Captaincy General of the Philippines

The Captaincy General of the Philippines was the government of the Spanish Empire in the Philippine Islands and Spain's other Pacific possessions, among them the Mariana and Caroline Islands, from the first permanent Spanish settlement in 1565 until 1898. Headed by a governor-general, for most of its history it was governed from Mexico City as a dependent territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and from 1821 directly from Madrid. Its rule shaped the religion, language and institutions of the modern Philippines.

The Spanish first came with the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, who crossed the Pacific, touched at Guam in March 1521 and was killed in the Philippines at the Battle of Mactan. Permanent settlement began in 1565, when Miguel López de Legazpi arrived from New Spain, claimed Guam and built the first Spanish base on Cebu. Fearing Portuguese attacks, the Spanish moved their headquarters to Panay in 1569, and from there launched the conquest of Luzon in 1570. Manila, taken soon afterwards, became the capital, replacing Cebu by 1595. The captaincy general was formally created in 1574, and a royal court, the Audiencia of Manila, followed in 1584.

At the top stood the governor-general, who answered to the king through the Council of the Indies, commanded the army and navy, presided over the Audiencia and oversaw church appointments. He was usually born in Spain to secure his loyalty. In the early decades conquerors, friars and native nobles were granted encomiendas, the right to collect tribute from the inhabitants in return for protection and governance; after widespread abuses this system was largely replaced by provinces under an alcalde mayor by around 1700. Scattered villagers were resettled into towns built around a plaza with a church. Towns were run by a gobernadorcillo drawn from the principalía, the old native nobility, and villages by a cabeza de barangay. Filipinos owed an annual tribute and, along with Chinese immigrants, a period of forced labour each year known as polo y servicio.

For two and a half centuries the colony's economy rested on the Manila galleons, which sailed between Manila and Acapulco from 1565 until 1815. Silver from the Americas bought Chinese silk and porcelain, spices from the Moluccas and Japanese lacquerware, which were shipped on to New Spain, Peru and Europe. The exchange also brought crops and animals from the Americas, including tomatoes, avocados, papayas, pineapples and horses.

Spanish rule faced repeated indigenous revolts and attacks by Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and British forces; Britain occupied Manila from 1762 to 1764. The Muslim sultanates of the south resisted for centuries, and Sulu recognised Spanish sovereignty only in the late nineteenth century, while the mountains of northern Luzon and inland Mindanao were never fully brought under control. After Mexico's independence in 1821 the islands were governed from Madrid. In the nineteenth century tensions grew as Spanish-born officials displaced those born in the islands, contributing to the unrest of 1872, notably the Cavite mutiny and the Gomburza executions. Filipinos studying in Europe, among them José Rizal, led a reform movement calling for representation in the Spanish parliament.

The secret society Katipunan, led by Andrés Bonifacio, launched the Philippine Revolution in August 1896. Leadership passed to Emilio Aguinaldo, and a truce was signed in 1897. When the Spanish–American War broke out in 1898, an American squadron defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on 1 May, and Aguinaldo declared independence on 12 June. Spain did not recognise it, and in the Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 December 1898, ceded the Philippines to the United States for $20 million. The short-lived First Philippine Republic followed.

Our maps label the islands simply as "Philippines" and draw this territory on the 1650, 1700, 1715, 1783, 1800, 1815, 1878 and 1880 maps, all within the captaincy general's real span of 1565–1898.