Miguel Lopez de Legazpi: Writings and the colonization of the Philippines.

Abstract

Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. Writings and the colonization of the Philippines by explores the nature of the initial conquest of the Philippines undertaken by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi from his arrival to the archipelago in 1565 to his demise on August 20, 1572. The conquest of the Philippines, long praised as having been predicated on pacific means rather than military force, presents the fields of Spanish colonial literature and history with a unique endeavor. It was a product of diverse, yet related factors: Spanish political and legal traditions, earlier conquest, settlement and missionary experiences in the Americas and the cultural structures existing in the Philippines at the moment of Spanish contact. This study, then, undertakes to reconsider the Peninsular, American and Asian environments that determined the tenor of Legazpi's conquest and to examine official documents that reported Spanish-native interaction. A thorough examination of primary as well as secondary source material has been central to this thesis in considering the political and legal grounds on which late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Spanish territorial expansion continued. That is, I have studied not only more recent analyses of Spanish colonial literature and history, but also works written before and during the sixteenth century responding either directly or indirectly to the concerns and problems occasioned by the conquests. Close readings of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi's own accounts of the conquest of the Philippines have been indispensable to this inquiry and attempt to determine the nature of his 'pacific conquest'. Consequently, I have given considerable weight and attention to his official correspondence which comprises the second volume of this study. While it may seem inherently contradictory to contend that any sixteenth-century Spanish conquest was predicated on peaceful means, I conclude that Miguel Lopez de Legazpi's introduction of Spanish authority in the Philippines was a relatively pacific endeavor. It was an exceptional conquest effected primarily by peaceful overtures toward native inhabitants of the archipelago in contrast to the military force used in the Americas.