page_title: History of the Philippines
section_title: Spanish settlement during the 16th and 17th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Philippines / Spanish settlement and rule (1565–1898) / Spanish settlement during the 16th and 17th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: Admiral Cerveras
context_page_description: The history of the Philippines is believed to have begun with the arrival of the first humans using rafts or boats at least 709,000 years ago as suggested by the discovery of Pleistocene stone tools and butchered animal remains associated with hominin activity. Homo luzonensis, a species of archaic humans, was present on the island of Luzon at least 67,000 years ago. The earliest known modern human was from Tabon Cave in Palawan dating about 47,000 years. Negrito groups were the first inhabitants to settle in the prehistoric Philippines. After that, groups of Austronesians later migrated to the islands.
  Scholars generally believe that these social groups eventually developed into various settlements or polities with varying degrees of economic specialization, social stratification, and political organization. Some of these settlements achieved such a scale of social complexity that some scholars believe they should be considered early states.
context_section_description: The "Memoria de las Encomiendas en las Islas" of 1591, just twenty years after the conquest of Luzon, reveals a remarkable progress in the work of colonization and the spread of Christianity. A cathedral was built in the city of Manila with an episcopal palace, Augustinian, Dominican and Franciscan monasteries and a Jesuit house. The king maintained a hospital for the Spanish settlers and there was another hospital for the natives run by the Franciscans. In order to defend the settlements the Spaniards established in the Philippines, a network of military fortresses called "Presidios" were constructed and officered by the Spaniards, and sentried by Latin-Americans and Filipinos, across the archipelago, to protect it from foreign nations such as the Portuguese, British and Dutch as well as raiding Muslims and Wokou. The Manila garrison was composed of roughly four hundred Spanish soldiers and the area of Intramuros as well as its surroundings, were initially settled by 1200 Spanish families. In Cebu City, at the Visayas, the settlement received a total of 2,100 soldier-settlers from New Spain. At the immediate south of Manila, Mexicans were present at Ermita and at Cavite where they were stationed as sentries. In addition, men conscripted from Peru, were also sent to settle Zamboanga City in Mindanao, to wage war upon Muslim pirates. There were also communities of Spanish-Mestizos that developed in Iloilo, Negros and Vigan. Interactions between native Filipinos and immigrant Spaniards, Latin-Americans and their Spanish-Mestizo descendants eventually caused the formation of a new language, Chavacano, a creole of Mexican Spanish. Meanwhile, in the suburb of Tondo, there was a convent run by Franciscan friars and another by the Dominicans that offered Christian education to the Chinese converted to Christianity. The same report reveals that in and around Manila were collected 9,410 tributes, indicating a population of about 30,640 who were under the instruction of thirteen missionaries (ministers of doctrine), apart from the monks in monasteries. In the former province of Pampanga the population estimate was 74,700 and 28 missionaries. In Pangasinan 2,400 people with eight missionaries. In Cagayan and islands Babuyanes 96,000 people but no missionaries. In La Laguna 48,400 people with 27 missionaries. In Bicol and Camarines Catanduanes islands 86,640 people with fifteen missionaries. Based on the tribute counts, the total founding population of Spanish-Philippines was 667,612 people, of which: 20,000 were Chinese migrant traders, 16,500 were Latino soldier-colonists sent from Peru and Mexico, 3,000 were Japanese residents, and 600 were pure Spaniards from Europe, there was also a large but unknown number of Indian Filipinos, the rest were Malays and Negritos. They were under the care of 140 missionaries, of which 79 were Augustinians, nine Dominicans and 42 Franciscans. During the Spanish evacuation of Ternate, Indonesia, the 200 families of mixed Mexican-Filipino-Spanish and Moluccan-Portuguese descent who had ruled over the briefly Christianized Sultanate of Ternate (They later reverted to Islam) and included their Sultan who converted to Christianity, were relocated to Ternate, Cavite and Ermita, Manila.
  The fragmented and sparsely populated nature of the islands made it easy for Spanish colonization. The Spanish then brought political unification to most of the Philippine archipelago via the conquest of the various small maritime states although they were unable to fully incorporate parts of the sultanates of Mindanao and the areas where the ethnic groups and highland plutocracy of the animist Ifugao of Northern Luzon were established. The Spanish introduced elements of western civilization such as the code of law, western printing and the Gregorian calendar alongside new food resources such as maize, pineapple and chocolate from Latin America.
  Education played a major role in the socio-economic transformation of the archipelago. The oldest universities, colleges, and vocational schools and the first modern public educat
caption: Maria Clara gown
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