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Battle of Mactan



 
 
The Battle of Mactan was fought in the Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
 on April 27, 1521. The warriors of Lapu-Lapu
Lapu-Lapu

Lapu-Lapu was the king of Mactan, an island in the Visayas, Philippines, who is known as the first native of the archipelago to have resisted Spain colonization....
, a native chieftain of Mactan Island
Mactan Island

Mactan is an island located a few kilometers to the southeast of Cebu in the Philippine Islands. The island is part of the Cebu, and is divided into Lapu-Lapu City, and the municipality of Cordova, Cebu....
, defeated Spanish
Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
 soldiers under the command of Portuguese
Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
 explorer Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese people List of maritime explorers who, while in the service of the Spanish Crown, tried to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia....
.






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Ph Locator Cebu Mactan
Magellanmonument
The Battle of Mactan was fought in the Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
 on April 27, 1521. The warriors of Lapu-Lapu
Lapu-Lapu

Lapu-Lapu was the king of Mactan, an island in the Visayas, Philippines, who is known as the first native of the archipelago to have resisted Spain colonization....
, a native chieftain of Mactan Island
Mactan Island

Mactan is an island located a few kilometers to the southeast of Cebu in the Philippine Islands. The island is part of the Cebu, and is divided into Lapu-Lapu City, and the municipality of Cordova, Cebu....
, defeated Spanish
Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
 soldiers under the command of Portuguese
Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
 explorer Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese people List of maritime explorers who, while in the service of the Spanish Crown, tried to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia....
. The Battle of Mactan is commemorated by a memorial monument, known as the Mactan Shrine, in honor of Rajah Lapu-Lapu, and Ferdinand Magellan.

History


Background

By the 15th century, Portuguese
Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
 explorers had found a way around the Islamic kingdoms which held control of the trade routes overland to the spices of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
, which was to round the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headlands and bays on the Atlantic Ocean coast of South Africa. There is a very common misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa and the dividing point between the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Oceans, but in fact the southernmost point is Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres t...
 of Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
, through the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
, and then to the Spice Islands.

Magellan was assigned to Portuguese Goa
Goa

Goa is India's smallest states and territories of India in terms of area and the List of states and territories of India by population. Located on the west coast of India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its western...
 in India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 for military training at the age of 20 years old, and soon divined that geography was a key to the riches of Southeast Asia. After a voyage to the area, he indenture
Indentured servant

An indentured servant is a form of debt bondage worker. The laborer is under contract of an employer for usually three to seven years, in exchange for their transportation, food, drink, clothing, lodging and other necessities....
d a Malayan servant, Enrique, whom he would employ as an interpreter during his voyage around the globe. Enrique was actually taken from his home islands, captured by Sumatra
Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the list of islands by area in the world ....
n slavers, taken to Malacca
Malacca

Malacca is the third smallest States of Malaysia, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Strait of Malacca....
, and later baptized
Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which one is admitted as a full member of the Christian Church and, in the view of some, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered....
.

After Magellan landed on the island of Homonhon
Homonhon Island

Homonhon Island is an island in the Provinces of the Philippines of Eastern Samar, Philippines, on the west side of Leyte Gulf. It is about 20 km long....
 on March 17, 1521, he parleyed with Rajah Calambu (or Kolambu) of Limasawa, who guided him to Cebu, on April 7. Communicating through his interpreter, Enrique, Magellan befriended Rajah Humabon
Rajah Humabon

Rajah Humabon was the main Raja of Cebu island in the Philippines at the time of Ferdinand Magellan's arrival in the archipelago in 1521. There are no official written accounts of his existence prior to the Spanish arrival, but extensive narration by cartographer Antonio Pigafetta was made on Humabon and Philippine society prior to the implem...
 also known as Rajah Hamabar, the tribal chief of Cebu, and he and his queen were baptized into the Catholic
Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its Theology and doctrines, its Catholic liturgy, Ethics, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
 faith, taking the Christian
Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
 names Carlos and Juana. Magellan gave Juana the Santo Niņo as a symbol of the alliance. Impressed by Magellan's armament (consisting of guns, swords, armor, 12 cannons, and 50 crossbows), Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula convinced Magellan to go to the nearby island of Mactan and kill rival chieftain Lapu-Lapu
Lapu-Lapu

Lapu-Lapu was the king of Mactan, an island in the Visayas, Philippines, who is known as the first native of the archipelago to have resisted Spain colonization....
. It is widely believed that Rajah Humabon, and Rajah Lapu-Lapu were enemies, and were constantly fighting for control of territory.

The battle

According to the accounts of Antonio Pigafetta
Antonio Pigafetta

Antonio Pigafetta , was a Republic of Venice scholar born in Vicenza. He was engaged to accompany and assist the Portugal captain Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish crew on their trip to the Maluku Islands....
, Magellan deployed 48 armored men, less than half his crew, with swords, axes, shields, crossbows and guns. Filipino historians note that because of the rocky outcroppings and corals near the beach, he could not land on Mactan. Forced to anchor his ships far from shore, Magellan could not bring his ships' firepower to bear on Lapu-Lapu's warriors, who numbered more than 1,500.

"When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly...


Magellan then tried to scare them off by burning some houses in what is now the Barangay of Buaya, known then as Bulaia.

Seeing that, the captain-general sent some men to burn their houses in order to terrify them. When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury. Two of our men were killed near the houses, while we burned twenty or thirty houses. So many of them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, but the men took to flight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain. The natives shot only at our legs, for the latter were bare; and so many were the spears and stones that they hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance. The mortars in the boats could not aid us as they were too far away.


Many of the warriors turned upon Magellan; he was wounded in the arm with a spear and in the leg by a native sword called "Kampilan
Kampilan

The Kampilan is a type of single-edged long sword from the Philippines, widely used throughout the Geography of the Philippines before the arrival of European colonizers, but now mostly used only by Moro people on the island of Mindanao, notably the Maguindanao people and the Maranao....
". He was finally overpowered and killed, stabbed and hacked by spears and swords. Pigafetta and the others managed to escape.

Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off."


His allies, Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula were said not to have taken part in the battle due to Magellan's bidding, and watched from a distance. There is no record of the official casualties of the event, but it is evident that the Spaniards were defeated by sheer force of numbers.

In Philippine culture

Today, Lapu-Lapu is honored as the first Philippine national hero to resist foreign rule. He is remembered by a number of commemorations: a monument on the island of Mactan, a city bearing his name and a statue at the Cebu Provincial Capitol. Magellan is likewise given the honor of bringing the first vestiges of Spanish colonization to the Philippine Islands. The battle is re-enacted during its anniversary.

A local variety of red grouper
Grouper

For other meanings, see Grouper .Groupers are fish of any of a number of genus in the subfamily Epinephelinae of the family Serranidae, in the order Perciformes....
 is called Lapu-Lapu, named after the chieftain.

Actor-turned-politician Lito Lapid
Lito Lapid

Manuel Mercado Lapid , popularly known as Lito Lapid, is a Filipino people actor, politician and Senator of the Republic of the Philippines....
 made a film called "Lapu-Lapu" that tells the story of the Visayan warrior; and Novelty singer
Novelty song

A novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its Comedy. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs....
 Yoyoy Villame
Yoyoy Villame

Yoyoy Villame born Roman Tesorio Villame, was a Filipino people singer, composer, lyricist, and comedian. Villame was a native of Calape, Bohol and was the father of singer Hannah Villame....
 of Calape, Bohol
Bohol

Bohol is an island Provinces of the Philippines of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas Regions of the Philippines, consisting of Bohol and 75 minor surrounding islands....
 wrote a folk song entitled "Magellan" that tells the story of the Battle of Mactan.

Gallery


See also

  • History of the Philippines
    History of the Philippines

    The History of the Philippines is believed to have begun with the arrival of the first humans via land bridges at least Upper Paleolithic. The first recorded visit from the Western world is the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan on Homonhon Island, southeast of Samar on March 16, 1521....
  • Lapu Lapu shrine
    Lapu Lapu shrine

    The Lapu-Lapu shrine is a 20-meter bronze statue in Punta Enga?o, Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines, erected in honor of Rajah Lapu-Lapu, a native chieftain who defeated Spanish soldiers, and Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the Battle of Mactan on 1521....
  • Magellan shrine
    Magellan shrine

    The Magellan shrine is a large memorial tower erected in honor of the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan. The spot is believed to be the area were Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan on 1521, Philippines....


External links