THE BATTLE OF MACTAN

(Cebuano: Gubat sa Mactan; Filipino: Labanan sa Mactan; Spanish: Batalla de Mactán)

was fought in the Philippines on 27 April 1521, prior to Spanish colonization. The warriors
of the native chieftain of Mactan Island Lapu-Lapu overpowered and defeated a Spanish
force fighting for Rajah Humabon of Cebu, under the command of Ferdinand Magellan,
who was killed in the battle.
On 16 March 1521 (Julian calendar), Magellan sighted the mountains of what is
now Samar while on a mission to find a westward route to the Moluccas Islands for Spain.
This event marked the arrival of the first documented Europeans in the Archipelago. The
following day, Magellan ordered his men to anchor their ships on the shores of Homonhon
Island.
There, Magellan befriended Rajah Kolambu and Rajah Siagu, king of Limasawa, who
guided him to Cebu.There he met Rajah Humabon, the Rajah of Cebu. Then, Rajah
Humabon and his queen were baptized into the Catholic faith, taking the Christian names
Carlos, in honor of King Charles of Spain, and Juana, in honor of King Charles' mother.
To commemorate this event, Magellan gave Juana the Santo Niño, an image of the infant
Jesus, as a symbol of their new alliance and held their first mass in the coast.
As a result of Magellan's influence with Rajah Humabon, an order had been issued to the
nearby chiefs that each of them were to provide food supplies for the ships, and convert
to Christianity.
Most chiefs obeyed the order; however, Datu Lapu-Lapu, one of the two chiefs within the
island of Mactan, was the only chieftain to show his opposition. Lapu-Lapu refused to
accept the authority of Rajah Humabon in these matters. This opposition proved to be
influential when Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's voyage chronicler, writes,
"On Friday, April twenty-six, Zula, the second chief of the island of Mactan, sent one of
his sons to present two goats to the captain-general, and to say that he would send him
all that he had promised, but that he had not been able to send it to him because of the
other chief Lapu-Lapu, who refused to obey the king of Spain.
Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula suggested to Magellan to go to the island of Mactan and
force his subject chieftain Datu Lapu-Lapu to comply with his orders. Magellan saw an
opportunity to strengthen the existing friendship ties with the ruler of the Visayan region
and agreed to help him subdue the resistant Lapu-Lapu.
THE PHILIPPINE UNDER SPANISH RULE
Since the islands of the archipelago were never unified before the Spanish arrived, and
even after three centuries many of them still displayed autonomous tendencies
(especially the Muslim islands of Mindanao and the Sulus), the geographical scope of
broad surveys on this era is essentially limited to the island of Luzon and the Visayas.
Centered on Manila, Castilian power in the Philippines can be explained as a series of
concentric circles of weakening influence. A common thread running through the books
in this section are gratuitous examinations of the initial conquest, various civil and
religious administrative practices, the process of Hispanization, indigenous reactions
against exploitative policies, the co-optation of local elites into the power structure,
financial and economic matters, security concerns (both foreign and domestic), and
Chinese immigration and trade. Early works, epitomized in Zúñiga 1966, are simply
chronological storytelling from the Spanish point of view. The second phase of general
histories is more analytical (benefiting from ethnographic and anthropological
approaches), and the overviews are penned by American-educated Filipino
intelligentsia. Benitez 1929 and Zaide 1949 exemplify the attempt to add pre-Hispanic
indigenous and Asian influences to the discussion, coinciding with a more objectively
critical evaluation of Castilian colonialism. The third and present phase builds upon this
foundation and re-centers the focus on Filipino experiences and cultural practices that
either resisted or blended with Hispanic, Chinese, and American cultural assimilation
strategies. Cushner 1977, with its synoptic style, reveals an empathetic understanding of
Philippine culture and its history. The multivolume works in Roces
1977 and Punongboyan, et al. 1998 present multifaceted snapshots of Filipino history,
with its people on center stage. Abinales and Amoroso 2005, a welcome addition to the
genre, contextualizes more recent events into the longue durée of the archipelago’s
history.