian Subcontinent and reaching the Andamanese Islands. From thereon, the Negritos continued to venture on land bridges reaching sothest asia While some of the Negritos settled in Malaysia, becoming what is now the orang aslie people, several Negrito tribes continued on to the Philippines through Borneo. No evidence has survived which would indicate details of Ancient Filipino life such as their crops, color, and architecture. Philippine historian William Henry Scott points out any theory which describes such details is therefore a pure hypothesis and should be honestly presented as such.
3000 BC onward
After the last Ice Age (which ended about 10,000 years ago), the sea level rose an estimated 35m (110 feet), which cut the land bridges, filling the shallow seas north of bomeo. Thus the only method of migration left was the dugout proa built by felling trees and hollowing them out with adzes An image of this method of travel can be seen on the manungul jar a National Treasure of the Philippines.
About 3000 BC, a loose confederation of peoples known as 'Nesiots', from what today is Indonesia, came to the Philippines. They were to become the ancestors of the present-day Luzon and Mindanao hill tribes. There were two waves of successive Nesiot immigration. The first wave saw a people who have light complexions, aquiline noses, thin lips, and deep-set eyes. The second wave of migration were shorter and heavier in physique, having darker complexion, thick lips, large noses, and heavy jaws. Those of the second wave of migration had epics and folk stories mixed with superstitions. From these people came the Luzon hill tribes.
5000-2000 BC—Austronesian speakers arrive
Historian William Henry Scott has observed that, based on lexicostatistical analysis involving seven million word pairs, linguist Isidore Dyen offered in 1962 two alternative scenarios explaining the origin and spread of Austronesian languages: (a) that they originated in some Pacific island and spread westward to Asia, or (b) that they originated in Taiwan and spread southward. Based on subsequent study of the second alternative, Scott concludes that the Philippine language tree could have been introduced by Austronesian speakers as long ago as 5000 BC, probably from the north, with their descendants expanding throughout the Philippine archipelago and beyond in succeeding millenia, absorbing or replacing sparse populations already present, and their language diversifying into dozens of mutually unintelligible languages which replaced earlier ones. During those millenia, other Austronesian speakers (e.g., the Nesiots mentioned above) entered the Philippines in large enough numbers to leave a linguistic mark but not to replace established languages. Scott suggested that if this scenario is correct all present Philippine languages (except for sama-bajaw language which probably have more speakers outside the Philippines than within) were produced within the archipelago, none of them being introduced by separate migration, and all of them having more in common with each other than with languages outside of the Philippines
