The Philippines consists of over 7,000 islands inhabited by over 100 million people. The archipelago has, for thousands of years, been the natural melting pot of Asia. Through the ages, immigrants and adventurers from all over East Asia and as far afield as India and the Middle East have all found their way to the Philippines. Shaped by the geography, the earliest cultures to form in the Philippine archipelago were small bands of independent and skilled seafarers.
Between approximately 2,000 and 1,500 years ago, many mountains and hills were transformed into terraced farmland. Many still in use today are fed by ancient sophisticated irrigation systems channeling water down from the rainforests above the terraces. And it is said that the steps put end to end would encircle half the globe. The Sahawin culture is one of the best early examples of extensive trade, cultural ties, and possibly immigration into the Philippine archipelago. Objects made from gold and glass, bronze weapons, tools, and mirrors were imported from the mainland.
Throughout this cultural region, similar art and jewelry was crafted, and the cremation of the dead was ubiquitous. The Sahawin culture is thought to be the predecessors of the Cham people of Vietnam, who formed a venerable kingdom. From the period approximately from 300 AD to 1000, large numbers of melees, migrating from, or possibly fleeing, the rapidly expanding Srivijaya Empire, began to populate the Philippines.
During this period, the aboriginal Melanesian populations of the archipelago moved further inland to the highlands and jungles where they still exist today, or intermingled with the successive waves of Malay newcomers who brought two Indian religions, Buddhism and Hinduism to the archipelago. Society became stratified into groups of 100 families or more called Barangays, each led by a headman or datu. Several datus were led by a raja. who led several barangays called a bayan. These kingdoms became extremely wealthy and had trade relations with the entire eastern world.
Paramount among these seems to have been the cosmopolitan city-state and trading hub of Tondo, located on the island of Luzon. The earliest written record discovered in the Philippines, the Laguna Copper Plate Inscription, mentions the state of Tondo and is written in a script combining elements of Sanskrit, Uljavanese, Malay, and Tagalog. The Barangays of Tondo were led by a Lakhan instead of a Raja and were democratically selected from among the Datus of each Barangay. Tondo expanded to control much of the island of Luzon, forming alliances and striking trade bargains to expand their territory just as often as through warfare.
Formed from several ethnic groups, the Ifugoa and the highlands of Luzon formed the longest lasting state in the Philippines. This self-sufficient, landlocked state lasted for over a thousand years, and was ruled over by a council of elders. Several other long-lasting states formed throughout the Middle Ages, including Mai, who held diplomatic relations with Song Dynasty China, until Tondo secured a monopoly on trade with China in the archipelago. The Madhaas Confederacy was originally a vassal state of the Srivijayan Empire.
They would wage war on the Chinese Imperial Navy and raided the southern Chinese coast. They also... were Tondo's most significant rival in the region and fought several wars against them.
Here the longest and oldest surviving epic poem from the region was composed, recounting the deeds of an ancient hero. The Rajne of Cebu was founded by a minor prince of the southern Indian Chola dynasty that occupied the island of Sumatra of Vardar the south. He was sent to establish an expeditionary base. Instead, he rebelled and carved out an independent Rajneet for himself. The Rajneet of Bhutan was known for its mining of gold, its gold products, and its and extensive trade networks, reaching the civilizations of modern-day China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Persia, Cambodia, and Thailand.
During this period, large gold deposits were discovered throughout the Philippines, and gold ingots and bracelets of different sizes were commonly used as currency throughout the region. The Kingdom of Kabilawan was a Ming Dynasty tributary, and as time went on, they had an increasingly hostile relationship with Tondo. In the early 1400s, the Sunni Islamic Bruneian Empire began to expand into the Philippine Archipelago. and around the year 1500 established the semi-independent Rajanate of Maynila as a competitor to Tondo's maritime dominance in the region. Built directly across Tondo on the opposite banks of the Pasig River Delta, Maynila would gradually supplant Tondo which fell under increasing Bruneian influence.
The Sultanate of Maguindanao formed in the south, ruled over by a hereditary line of sultans that maintained very favorable relations with the Dutch and English for over three centuries until finally falling to the the Spaniards in the 19th century. In 1521, a Spanish expedition that would go on to be the first to circumnavigate the planet reached the Philippines. It was led by the Portuguese, Fernão de Mahalás. The Raja of Cebu declared allegiance to the Spanish crown and converted to Catholicism.
The nearby small island of Mactan was not as amicable and killed Fernão as they disembarked with a small attack force on the island. The Spaniards left but would return quickly, sending five subsequent expeditions, and in 1543, Roy López de Villalobos renamed the islands Las Filipinas after Philip II of Spain. During the conquest of Manila, much of the city was burnt to the ground, and the Spanish settlement of Manila was founded there as the capital of the Spanish East Indies. In 1578, the Sulu Sultanate, a longtime vassal of the declining Empire Brunei, became fully independent and would become a longtime foe of the Spanish.
The Sultanate of Sulu became notorious for the so-called Moro raids, pillaging and taking of slaves. The Spanish would burn down their cities several times. only to have new bases of operations sprout up on different islands.
By the mid-1600s, Manila was a bustling port city, as galleons crisscrossed the Pacific Ocean, leaving from Acapulco, in modern-day Mexico, filled with silver, mined there and in Potosi, and returning from Manila, filled with luxury goods such as porcelain, silk, and spices. Spanish territory would slowly expand, defeating a series of Dutch attempts to seize Manila. The British did seize it, for a short while during the Seven Years War, only to return it after the war had ended and the treaty stipulated that they do so.
Over the centuries of Spanish rule, Spanish became the primary language used in the Philippines. Many of the regional dialects and scripts completely disappeared over time. Following the Spanish-American War and period of US military rule, the Philippines became an American territory and in 1935 became an American Commonwealth.
During the brutal Japanese occupation of the Philippines in the Second World War, 500,000 to a million Filipino civilians were killed. In 1943, the Japanese set up a short-lived puppet state. After the war, the Philippines returned to being an American commonwealth. And in 1946, a Philippine Republic was established, which was replaced by the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled as a dictator under martial law from 1972 until 1981. and held the position of president for over 20 years. His regime was infamous for its corruption, extravagance, and brutality.
Eventually, public outrage boiled over, and in a snap election, he was removed from power and fled to Hawaii. He was replaced by Maria Corazon Aquino, the wife of a murdered opposition leader who returned to face Marcos. She has been followed by five more Philippine presidents. And that was a lightning-fast overview of Philippine history. And this has been Epimetheus.
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