Miguel Lopez de Legazpi
Miguel López de Legazpi (1502 – August 20, 1572), known as "el Adelantado" and "el Viejo", was a Spanish admiral of the XVI, first Governor of the Captaincy General of the Philippines and founder of the cities of Cebu in 1565 and Manila in 1571.
Biography
Miguel López de Legazpi was born in the Gipuzkoan town of Zumárraga, Spain, with doubts about the year of birth, which could be 1502, 1503, 1504, 1505 or even 1510, and died in Manila, Philippines, on August 20 from 1572. Coming from a family of the small Gipuzkoan nobility, with the title of hidalgo, he was the second son of Juan Martínez López de Legazpi and Elvira de Gurruchategui. His birthplace, called Jauregi Haundia (the Big Palace in Basque), but much better known as Legazpi dorretxea ( Casa -Torre Legazpi ), is preserved in Zumárraga.
His father fought in Italy and in Navarra with the troops of the Castilian crown. Legazpi studied law and that earned him the position of councilor in the Zumárraga City Council in 1526, and the following year that of notary public in the Mayor's Office of Areria (Guipúzcoa), which he held on the death of his father and in which was confirmed by the king on April 12, 1527. The viceroy of Mexico, Luis de Velasco, defines him in one of his letters as hijohidalgo notorio of the house of Lezcano.
Trip to Mexico
In 1545 he moved to Mexico, where he lived for twenty years. He held various positions in the administration of the Viceroyalty of New Spain; he was Mayor Notary in 1551 and Mayor of Mexico City in 1559, thirty-eight years after its conquest. He had previously worked at the Mint in positions of responsibility.
He married Isabel Garcés, sister of the Bishop of Tlaxcala Julián Garcés, and from this union nine children were born (four boys and five girls). In thirty-six years of stay in New Spain (from 1528 to 1564) he amassed an important fortune.
Legazpi's house in the Aztec capital was one of the main ones and was visited by many newcomers from Spain seeking help and advice. His son Melchor defines his father's house in this way in a letter addressed to the King:
Many poor hydals and knights who went from these kingdoms went without knowing him to his house for the old custom that always existed there and because such people always in it were given to eat and dress and necessary. Which has been very notorious and known in all that kingdom.
Previous expeditions had failed to make the return route through the Great Gulf, which was what the Pacific was then called to Mexico. Felipe II determined that the route from Mexico to the Moluccan Islands had to be explored and commissioned the expedition of two ships to Luis de Velasco, second viceroy of New Spain, and the Augustinian friar Andrés de Urdaneta, who was a relative of López de Legazpi, who I had already traveled those seas. The letter in which the king asks Urdaneta to join the expedition reads as follows:
The king: Devoto Father Fray Andrew of Urdaneta, of the order of Sant Augustine: I have been informed that you, being secular, were in the Navy of Loaysa and went to the Strait of Magellan and to the Species, where you had spent eight years in our service. And it is so that we should have taken care of Don Luis de Velasco, our Visorrey of that New Spain, that two ships shall be brought into the discovery of the islands of the West, the Maluchs azian, and command them what they have to do, according to the instruction that has been imposed on them, and because according to much news that ye have of the things of that land,
From Valladolid to September 24, 1559 years.
From Valladolid to September 24, 1559 years
I am the King
The Philippines, which had been discovered on the voyage, the first around the world made by Magellan and Elcano, fell within the Portuguese demarcation according to the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, but even so Felipe II wanted to rescue the survivors of the previous expedition of Villalobos (1542-1544), who was the one who baptized the archipelago with the name Philippines in honor of the then prince, Felipe, the next King Felipe II.
Velasco made the preparations in 1564 and López de Legazpi, already a widower, was placed in command of said expedition at the proposal of Urdaneta, being appointed by the king «Admiral, General and Governor of all the lands he conquered”, even though he was not a sailor. The expedition was made up of five boats and Urdaneta participated in it as a pilot. Legazpi sold all the assets, with the exception of the house in Mexico, to face the expedition, which suffered delays due to the attraction that Florida began to have among the Mexican settlers. He enrolled his grandson Felipe de Salcedo in the expedition, as well as Martín de Goiti as artillery captain .
On September 1, 1564, the president and listeners of the Royal Audience of Mexico gave Legazpi the document specifying the instructions and orders that the expedition had. The extensive document, which covered more than twenty-four pages, detailed a whole code of rules for control, behavior and organization, as well as the recommendation to treat the natives well, which even indicated how the rations should be distributed and how to avoid that there were useless mouths;
... that there is no such thing as the Navy, servants or superfluous servants... and if more people were, especially the useless...
Although it makes a caveat regarding the service, by granting a dozen people assigned to these tasks, prohibiting any other type of boarding, the document says at this point:
Othersi: you will not consent to the fact that the said ships, Indians or Indians, Blacks or Blacks, or some women, married or unmarried of any quality and condition, except for up to a dozen blacks and blacks of service, which you will distribute in all ships, as it seems to you.
With the five ships and about 350 men, the expedition headed by López de Legazpi left the port of Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, on November 21, 1564 after the flag and banners were blessed on November 19.
From the island of Guam to the Philippines
The expedition crossed the Pacific in 93 days, passing through the Marianas archipelago. On January 22, they landed on the island of Guam, known as Isla de los Ladrones, which they identify by the type of sails on their boats and canoes that they see. Legazpi orders the following:
that no person of the Navy was dared to jump to the ground without his license and those who jumped in it would not force, aggravate or harm the natural or of them take anything, so in their bastions as of other things, and that they would not touch them in their seeds, or tears, or cut off any palm or any other tree, and that they would not give or contract with the natural things.
They bought food from the natives and took possession of the island for the Spanish Crown. On February 5, they set out for the so-called Islas de Poniente, the Philippines. On the 15th they made landfall on the island of Samar, where the senior lieutenant, Andrés de Ibarra, took possession of it with prior agreement with the local leader. On the 20th of the same month, they put out to sea again and arrived at Leyte, where Legazpi lifted the strict act of taking possession, despite the hostility of its inhabitants. On March 5 they arrive at the port of Carvallán.
The scarcity of food prompted the search for new bases, for which the Spanish domains spread over the different islands, coming to dominate a large part of the archipelago, with the exception of Mindanao and the Sulu islands. This expansion was carried out with relative ease, as the different peoples that occupied the islands were at odds with each other, and as Legazpi established friendly relations with some of them, for example, with the natives of Bohol by signing a "pact of blood» with chief Sikatuna. The abuses that the Portuguese navigators had committed in the past in some points of the archipelago motivated some towns to put up strong resistance against Legazpi.
In a meeting they decide to establish a camp to spend the winter on the island of Cebu, which was highly inhabited and had a large supply of food, which they arrive again on April 27. They estimate that...
if they do not want the naturals of the earth dalles bastimentos for fair and used prices and to be our friends, as the general intended, they can be made war justly.
His desire for peace ran into the misgivings of the local governor, Rajah Tupas, who was the son of the man who years before had liquidated 30 men from Magellan's expedition in a trap banquet. Legazpi tried to negotiate a peace agreement, but Tupas sent a force of 2,500 men against the Spanish ships. After the battle, Legazpi again tried to agree to the peaceful establishment of him and was again rejected.
The Spanish troops landed in three boats under the command of Goiti and Juan de la Isla, and the ships fired their cannons at the town, destroying some houses and making the inhabitants flee. The Spaniards, who were in desperate need of supplies, searched the town without finding anything that could serve them.
In the record, a man from Bermeo finds in a hut the image of the Child Jesus (which they would call Invention of the Child Jesus and which is currently in the church that the Augustinians later built in Cebu) and which It must have come from some previous expedition. Legazpi orders work on the fort to begin, which begins with the layout of the fort on May 8. Given these facts, King Tupas accompanied by Tamuñán presented himself to Legazpi, who received them on his ship La Capitana, to agree on peace. The blood oath is made, which consisted of
the governor sang his chest in a cup and the same was the Tupas and Tamuñán, and the blood of all three was poured out with a little wine, which was poured into three vessels, both the one and the other drank it all three, at the same time, each one his part
and he founded the first Spanish settlements there: the Villa del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús, naming Pedro Briceño de Oseguera, regidor of the same; and the Villa de San Miguel, today Cebu City, which would become the capital of the Philippines and the base for their conquest.
Legazpi sends his grandson Felipe de Salcedo back to Mexico and takes Urdaneta as cosmographer, who reported the discovery of the north-eastern Pacific navigation route and opposed its conquest by falling within the domains assigned to the Portuguese. They sent a squadron to conquer the recently founded Villa de San Miguel, but it was rejected twice, in 1568 and 1569.
In response to the Spanish expulsion from the Moluccas, Philip II decided to maintain control over the Philippines. For this he appointed Legazpi Governor and Captain General of the Philippines and sent reinforcement troops.
In Cebu, Legazpi had to face an uprising by some of the gentlemen, who ended up defeated and hanged. In 1566 the galleon San Gerónimo arrived from Mexico, thus definitively confirming the route. In 1567, 2,100 Spaniards, soldiers and workers arrived in Cebu on the king's orders. They found a city and built the port of Fortaleza de San Pedro, which became their outpost for trade with Mexico and protection against hostile native rebellions and attacks by the Portuguese, which were ultimately repulsed. The new possessions were organized under the name of the Philippine Islands.
Legazpi stood out as administrator of the new domains, where he introduced parcels, as was done in America, and activated trade with neighboring countries, especially with China, for which he took advantage of the colony of Chinese merchants established in Luzon since before his arrival. The religious question was left in the hands of the Augustinians led by Fray Andrés de Urdaneta.
The conquest continued through the remaining islands, Panay (where he established his new base), Masbate, Mindoro, and finally Luzon, where he met with great resistance from the Tagalogs.
Manila Foundation
The prosperity of the settlement of Maynilad attracted Legazpi's attention as soon as he heard of its existence in 1568. To conquer it, he sent two of his men, Martín de Goiti and Juan de Salcedo, in expedition to the control of about 300 soldiers. Maynilad was a Muslim enclave, located south of the island of Luzon, dedicated to trade.
Salcedo and Goiti arrived at Manila Bay on May 8, 1570, after having fought several battles in the north of the island against Chinese pirates. The Spaniards are surprised by the size of the port and are received in a friendly way, camping for some time in the vicinity of the enclave. Soon after, incidents broke out between the natives and the Spanish and two battles took place, the natives being defeated in the second one, with which control of the area passed into Spanish hands after the corresponding protocols and peace ceremonies. which lasted three days. It was the Rajah Matanda who handed over Maynilad to López de Legazpi.
Legazpi reached an agreement with the local rulers Rajahs Suliman, Matanda and Lakandula. In the same it was agreed to found a city that would have two mayors, twelve councilors and a secretary. The city would be double, the intramural, Spanish, and the extramural indigenous.
With the conquest of Maynilad, control over the island of Luzón was completed, which Legazpi called New Kingdom of Castile. Recognizing the strategic and commercial value of the enclave, on June 24, 1571 Legazpi founded the Always Loyal and Distinguished City of Spain in the East of Manila and made it the seat of government for the archipelago and the Spanish domains in the Far East.
The building of the city —divided into two zones, the intramural and the extramural— was due to the royal order issued by Felipe II from the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial on July 3, 1573, and in the one in which the intramural area was planned in the Spanish style of the time, with a defensive character according to plans by Herrera, architect of El Escorial, and leaving extramural areas for the indigenous villages that would later give rise to new towns and end, over time, integrating the city of Manila.
Four years after its founding, Manila was attacked by the Chinese pirate Lima-Hong. Governor Guido de Lavezares and Field Master Juan de Salcedo, commanding 500 Spaniards, expelled the Sino-Japanese mercenary fleet.
Death
After proclaiming Manila the capital of the Philippine archipelago and of the Spanish domains in the Far East, López de Legazpi moved his residence there. He remained in Manila until his death on August 20, 1572. Miguel López de Legazpi died of a cerebrovascular attack and in a precarious financial situation, unaware that King Philip II had signed a Royal Decree naming him Governor for life and Captain General of the Philippines and gave him a salary of 2,000 ducats. He was buried in the church of San Agustín, Intramuros, in Manila.
Fray Andrés de Urdaneta defined Miguel López de Legazpi on January 1, 1561, in a letter addressed to King Philip II as follows:
The virrey don Luis de Velasco has generally named for this day Miguel López de Legazpi, native to the province of Guipúzcoa and veçino desta çiudad where he has been married and to the present is widowed, and has sons already men and daughters married who have already sons, has other daughters already mugeres for podellas casar; it is of age of more than good judgment I hope in God that he must be very acquitted in what he goes for the leader of the day.
During the conquest, he wrote several letters to the king, which are stored under the title Letters to King Don Felipe II on the expedition, conquests, and progress of the Philippine Islands in the Archivo de Indias In sevilla.
His birthplace in Zumárraga
The house «Jauregi Haundia», better known as the Casa-Torre Legazpi or Legazpi Dorretxea in Basque, where Miguel was born López de Legazpi is located in the Gipuzkoan town of Zumárraga. In 1947, the writer José de Arteche denounced the state of ruin that the building presented. In 1964, the Zumárraga City Council restored the building, which was inaugurated on the fourth centenary of the expedition, and a museum was installed. Currently, the so-called Legazpi Tower houses a music school. In Zumárraga there is a monument to Miguel López de Legazpi and a painting of him is kept in the town hall. There are also monuments to him in Manila.
External links (and sources)
- Auñamendi Encyclopedia (ISBN 84-7025-147-3)
- Confirmation of the title of Legazpi of Governor and General-Captain
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Data: Q318500
Multimedia: Miguel López de Legazpi / Q318500
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