Founding
city of the Philippines
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Zamboanga City, officially the City of Zamboanga (Chavacano/Spanish: Ciudad de Zamboanga; Subanen: Bagbenwa Sembwangan; Sama: Lungsud Samboangan; Tausug: Daira sin Sambuwangan; Filipino: Lungsod ng Zamboanga; Cebuano: Dakbayan sa Zamboanga), is a highly urbanized city in the Zamboanga Peninsula region of the Philippines, with a total population of 1.02 million inhabitants. It is the third-largest city by land area in the Philippines, and is also the sixth-most populous city in the archipelago; additionally, it is the second most populous in Mindanao after Davao City. It is the commercial and industrial center of the Zamboanga Peninsula Region.
According to the 2024 census, the City of Zamboanga has a population of 1,018,894 people.
On October 12, 1936, Zamboanga became a chartered city under Commonwealth Act No. 39. It was inaugurated on February 26, 1937.
Zamboanga City is an independent, chartered city and was designated a highly urbanized city on November 22, 1983.
Although geographically separated and an independent, chartered city, Zamboanga City is grouped with the province of Zamboanga del Sur by the Philippine Statistics Authority for statistical purposes, yet it is governed independently of it. And also, it is the largest city of that province and in the entire Zamboanga Peninsula Region.
In 2028, the city's population is projected to hit the 1,200,000 population mark, which will make the city fall under the NEDA's classification of a Metropolitan City.
The name of Zamboanga is the Hispanicized spelling of the Sinama term for "mooring place" - samboangan (also spelled sambuangan; and in Subanen, sembwangan), from the root word samboang ("mooring pole"). "Samboangan" was the original name of Zamboanga City, from where the name of the peninsula is derived. "Samboangan" is well-attested in Spanish, British, French, German, and American historical records from as far back as the 17th century.
A commonly-repeated incorrect modern folk etymology instead attributes the name of Zamboanga to the Indonesian word jambangan (claimed to mean "place of flowers", but actually means "pot" or "bowl"), usually with claims that all ethnic groups in Zamboanga were "Malays". However, this name has never been attested in any historical records before the 1960s. The city's nickname "City of Flowers" is derived from such folk etymologies.
The Zamboanga Peninsula was settled in the late 12th or early 13th century by the Subanen people; along with the Subanen, it was also the homeland of the ancestors of the Yakan, the Balanguingui, and other closely related Sama-Bajau peoples.
The 11th-century Chinese Song dynasty records also mention a polity named "Sanmalan" (三麻蘭) from Mindanao, which has a name similar to Zamboanga and has been tentatively identified with it by some authors (Wang, 2008; Huang, 1980). Sanmalan is said to be led by a Rajah "Chülan". His ambassador, "Ali Bakti", and that of the Butuan's "Likan-hsieh" are recorded as having visited the Chinese imperial court with gifts and trade goods in AD 1011. However, the correlation between Zamboanga and Sanmalan is based only on their similar-sounding names. Sanmalan is mentioned only in conjunction with Butuan (P'u-tuan), and it is unknown whether Sanmalan is indeed Zamboanga. The historian William Henry Scott (1989) also posits the possibility that Sanmalan instead referred to a polity of the Sama-Bajau ("Samal") people.
During the 13th century, the Tausūg people began migrating to the Zamboanga Peninsula and the Sulu Archipelago from their homelands in northeastern Mindanao. They became the dominant ethnic group in the archipelago after they were Islamized in the 14th century and established the Sultanate of Sulu in the 15th century. A majority of the Yakan, the Balanguingui, and the Sama-Bajau were also Islamized, though most of the Subanen remained animist (except the Kolibugan subgroup in southwestern Zamboanga).
Spanish explorers, led by Ferdinand Magellan, arrived in the Philippine archipelago in 1521. Zamboanga was chosen in 1569 as the site of the Spanish settlement and garrison on La Caldera (now part of Barangay Recodo). Spain granted the former polity in the area protectorate status against the Sulu Sultanate, its former overlord and the settlement's name was hispanized into Zamboanga and made a city. Zamboanga City was one of the main strongholds in Mindanao, supporting colonial efforts in the southern part of the island and paving the way for Christian settlements. It also served as a military outpost, protecting the island against foreign invaders and Moro pirates.
In 1599, the Zamboanga fort was closed and transferred to Cebú due to great concerns about an attack by the English on that island, which did not occur. After having abandoned the city, the Spaniards, as well as some Spanish-American soldiers from Peru and New Spain (Mexico) led by the former Governor of Panama, Don Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, who also brought along Genoese crusaders who had settled in Panama, joined forces with troops from Pampanga and Visayan soldiers (from Bohol, Cebu and Iloilo) and reached the shore of Zamboanga to bring peace to the island against Moro Muslim pirates.
In 1635, Spanish officers and soldiers, along with Visayan laborers, settled in the area, and construction began on Fort San José (now known as Fort Pilar) to protect the inhabitants from Moro piracy. Specifically, on April 5, 1635, Cebu sent a force of 300 Spanish and 1,000 Visayan troops to settle and colonize Zamboanga City under the command of Captain Juan de Chavez. Zamboanga became the main headquarters of the Spaniards on June 23, 1635, upon approval of King Philip IV of Spain; the Spanish officially founded the city. Thousands of Spanish troops, headed by a governor general from Spain, took the approval to build the first Zamboanga fortress (now called Fort Pilar) in Zamboanga to forestall enemies in Mindanao like Moro pirates and other foreign invaders. There were also a hundred Spanish troops sent to fortify the nearby Presidio of Iligan. During the years 1636 and 1654, the Presidio of Zamboanga received companies of 210 and 184 reinforcements of Mexican soldiers. The Zamboanga fortress became the main focus of several battles between Moros and Spaniards during Spanish rule in the region from the 16th century to the 18th. Spain was forced to abandon Zamboanga temporarily and withdraw its soldiers to Manila in 1662 after the Chinese under Koxinga threatened to invade the Spanish Philippines. Despite the official Spanish forces leaving, the Jesuits remained in Zamboanga. They shepherded the civilian Christian population and treated Zamboanga much like their reductions in Paraguay, until the Spanish returned.
The Spanish returned to Zamboanga in 1718, and rebuilding of the fort began the following year. The fort would serve as a defense for the Christian settlement against Moro pirates and foreign invaders for the coming years. There was the deportation of mostly Spanish-American and Spanish vagrants from Manila to Zamboanga, which helped advance a colonizing program against the Muslim south, further illustrating how the resistance to Spanish sovereignty in Mindanao and Borneo determined imperial policies on the islands.
While the region was already dominated by Catholicism, Muslims kept up a protracted struggle into the 18th century against the ruling Spaniards. A British naval squadron conducted a raid on Zamboanga in January 1798, but was driven off by the city's defensive fortifications. As a result of the census of 1818, there was a surveyed number of 8,640 souls in the province of Zamboanga.
There was a detachment of 100 Spanish soldiers from Manila. In addition, 2 companies of Spanish soldiers from other parts of the Spanish Empire (A standard company size is 100 men), resulting in 200 Spanish soldiers, as well as a company (100) of Kapampangan soldiers, were also garrisoned in Zamboanga. A large but unspecified proportion of the population were deployed by the Spanish military and were part of the Spanish Artillery and Navy, mostly made up Spaniards and Mexicans.
During 1821, the Uruguayan, Juan Fermín de San Martín, brother of the leader of the Argentinian Revolution, José de San Martín, was commander of the fortress-city of Zamboanga for a year. Before his assignment in Zamboanga he trained the native Guarani in the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay, in wars against the Portuguese Empire's Bandeirantes slavers, supporting them in their independence wars against enslavement, before the Suppression of the Jesuits (Accused of supporting Native Americans against colonial interests) left the Paraguayans alone and without royal support. Without the Jesuits present to protect native interests, revolutions and wars of independence against the injustices committed by the Imperial powers towards the natives they ruled transpired. At 1823, inspired by the Spanish-American Wars of Independence, the Spanish-Americans who had been sent to Zamboanga and the Philippines as soldiers, joined in the revolt of Andres Novales; he fought for sovereignty and became the short-lived Emperor of the Philippines. Due to the era of the Latin American Wars of Independence, Spain feared that the large Mexican and South American population in the Philippines would incite the Filipinos to rebel, thus the Spaniards direct from Spain were imported (Peninsulares) and the Latin American class in the Philippines were displaced and were forced into a lower rank of the caste system, which they reacted negatively to. In 1831, the custom house in Zamboanga was established as a port, and it became the main port for direct communication, trading some goods and other services to most of Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. The American invaders arrived in the Philippines during the time of Spanish Governor General Valeriano Weyler, with thousands of troops to defeat the Spaniards who ruled for over three centuries.
Other descriptions of Zamboanga also speak of the mixed origins of its residents. Thus, Vendrell and Eduard (Year:1887 - Page:62), in speaking of Zamboanga, observed and said the following: ("Estos indgenas, la inmensa mayoría mestizos españoles, proceden en su origen de otras provincias del Archipélago, y muchos de Méjico, de donde llegaron á principios de este siglo, cuando perdimos aquel imperio.") And when translated to English; "These indigenous people, the great majority of whom are Spanish mestizos, originally come from other provinces and from México, whence they arrived at the beginning of this century when we lost that empire."
The Spanish government sent more than 80,000 Spanish troops to the Philippines. The Spanish government completely surrendered the islands to the United States in the 1890s.
The Republic of Zamboanga was established directly on May 28, 1899, after the Zamboangueño revolutionary forces defeated the last Spanish government in Zamboanga. Fort Pilar was turned over to General Vicente Álvarez, who, between May and November 1899, was the first president of the República de Zamboanga. He assembled a revolutionary army which was diverse and filled with Christians, Muslims, and Lumads. This republic continued to exist until 1903, with Isidoro Midel as its second president under a puppet government of the United States; he was succeeded by Mariano Arquiza.
Upon the firm establishment of American colonization and dissolution of the Republic in 1903, Zamboanga, as a municipality, was designated as the capital of the Moro Province, a semi-military government consisting of five districts: Zamboanga, Cotabato, Davao, Lanao and Sulu. It established itself the center of commerce, trade, and government of Mindanao Island. During this period, Zamboanga hosted some American regional governors, including General John J. Pershing, who was military commander/governor of the Moro Province from 1909 to 1914.
In 1920, Zamboanga City ceased to be capital of the Moro Province when the department was divided into provinces in which the city became under the large province of Zamboanga. This encompasses the present-day Zamboanga Peninsula, including the entire province of Basilan.
When the Commonwealth government was established in 1935, calls to convert the municipality of Zamboanga into a city increased. On September 23, 1936, through Assemblyman Juan Alano, the National Assembly of the Philippines passed Commonwealth Act No. 39 making Zamboanga a chartered city consisting of "the present territorial jurisdiction of the municipality of Zamboanga, the municipality of Bolong, the municipal district of Taluksangay, the whole island of Basilan and the adjacent islands, i.e., the municipality of Isabela, the municipal district of Lamitan, and the municipal district of Maluso." It was later signed by President Manuel Quezon on October 12, 1936. The charter made Zamboanga City the largest city in the world by land area. During these times, Zamboanga was the leading commercial and industrial city of Mindanao.
Before World War II, Pettit Barracks, a part of the U.S. Army's 43d Infantry Regiment (PS), was stationed there.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Zamboanga City”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.