Lapu Lapu: Truly, The First Philippine Hero
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Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer who became a captain for Spain, aimed to find the Spice Islands as part of his expedition in 1519. During a confrontation with the local ruler Lapu Lapu in the Philippines, Magellan was killed after miscalculations in his battle strategy left him and his men vulnerable. The only ship to survive the expedition returned to Spain with 18 crew members after three years, while Lapu Lapu remained a respected leader in his region.
Lapu Lapu: Truly, The First Philippine Hero
- 1. The Sword and the Cross.
- 2. Magellan is known as a great Spanish explorer, but he was born Portuguese, Fernão de Magalhães, into a family of minor nobility. He had a keen interest in sailing and marine navigation. He worked for years for the Portuguese government in an office that received and archived reports from Portuguese ships.
- 3. He went on several major voyages himself eventually becoming a captain. He enjoyed some favor with the Portuguese monarch, Dom Manuel. But, Magellan fell out of favor with Manuel primarily because of his own arrogance. When King Manuel denied his repeated demands for an unprecedented increase in his salary and, instead, fired him, Magellan defected to Portugal's arch-rival, Spain.
- 4. At the time, Spain and Portugal were the world's two competing super-powers. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI decided to settle the arguments between them by once-and-for-all dividing the world in half. By Papal authority, the eastern half went to Portugal, and the western half to Spain. It seems like an equitable -- if arrogant -- solution. But the Pope's decree didn't exactly specify where the line between the two was to be.
- 5. Magellan proposed to the Spanish king that he, Magellan, would be able to find the line the Pope had described... and find it in such a way as to prove that the "Moluccas," the coveted Spice Islands -- pretty much what we, today, call Indonesia – were within Spanish territory. The king agreed to support Magellan's voyage.With five ships, San Antonio, Santiago, Trinidad, Victoria, and Concepcion, and 280 men, Magellan's Armada de Moluccas departed in September 1519.
- 6. Antonio Pigafetta (c. 1491), was a Venetian scholar born in Vicenza. He was engaged to accompany and assist the Portuguese captain Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish crew on their trip to the Maluku Islands. During the voyage, he kept an accurate journal which later assisted him in translating one of the Philippine Languages, Cebuano. It is the first recorded document concerning this language. Pigafetta belonged to a rich family of Vicenza.In his youth he studied astronomy, geography and cartography. He served on board the ships of the Knight of Rhodes at the beginning of the 16th century.
- 7. About ten years after Magellan's birth in Portugal, on the Philippine island of Mactan, a fine boy was born and named Kolipulako. Legend has it that he was a skilled horseman by age six and could read and write by age seven. By age eighteen, he was a champion swimmer and diver, and a champion boxer and wrestler. By the time Magellan set sail for the Moluccas,Kolipolako was known as Kaliph Pulaka or Lapulapu.He had become the ruler or king of his people, one of several tribes peacefully sharing the island of Mactan.
- 8. The son of Kusgano and Inday Puti; and grandson of a legendary powerful barangay queen, Matang Mantaunas, from which the name of the island of Mactan originated from. Lapulapu’s wife Bulakana, was a beautiful princess, the daughter of Datu Sabtano. Their union produced a son, Sawili.
- 9. On March 16, 1521, the fleet arrived at the island of Homonhon in the Philippines where they met Rajah Kolambu of Limasawa. They stayed with the Rajah (another word for king) for several weeks recovering from the voyage. During those few weeks, the Rajah and all of his people pledged their allegiance to Spain and converted to Christianity at Magellan's urging.
- 10. A modern kampilan is a long, straight sword with a unique, split tip. It is traditionally a warrior's sword and also used for beheadings. The split tip makes it a poor sword for stabbing, but stabbing is not what it's used for. The split tip is used as a sort of fork to pick the victim's head up after cutting it off.
- 11. Magellan heard that the kings on the nearby island of Mactan had decided that they would not acknowledge the King of Spain nor convert to Christianity. So, Magellan and a small army of warriors from Cebu, who had traditional rivalries with Mactan, headed to Mactan to teach the rebellious Mactans a lesson.
- 12. Filipino legend has it that Lapu Lapu personally killed Magellan. The account written by Antonio Pigafetta doesn't exactly support that. Magellan and Pigafetta had met Lapu Lapu before the battle. He was personally known to both of them. Pigafetta claims that he personally eye-witnessed Magellan's death.
- 13. While Pigafetta didn't report who killedMagellan, he did report in detail how it was done. Magellan's legs were cut off at the knee and then he was beheaded. Pigafetta even recorded the weapon used: Magellan was killed with a Filipino warrior's sword called a Kampilan.
- 14. Searching for a way to control the native population after he leaves the island, Magellan persuades one of the local chiefs to convert to Christianity (referred to by Antonio as the "Christian King"). Magellan hopes to make this chieftain supreme over the remaining local tribes and loyal to the King of Spain. To bolster this chief's local supremacy, Magellan decides that a show of force, particularly the power of his muskets and cannon, against a neighboring tribe will impress the natives into submission. Magellan orders an attack but miscalculates. He does not take into account that the reefs along the island's beach will not allow his ships to get into effective range for their cannon. As the battle is joined along the beach, the Spanish fire their muskets ineffectively from too far a distance despite Magellan's attempt to order his crew to cease-fire. Emboldened, the natives rush into the water flinging spears at the unprotected legs and feet of the Spanish. The crew abandons Magellan in panic and the Captain is soon overwhelmed:
- 15. "When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries.“ they "leaped about, covered by their shields... shooting so many arrows and hurling so many bamboo spears (some tipped with iron) that we were put on the defensive,"
- 16. "He ordered us to withdraw slowly, but the men fled while six or eight of us remained with the captain. And these people shot at no other place but our legs, for the latter were bare. Thus for the great number of lances and stones they threw and discharged at us we could not resist. Our large pieces of artillery that were in the ships could not help us, because they were firing at too long range."
- 17. "But as a good captain and a knight, he still stood fast with some others, fighting thus for more than an hour. And as he refused to retire further, an Indian threw a bamboo lance in his face, and the captain immediately killed him with his lance, leaving it in his body. Then, trying to lay a hand on his sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because of a wound from a bamboo lance that he had in his arm. Which seeing, all those people threw themselves on him, and one of them with a large javelin thrust it into his left leg, whereby he fell face downward.
- 18. On this, all at once rushed upon him with lances of iron and bamboo and with these javelins, so that they slew 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. Then, seeing him dead, we wounded made the best of our way to the boats, which were already pulling away. But for him, not one of us in the boats would have been saved, for while he was fighting the rest retired."*
- 19. Victoria alone finally did return to Spain with only18 surviving crew. Their harrowing voyage, the first recorded circumnavigation of the earth, had taken three years. Lapulapu was to live the rest of his life as a free man. All the other chieftains including Humabon paid him with utmost respect since then. And as for the large cross which was given as a gift of Magellan to the Cebuanos, it was eventually chopped as firewood.
- 20. Towards the end of that same year, 1521, the King of Cebu received a letter from Hernan Cortes, which should have been addressed to Lapulapu instead. Ambeth Ocampo summed it up as an admission by Cortes that Magellan had, indeed, went beyond his orders and deserved his fate; blaming it on the man’s egocentricity and overzealousness. Cortes also offered a ransom to any Spanish held captive from that battle. He wrote, “And in order that you and all the other kings and signors of those districts to give you satisfaction for it, the emperor, our Lord, will be much pleased if you will deliver to the captain any of the Spaniards who are still alive in your prison. If you wish a ransom for it, he shall give it to you at your pleasure and to your satisfaction; and in addition you will receive favors from me …” Regrettably, there were no Spanish survivors left; Lapulapu and his men sold them off as slaves to the Chinese traders.