BRIDGING THE GAP
Engagements between the 'Bisaya' and the 'Moro' during the early Spanish period
The term "Bisaya" is derived from the word "Bisayas" or "Visayas" which denotes the inhabitants of the islands of central Philippines. All throughout most parts of the Spanish period, the people were generally called "Bisaya". By the beginning of the 20th century, the Bisaya had been grouped into the more geographic and administrative labels as Boholanos, Cebuanos, Ilonggos and Warays.
"Moro", on the other hand, is used here in its historical context as coined by the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. The term was originally used by the Spaniards to refer to the North African Muslims, especially from Mauritania and Morocco, with whom they contested control of the Iberian peninsula. When the Spanish colonizers arrived in the Philippines and found the inhabitants of the south professing Islam, they also called the latter as "Moros". Such term is so well-established in Spanish and American literatures in the Philippines and has been carried forward to the present.
When Fernao Magalhaes landed in the Philippines in 1521, the Sultanates of Mindanao and Sulu were working to extend their rule to the coastal points of the Visayas and Luzon. If the Spaniards had not come on time, it is likely that Panay Island and the rest of the archipelago would have been Islamized. Due to the conquest by the Spaniards, Moro ambitions were thwarted, and a long sanguinary struggle insued, with the Christianized natives, like the Bisaya, caught in-between.
The first recorded clash between the Moros and the Españoles occured in Visayan waters in 1569 (Montero 1888). Moros from Jolo and Borneo in 20 vintas attacked the villages of the Visayas. Legaspi dispatched Martin de Goiti with nine vessels and the latter engaged the Moros in naval combat and drove them away.
The following year, Capitan Juan de Salcedo, aided by his Bisaya allies fought the Moros in Mindoro (Blair & Robertson 1903-1909). Three years later, the same Spanish conquistador who subdued the inhabitants of the Bicol Peninsula, crossed over Catanduanes and destroyed the Moro stronghold there. This feat was accomplished through the help of Bisaya warriors (Ibid).
The widening of these so-called "Moro Wars" or the conflict between the Muslims and the Spaniards in the Philippines occurred as early as 1578 when the Spaniards launched their first expedition to the south due to the "necessity of opposing raids, outrages, piratical expeditions, and differences in religion."(Landor 1904). In that year, Spanish governor-general Francisco de Sande successfully aided the Borneans against the Moros of Mindanao. He sent some of his ships to attack Jolo and put the Moros under Spanish vassalage.
The initial Spanish expedition to the south in 1578 was followed by other well-publicized expeditions, many of which were organized in Iloilo. In 1596, Capitan Rodriguez de Figueroa left Iloilo with a large force of 1,500 Bisaya, 214 Spaniards and 2 Jesuits (Morga 1606). He landed at the mouth of the Rio Grande in Cotabato and marched from there to Buhayen where he encountered bitter resistance from Datu Sirongan (Silonga in other records) and the Maguindanao Moros. In one of the skirmishes, Figueroa was killed. (Montero 1888)
On the part of the Moros, they were active in attacking coastal areas of Panay and other parts of the Visayas that were under Spanish control. In 1599, two Moro chieftains, Sali and Sirongan of the Maguindanao confederacy, fitted out a fleet of 500 boats and 3,000 men and plundered the coastal towns of Panay, Negros and Cebu (Zaide 1957).
These periodic attacks and counter-attacks between the Spaniards, with their Bisaya allies, on the one hand, and the Moros, on the other, became the essential character of the so-called "Moro Wars" that lasted up to the middle part of the 19th century.