Battle of Manila (1365)

Last updated June 12, 2019

The Battle of Manila (Filipino: Labanan sa Maynila) (1365) is an unspecified^{[ according to whom? ]} and disputed^{[ by whom? ]} battle occurring somewhere in the vicinity of Manila between the forces of the kingdoms in Luzon and the Empire of Majapahit.

Filipino language official language of the Philippines

Filipino is the national language of the Philippines. Filipino is also designated, along with English, as an official language of the country. It is a standardized variety of the Tagalog language, an Austronesian regional language that is widely spoken in the Philippines. As of 2007, Tagalog is the first language of 28 million people, or about one-third of the Philippine population, while 45 million speak Tagalog as their second language. Tagalog is among the 185 languages of the Philippines identified in the Ethnologue. Officially, Filipino is defined by the Commission on the Filipino Language as "the native dialect, spoken and written, in Metro Manila, the National Capital Region, and in other urban centers of the archipelago."

The Majapahit Empire was a thalassocracy in Southeast Asia, based on the island of Java, that existed from 1293 to circa 1500. Majapahit reached its peak of glory during the era of Hayam Wuruk, whose reign from 1350 to 1389 was marked by conquest which extended through Southeast Asia. His achievement is also credited to his prime minister, Gajah Mada. According to the Nagarakretagama (Desawarñana) written in 1365, Majapahit was an empire of 98 tributaries, stretching from Sumatra to New Guinea; consisting of present-day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, East Timor, Sulu Archipelago and other parts of the Philippines, although the true nature of Majapahit sphere of influence is still the subject of studies among historians.

Even though the exact dates and details of this battle remain in dispute, there are claims^{[ by whom? ]} of the conquest of the area around Saludong (Majapahit term for Luzon and Manila) according to the text of the Nagarakretagama ^[1] which claims that Saludong (Luzon) and Solot (Sulu) were parts of Majapahit. This claim may be mythical^{[ according to whom? ]} because a couple of years later, warriors from Sulu had successfully attacked Borney (Brunei) which was a Majapahit vassal (Although at this point, the seeds of Islam had already planted and their eventual rebellion to Majapahit was there but only gestating but at the point they were still a loyal Majapahit province but before hand the secretly Muslim Bruneians living under Hindu Majapahit rule sent Rajah Ahmad a person with a Muslim name but a Hindu honorific to attack and incorporate Selurong), and nevertheless the Sulus subsequently repulsed a Majapahit invasion force after they were once invaded by Majapahit, and because outside of the Nagarakretagama, there is no evidence^{[ according to whom? ]} among pre-Hispanic Philippine documents that Saludong or Sulu was ever enslaved by the Majapahit empire. In fact, this claim was only mentioned in passing in a lone eulogy poem to Maharajah Hayam Wuruk and was not really a part of statecraft.^[2] Furthermore, the earlier Laguna Copperplate Inscription mentioned that Dongdu (Kingdom of Tondo) had diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Medang, not with Majapahit.

<i>Nagarakretagama</i> Old Javanese eulogy

The Nagarakretagama or Nagarakrtagama, also known as Desawarñana or Deshavarñana, is an Old Javanese eulogy to Hayam Wuruk, a Javanese king of the Majapahit Empire. It was written on lontar as a kakawin by Mpu Prapanca in 1365. The Nagarakretagama contains detailed descriptions of the Majapahit Empire during its greatest extent. The poem affirms the importance of Hindu–Buddhism in the Majapahit empire by describing temples and palaces and several ceremonial observances.

Luzon is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. It is ranked 15th largest in the world by land area. Located in the northern region of the archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as well as Quezon City, the country's most populous city. With a population of 53 million as of 2015, it is the fourth most populous island in the world, containing 52.5% of the country's total population.

Sulu is a province of the Philippines in the Sulu Archipelago and part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Nevertheless, there may have been a battle for Manila that occurred during that time but it was likely a victory for Luzon's kingdoms considering that the Kingdom of Tondo had maintained its independence and was not enslaved under another ruler. Alternatively, Luzon may have been successfully invaded but was able to regain its independence later.^[3]^[4] Scholars^{[ who? ]} are still in dispute over this.

There is information however in Chinese and Bruneian records^{[ citation needed ]} that when Sulu rebelled against Majapahit when some Datus were freed from the grip of Empire and they sacked Brunei which was then a part of Hayam Wuruk's empire as stated in the Nagarakretagama, the state "Sulu" (Solot) split into three kingdoms^{[ citation needed ]} then and afterwards a Datu from the successful sack of Brunei went to towadS the undercurrent towards Luzon and established a Barangay in Cavite near the polity of Selurong (Present day Manila) and thus allying Selurong with Sulu in an alliance against a powerful empire.^{[ attribution needed ]} Thus inspiring them to fight against said empire.^[5]^{[ irrelevant citation ]}

Cavite is a province in the Philippines located on the southern shores of Manila Bay in the Calabarzon region on Luzon island. Situated 21 kilometres (13 mi) southwest of Metro Manila, it is one of the most industrialized and fastest growing provinces in the Philippines. Its population of 3,678,301 (2015) makes it one of the most populated provinces in the country.

Nevertheless, Sulu and Selurong are still enriched and also exploited by the brief Majapahit occupation of their kingdoms.^{[ citation needed ]} The martial prowess of the Filipino kingdoms were later proven when during the age of exploration, Filipinos (Some Lucoes) and others descended from the Bisaya or Visayans, were empoyed all across Southeast Asia and even elsewhere in key naval and military positions, this was due to the skills and expertise which was facilitated by incessant inter kingdom conflicts, trade and exchanges across the states in the islands of the archipelago which are also prone to natural disasters; frequent deaths and slavery due to war and natural disasters and frequent intermarriage and family branch outs tested with said wars and disasters pruned and refined the Filipino people then as a result that eventually Lucoes (Filipino) Generals and officers from humble and poor beginnings earned command of the Malaccan, Bruneian and Timorese navies were; Temegung Regimo de Raja was Chief General of Malacca under the Portuguese [Emphasis on the fact that, Malacca is the most contested maritime chokepoint in the world and you have to the best ever to earn a position there and a Filipino earning the supreme position there is quite telling], Admiral Rajah Sulayman was head of the fleet of Brunei, Sapetu Diraja was commander of the Aceh (Sumatra Garrison) and Enrique a Kampapangan was a commander in Timor. A simple hypotheis; all are proof that: the Datus of, and the Rajahs, and Sultans, Wangs, Haris and Lakans and etc. of the Philippines were great military figures in the region, justifying the successful rebellion of these states from Imperial occupation.^[6]

Regimo de Raja was a Filipino (Lucoes) general, governor and spice magnate who found work in Portuguese Malacca. He was highly influential and the Portuguese appointed him as Temenggung or a governor and chief general responsible for overseeing of the maritime trade, protecting the monarch and policing the state. As Temenggung, he was also the head of a fleet which traded and protected commerce between the Indian Ocean, the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea, and the medieval maritime principalities of the Philippines. His father and wife carried on his maritime trading business after his death.

Related Research Articles

The military history of the Philippines is characterized by wars between Philippine kingdoms and its neighbors in the precolonial era and then a period of struggle against colonial powers such as Spain and the United States, occupation by the Empire of Japan during World War II and participation in Asian conflicts post-World War II such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Philippines has also battled a communist insurgency and a secessionist movement by Muslims in the southern portion of the country.

The Sultanate of Sulu was a Muslim state that ruled the islands in the Sulu Archipelago, parts of Mindanao, certain portions of Palawan and north-eastern Borneo.

Rajah Sulayman, sometimes referred to as Sulayman III (1558–1575), was the Rajah or paramount ruler of the Rajahnate of Maynila, a fortified Tagalog Muslim polity which was a vassal to the Brunei Sultanate, on the southern half of the Pasig River delta, by the time Spanish colonizers arrived in the early 1570s.

Hayam Wuruk, also called Rajasanagara, Pa-ta-na-pa-na-wu, or Bhatara Prabhu, (1334–1389), was a Javanese Hindu King from the Rajasa Dynasty and the fourth monarch of the Indianised Majapahit Empire. Together with his prime minister Gajah Mada, he reigned the empire at the time of its greatest power. During his reign the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, became ingrained in the culture and worldview of the Javanese through the wayang kulit. He was preceded by Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi and succeeded by his son-in-law Wikramawardhana. Most of the accounts of his life were taken from Nagarakretagama and Pararaton.

Islam is the oldest recorded monotheistic religion in the Philippines. Islam reached the Philippines in the 13th century with the arrival of Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf, Southern India, and their followers from several sultanate governments in the Malay Archipelago. The Muslim population of the Philippines has been reported as about 6% of the total population as of a census in 2000. According to a 2015 report of Philippine Statistics Authority, 6% of Filipinos are Muslims. While the majority of the population are Roman Catholic, some ethnic groups are Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Animist, Sikh, or non-religious.

Battle of Manila may refer to:

The Bruneian Empire or Empire of Brunei, also known as Sultanate of Brunei, was a Malay sultanate, centred in Brunei on the northern coast of Borneo island in Southeast Asia. Bruneian rulers converted to Islam around the 15th century, when it grew substantially since the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese, extending throughout coastal areas of Borneo and the Philippines, before it declined in the 17th century. Scholars have theorised that the Bruneian population originated from the Mongols who settled in Northern Borneo sometime before or after their failed invasion of Java in the 13th century. Bruneians coincidentally share a lot of Mongoloid features to this day.

In early Philippine history, the Tagalog settlement at Tondo was a major trade hub located on the northern part of the Pasig River delta, on Luzon island.

Luções was a demonym used by Portuguese sailors in Malaysia during the early 1500s, referring to the people who lived in Manila Bay, which was then called Lusong

Maynila (historical polity) major historical polity in Luzon, on the southern part of the Pasig River delta, at the location of present-day Intramuros, Manila

In early Philippine history, the Tagalog Bayan of Maynila was a major trade hub located on the southern part of the Pasig River delta, where the modern day district of Intramuros currently stands.

The recorded history of the Philippines begins with the creation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription (LCI) in 900, the first written document found in an ancient Philippine language. The inscription itself identifies the date of its creation, and on its deciphering in 1992 moved the boundary between Philippine history and prehistory back 600 years. The Philippines is classified as part of the Indosphere and the Sinosphere, making its many cultures sophisticated and intermixed. Prior to the LCI, the earliest record of the Philippine Islands corresponded with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. Magellan's arrival marks the beginning of the Spanish colonial period.

Manila's history begins around 65,000 BC the time the Callao Man first settled in the Philippines, predating the arrival of the Negritos and the Malayo-Polynesians. The nearby Angono Petroglyphs, are then dated to be around 3,000 BC and the earliest recorded history of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, dates back to the year 900 AD as recorded in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription. By the thirteenth century, the city consisted of a fortified settlement and trading quarter near the mouth of the Pasig River, the river that bisects the city into north and south.

The nature of religion in the pre-colonial Philippines is often unclear. Religions present include animism, indigenous religious beliefs and mythologies such as Anito and influences from Hinduism and Buddhism. The earliest pieces of evidence that exist are archaeological finds including Hindu–Buddhist gold statues. The earliest written evidence comes from the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, dated to around 900 CE, which uses the Buddhist–Hindu lunar calendar. With the arrival of Islam in the 14th century, the older religions gradually disappeared, and after the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism, became the dominant religion. However, some of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines continue to practice animism today, and many of the traditions in Anito have survived in the form of Folk Catholicism.

The Battle of Manilla (1500s) was fought in Manila between forces of the Kingdom of Tondo led by their Senapati, Lakan Sukwo, and the soldiers of the Sultanate of Brunei led by Sultan Bolkiah, the singing captain. The aftermath of the battle was the formation of an alliance between the newly established Kingdom of Maynila (Selurong) and the Sultanate of Brunei, to crush the power of the Kingdom of Tondo and the subsequent installation of the Pro-Islamic Rajah Sulaiman into power. Furthermore, Sultan Bolkiah's victory over Sulu and Seludong, as well as his marriages to Laila Mecanai, the daughter of Sulu Sultan Amir Ul-Ombra, and to the daughter of Datu Kemin, widened Brunei's influence in the Philippines.

Malays played a role in pre-Hispanic Philippine history. Malay involvement in Philippine history goes back to the Classical Era with the establishment of Rajahnates as well as the Islamic era, in which various sultanates and Islamic states were formed in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago.

Warfare in pre-colonial Philippines refers to the military history of the Philippines prior to Spanish colonization.

In the Philippine languages, the Filipino honorific styles and titles are a complex system of titles and honorifics, which are used extensively during pre-colonial era, mostly the Tagalogs and Visayans borrowed the Malay language systems of honorifics specially the Moro peoples of Mindanao based on the Indianised Sanskritised Indian honorifics system, in addition to the Chinese systems of honorifics in like the Ma-i (Mindoro) and the Pangasinan. Indian influence is evidenced by the titles of historical figures such as Rajah Sulayman, Lakandula and Dayang Kalangitan. Malay titles are still used by the royal houses of Sulu, Maguindanao, Maranao and Iranun on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, but these are retained on a traditional basis as the 1987 Constitution explicitly reaffirms the abolition of royal and noble titles in the republic.

References

↑ Malkiel-Jirmounsky, Myron (1939). "The Study of The Artistic Antiquities of Dutch India". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Harvard-Yenching Institute. 4 (1): 59–68. doi:10.2307/2717905. JSTOR 2717905.
↑ Day, Tony & Reynolds, Craig J. (2000). "Cosmologies, Truth Regimes, and the State in Southeast Asia". Modern Asian Studies. Cambridge University Press. 34 (1): 1–55. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00003589. JSTOR 313111.
↑ Tiongson, Jaime (2006-11-29). "Pailah is Pila, Laguna". Archived from the original on 2012-07-07. Retrieved 2008-02-05.^{[ unreliable source? ]}
↑ Santos, Hector (1996-10-26). "The Laguna Copperplate Inscription". Archived from the original on 2014-11-21. Retrieved 7 October 2014.
↑ "Borneo History: Raja Bongsu of Sulu - A Brunei Hero in His Times by Robert Nicholl". 2017-10-09.
↑ Manansala, Paul. "The Philippines and the sandalwood trade in the late pre-colonial and colonial periods".

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[myron-1] Malkiel-Jirmounsky, Myron (1939). "The Study of The Artistic Antiquities of Dutch India". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Harvard-Yenching Institute. 4 (1): 59–68. doi:10.2307/2717905. JSTOR 2717905.

[2] Day, Tony & Reynolds, Craig J. (2000). "Cosmologies, Truth Regimes, and the State in Southeast Asia". Modern Asian Studies. Cambridge University Press. 34 (1): 1–55. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00003589. JSTOR 313111.

[3] Tiongson, Jaime (2006-11-29). "Pailah is Pila, Laguna". Archived from the original on 2012-07-07. Retrieved 2008-02-05.^{[ unreliable source? ]}

[santos-4] Santos, Hector (1996-10-26). "The Laguna Copperplate Inscription". Archived from the original on 2014-11-21. Retrieved 7 October 2014.

[5] "Borneo History: Raja Bongsu of Sulu - A Brunei Hero in His Times by Robert Nicholl". 2017-10-09.

[6] Manansala, Paul. "The Philippines and the sandalwood trade in the late pre-colonial and colonial periods".