The Spanish–Moro conflict (Spanish: Conflicto hispano-moro; Tagalog: Sagupaang Kastila at Moro, Labanang Kastila at Moro) was a series of battles in the Philippines lasting more than three centuries. It began during the Spanish Philippines and lasted until the Spanish–American War, when Spain finally began to subjugate the Moro people after centuries of attempts to do so. Spain ultimately conquered portions of the Mindanao and Jolo islands and turned the Sultanate of Sulu into a protectorate, establishing geographic dominance over the region until the Spanish-American War. Moro resistance continued.
Wars during the 1600s
Background
The Spanish initiated the conflict by conquering the Philippines and invading Moro territory in an effort to subjugate the region to their rule in the 1500s. When the Spanish conquered Maynila, then a vassal of the Sultanate of Brunei, Rajah Sulayman resisted the Spanish. Manila became the capital of the Spanish Philippines after the conquest, with the Spanish converting people to Catholicism. The Spanish–Moro Wars started with the Castilian War, between Spaniards and the Sultanate of Brunei. (The term Moro at this time included Muslim Tagalogs who were ruled by the Sultanate of Brunei).
Following the reconquista, a period beginning about 720 AD during which Spanish Christian culture was restored to the areas of Spain invaded by the Umayyad Caliphate, the Inquisition required Jews and Muslims to convert to Roman Catholicism, or face exile or the death penalty. Thus, the Spaniards tried to suppress Islam in areas they conquered. To this end, they attacked the Moro Muslim sultanates in the south at Mindanao. The Moro datus and sultans raided and pillaged Spanish towns in the northern Philippine islands in retaliation for Spanish attacks and terrorized the Spanish invaders with constant piracy. The Spanish were prepared to conquer Mindanao and the Moluccas after establishing forts in 1635, but the Chinese threatened the Spanish with invasion, and they pulled back to defend Manila. Several thousand Chinese who were evicted by the Spanish joined the Moros.
Although the Spanish defeated the Sultanate of Brunei in 1578, they did not establish effective control over the Moro sultanates until the late 19th century. The Chinese dominated the economy of the Moro sultanates in the 19th century, controlling trading centers and the shipping trade between other parts of Southeast Asia and Mindanao. The Chinese sold weapons to the Moro sultanates during this time and the Spanish imposed a blockade to try to stop the supply of rifles from the Chinese to the Moros.
Though diminishing through the years, the Moros maintained their autonomy up to the Spanish–American War, after which they fought the Americans in a long insurgency.
In 1773, desiring to promote better relations between the Spaniards and the new sultan of Jolo, Anda proposed free trade and Spanish help to ensure no foreign powers established settlements in Moro territory without interference with the internal government of the sultan, but the Spanish officer failed to observe his instructions and nothing beneficial resulted except further irritation of the Moros. About 4,000 Chinese expelled from Manila in 1758 joined the Tausug Moros in Jolo.
Jihad against Spanish invasion
The followers of Moro declared a jihad against the Spanish and Filipino Christians, to defend themselves against the Spanish invaders who tried to take over Moro territory. The Moros retaliated with major pillaging campaigns and enslaved Filipino Christians after razing their villages. Several Moro sultans led these jihads. They defeated Spanish attempts to conquer Mindanao. The Spanish had used their massive numbers to force the Moros to withdraw.
A "culture of jihad" emerged among the Moros due to the centuries-long war against the Spanish invaders.
War against Lanao
Christianized Filipinos were used by the Spanish to invade the Maranao territory and other Muslim tribes in the Philippines. The Spanish colonial forces launched military and spiritual campaigns against the Maranao people at Lake Lanao. On April 4, 1639, Spanish conquistador Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera sent the first expedition, which included Spaniards and Boholano troops. This campaign was led by Captain Francisco de Atienza and Fray Agustin de San Pedro, who formed alliances with some local chiefs. In 1640, Don Pedro Bermudes Castro established a garrison, but the Maranaos, feeling threatened, fought back, driving the Spaniards out and destroying their installations, leading to over 250 years without Spanish presence in the area.
War with Buayan under Rajah Silongan
In April 1596, Rajah Silongan held off against the joint forces of Maguindanao and Spain, eventually subordinating the Sultan of Maguindanao, Kapitan Laut Buisan, and form a confederacy that composed of Buayan, Cotabato, and Tamontaca.
In 1599, Rajah Silongan, accompanied by 3000 Buayan Moros, joined forces with Datu Salikula of Maguindanao and assaulted the coast communities of Cebu, Negros, and Panay, inflicting many atrocities. A huge force tried a repeat in 1600 but was repelled in southern Panay. In 1602, the Sultan of Buayan invaded Batangas but was repelled at Balayan. They also invaded Calamianes and gained 700 captives. In 1603, Buayan attacked Leyte.
In 1605, a peace treaty negotiated by Melchor Hurtado was signed between Maguindanao, Buayan and Spain. On 8 September 1605, Spain and Buayan signed an agreement to recognize Rajah Silongan as the paramount ruler of Maguindanao in exchange for his allegiance to Spain. This was done as a divisive measure to encourage strife between Maguindanao and Buayan. Eventually, Kapitan Laut Buisan of Cotabato would distance himself from Rajah Silongan and establish his own community on the coast.
On 22 July 1609, after the leaders of Buayan learned of the Spanish capture of Ternate, Rajah Silongan and Kapitan Laut Buisan sent a letter to the Spanish governor-general in Manila to ask for forgiveness for their previous alliance with the Sultanate of Ternate. In 1619, the Sultanate of Buayan faced a decline due to the rise of Sultan Muhammad Kudarat of Maguindanao. Eventually, by 1634, the confederacy headed by Rajah Silongan disappeared. He was reduced into a petty king.
Chinese threat to the Spanish and 1663 Chinese rebellion
The Spanish built a fort called Real Fuerza de San Jose in Zamboanga under Captain Juan de Chavez in 1635 who led a Christian Spanish Filipino army. Construction started on June 23 of that year. In 1637 Corcuero inaugurated a new conquest of Jolo and of Mindanao. His force consisted of 76 Europeans. He made a landing at Jolo. The following year, he landed at Zamboanga and proceeded past Cattobats up the Rio Grande against the Datu Corralat and the Datus of Buhayen and Basilan. The following year, Corcuero and Almonte built a fort at Sabonilla, now called Malabang, on Plana Bay. During 1639, Spanish soldiers and priests, under the warlike Recoleto friar, Augustin de San Pedro, led a party of 560 against the Lanao Moros, where Camps Vicars and Keithley now stand. In 1642, Generals Corcuero and Almonte made peace with Corralat, but piratical depredations by the Moros continued.
The Spanish and the Moros had signed the Jolo treaty to stop hostilities decades before renewed Spanish-Moro hostilities. Despite the Jolo treaty, the Jolo datu, Salicala, and a datu from Borneo ravaged the Visayan coast. The force of the latter was defeated by Monforte near Masbate, and Salicala returned to Jolo. Monforte destroyed several towns and 300 boats in Borneo. In 1655 trouble again broke out between Corralat (Kudarat) and the Spanish forces, the Moros sacking numerous towns in the Calamianes and one town near Zamboanga. In 1656 a fleet dispatched by De Sara, the new captain-general, burned Corralat's town and some Moro towns in Sibuguey Bay, destroying also a Dutch fleet allied with the Moros. The Moros at the same time were ravaging the coasts of Mindoro and Marinduque, and succeeded also in repulsing the attack on the fort at Corralat (this may refer to Cotabato, the homeland of Sultan Kudarat), forcing the Spaniards to return to Sabonilla and Zamboanga. In 1657 Salicala scoured the Philippine seas, capturing over 1,000 native prisoners, entering the Bay of Manila during the raid. In 1660 Moros from Jolo and Tawi-Tawi, taking advantage of an insurrection in Luzon, raided the coasts of Bohol, Leyte, and Mindoro.
Throughout 1656, 1657, 1660, and 1662, the Moros attacked and pillaged towns on Spanish-controlled islands, sailing around the area in order to raid. They defeated Spanish attempts to take the fort of Sultan Kudarat. The Spanish Governor General Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera brought soldiers from Peru and Mexico and had defeated the Moro Sultan Kudarat and built forts in Moro territory in Zamboanga, reversing previous Moro successes. The people of Manila were celebrating the victories of the Spanish.
While Governor-General Lara was in office another Chinese invasion threatened, led by a Ming loyalist named Koxinga who had been driven forth from his own country (Ming Dynasty) by the Qing. When the Manchus overran China, about the middle of the seventeenth century, Koxinga and many of his followers refused to submit. Koxinga raised a pirate army, went to Formosa, drove out the Dutch people, and settled there. Later Koxinga laid a plan to take the Philippine Islands and set up his kingdom there.
Koxinga's chief adviser was an Italian friar and Dominican missionary, who had been living in the province of Fukien, named Riccio. This friar he had appointed a high mandarin, or nobleman. In the spring of 1662, he now sent him to Manila and dispatched him as an ambassador to the governor of the Philippines, dressed in the garb of his office, to demand tribute from the Philippine government and to threaten an attack on Manila if Koxinga’s demands were not met.
Naturally this demand caused amazement and alarm in Manila. No such danger had threatened the Spanish in the Philippines since the invasion of Limahong. The Chinese conqueror had an innumerable army, and his armament, stores, and navy had been greatly augmented by the surrender of the Dutch. The colony was weak and unprepared for defense, and consequently terrified.
The Spaniards were aghast at the idea of a Catholic priest demanding tribute from a Catholic country, in the name of a heathen ruler. Later the authorities at Rome called the friar to account for his conduct. At this time, however, the Spanish were at a loss how to act. They did not dare send the priest-mandarin away, nor could they give him any answer. They therefore kept him waiting in Manila while they made up their minds what to do.
As was usual, when trouble arose, the government thought that the Chinese in Manila were plotting to take the city. There were 25,000 Chinese living in Pari-an, north of the Pasig River, in Manila. They felt sure that these men would be ready to help Koxinga when he came, so everything was made ready for another attack upon the Chinese in Luzon. All government troops, both Spanish and native, were collected at Manila. So great was the fear, that three important forts were torn down, and the soldiers stationed there were brought to Luzon. Only the fort at Caraga, Mindanao, was left standing. This one they did not dare to give up; the soldiers there were all that kept the Moros from destroying the settlements on that coast.
The Spanish proceeded to order all Chinese to leave the Philippines. The Chinese suspected that the Spanish planned to massacre them, so the Chinese rebelled and assaulted Manila to fight the Spanish and Filipinos. The Chinese either died in battle or, escaping by frail boats, joined the Chinese colonists on Formosa. The Spanish razed their own churches and convents in Manila to prevent Chinese from taking shelter in them. A massacre of the Chinese by the Spanish and Filipinos followed during the rebellion. About 5,000 Chinese remained in Manila after the rebellion and massacre. The massacre cost the lives of 22,000 of the Chinese; the remaining 3,000 built frail boats and fled to Formosa. Another account says that 5,000 Chinese remained in Manila after the rebellion and massacre. The foolish attack upon the Chinese took so many Spanish soldiers from the southern islands that the Moros now had free swing along the coasts of Mindanao and the Visayas. Several datus from the Jolo and Tawi-Tawi islands also sacked and burned many towns in the Visayas.