Colonial war of Spain against Brunei

The colonial war of Spain against Brunei (historically also "Castile War") was a military conflict for supremacy in the region of the South China Sea , the Sulu Sea and the adjacent Malay and Filipino islands between the expansive Spanish colonial empire on the one hand, based in the Philippines and on the other Malay rulers of the Sultanate of Brunei, resident on the north coast of Borneo since the Middle Ages . Both parties were expansive and had steadily expanded their sphere of influence over the centuries. In the middle of the 16th century, these expansions collided in the Malay islands around Borneo and the Sulu Sea, combined with religious conflicts between Islam and Christianity . In the course of the conflict, Brunei lost extensive territories to the colonial powers, but was formally able to maintain its state independence and thus today represents the state that has the longest continuous phase of Islam as the state religion .

background

Since the middle of the 16th century, Europeans wanted to gain a foothold in Southeast Asia , the source of supply for spices. Spain also wanted to spread the acceptance of Christianity, the predominant faith in Europe, if necessary with violence . Since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, land routes from the eastern Mediterranean to Southeast Asia, through Central Asia and the Middle East , have been controlled by the Ottomans , Persians, Arabs, Indians and Malays.

The Portuguese, and later the Spanish, tried to find an alternative route by sea to Southeast Asia so that they could trade spices and other products with the Malays without having to use intermediaries.

The Portuguese in particular realized this project by conquering Malacca , the Southeast Asian hub of the maritime spice trade, after conquering bases on the India route in 1511 , just two years after their arrival in the region. In the conquered regions, the local princes largely became vassals and vicarious agents of the Iberian conquerors.

The Spaniards arrived in the region as early as the beginning of the 16th century with the Magellan Expedition. Their permanent presence in the archipelago that is now part of the Philippines, as well as Spain's intention to spread Christianity, caused serious conflicts with Brunei, which was ruled by Sultan Saiful Rijal , conflicts that eventually led to the (so-called ) "Castile War" led.

At that time Brunei was a loosely connected empire with many local princes, all of whom assigned themselves to the Sultan of Borneo or Brunei, an empire that stretched on the north and north-east coast of the island of Borneo and through family contacts and arranged marriages (in the Sultanate of Jolo) also claimed to rule parts of the Philippines - an empire that, due to the spread of Islam, was the most important regional power with further expansionism - and thus a sharp competitor and opponent of the Spanish colonial rulers in Manila.

Spanish arrival in the Philippines

The Spaniards had landed in the Philippine-Malay region as early as 1521 with the Magellan expedition to Cebu and Borneo, had briefly also proselytized there, but had lost the Christian approach in military conflicts, which then also cost Magellan's life.

From their ports in Mexico , Spain sent several expeditions to the Philippines. In 1565 Miguel López de Legazpi settled in Cebu . For a time, Cebu became the capital of the archipelago and the main trading post. Cebu was also the first city that Christianity took hold.

Because of this, the Spanish aspirations clashed with those of Brunei. Between 1485 and 1521, the Sultanate of Brunei, led by Sultan Bolkiah, established the state of Kota Serudong (also known as the Kingdom of Maynila) as a Brunei puppet state against the local Kingdom of Tondo. Islam continued to be strengthened by the arrival of traders and missionary activities in Southeast Asia from what is now Malaysia and Indonesia in the Philippines.

Despite the influence of Brunei, the various states in the Philippines ultimately simplified Spanish colonization. In 1571, Miguel López de Legazpi from Spain attacked and Christianized Islamic Manila, which then became the capital of the Philippine Islands and also a center of trade and evangelization. The Visayans, people from the Principality, Kedatuan of Madja-as and the Rajahnat or Kingdom of Cebu, who had led against the Sultanate of Sulu and the Kingdom of Maynila before the arrival of the Spaniards , now became allies of the Spaniards against the Sultanate of Brunei.

The outbreak of the "Castilian War" (locally so called) came at a time of religious fervor in Europe and in many parts of the world, when each followed a single state religion. In Spain, the state religion was the Roman Catholic Faith, which forced followers of other faiths such as Jews and Muslims to convert to this religion. Spain, occupied by the Muslims under the Umayyad Caliphate since the 8th century AD, had just ended a 700 year old war to re-Christianize Spain. The long process of reconquest, sometimes by treaty, mostly by war, is known as the reconquista . The hatred of the Spaniards against the Muslims who had once invaded Spain had fueled the "Castilian War" against the Muslim Bruneians.

This war was also the beginning of the Spanish- "Moorish" wars in the Philippines against the Sultanate of Sulu and the Sultanate of Maguindanao in Mindanao - disputes that continue to this day in Mindanao, the Moluccas and other islands of the Malay island world.

Thus the colonial wars of Spain in Southeast Asia are also one of the initial and focal points of the clashes between Christianity and Islam.

The Spanish governor of Manila, Francisco de Sande, had traveled from Mexico in 1576. He sent an official embassy to neighboring Brunei to meet Sultan Saiful Rijal. He explained to the Sultan that he wanted to have good relations with Brunei and asked for permission to spread Christianity in Brunei. At the same time he called for an end to the spread of Islamic faith on the part of Brunei in the Philippines. Sultan Saiful Rijal did not agree to these conditions and also spoke out against the evangelization of the Philippines, which he saw as part of the Dār al-Islām , the Islamic community, and also as his ancestral domain, with the Sultanate of Brunei assuming a certain regional suzerainty and had great respect from other local Islamic princes.

In reality, de Sande viewed the Sultanate of Brunei as a threat to the Spanish presence in the region, claiming that "the Moroz of Borneo preach the teaching of Mahoma and convert all Moroz of the islands".

The war

In 1578 Spain declared war. In March of the same year, the Spanish fleet, led by De Sande himself as captain general, set off for Brunei. The expedition consisted of 400 Spaniards, 1,500 Filipino natives and 300 Borneans. The campaign was one of many other expeditions that also included actions on Mindanao and Sulu.

Spain succeeded in invading Brunei's capital, Kota Batu, on April 16, 1578 with the help of two angry Brunei nobles, Pengiran Seri Lela and Pengiran Seri Ratna. The former had traveled to Manila to offer Brunei as a colonial territory of Spain, also to regain the Brunei throne that had been usurped by his brother Saiful Rijal. Spain agreed to make Pengiran Seri Lela sultan, should it conquer Brunei, and then to make Pengiran Seri Ratna the new Bendahara (vizier, supreme minister).

Sultan Saiful Rijal and Paduka Seri Begawan Sultan Abdul Kahar had to flee to Meragang, then to Jerudong, where they made plans to drive the Spanish conquering army out of Brunei. Meanwhile, Spain suffered heavy losses from a cholera outbreak . Weakened by the disease, they decided to leave Brunei on June 26, 1578 after only 72 days and return to Manila. Before that, they burned down the mosque, a tall building with a five-tier roof.

Pengiran Seri Lela died in August or September 1578, likely of the same disease that afflicted his Spanish allies, although rumors also circulated that he might have been poisoned by the reigning sultan.

Seri Lela's daughter, a princess of Brunei, left the Spanish group and married the Christian Tagalog-Philipino Agustín de Legazpi from Tondo, they had children in the Philippines.

Stories, legends versus historical research

The local accounts, stories and sagas of Brunei differ greatly from the generally accepted historical view of events. The “Castilian War” went down as a heroic episode in the national tales of North Borneo, according to which the highest minister, Bendahara Sakam, allegedly a brother of the ruling sultan, drove out the Spaniards with a thousand local warriors.

However, this version is disputed by most historians and viewed as a “made memory” of a folk hero, probably created decades or centuries later.

The consequences

Despite the withdrawal from Brunei, Spain was able to prevent Brunei from gaining a foothold on the island of Luzon . A few years later, relations improved and Spain began trading with the Sultanate of Brunei. This emerges from a letter dated 1599 from the Governor General of Manila, Don Francisco de Tello de Guzmán, in which he called for the return to normal relationships. The end of the “Castilian War” also enabled Spain to focus on the war against the “Moros”, the Islamic population mainly in Mindanao - a conflict that continues in the Philippines to this day.

The Sultanate of Brunei was no longer to be a large empire at sea and between the islands. It eventually became a city-state, abandoning the previous policy of territorial expansion and having to give the surrounding territory on the north coast of Borneo to James Brooke because of the unrest in the territory of Brunei , until it became one of the smallest nations in the world today.

Brunei's new policy of continued caution in dealing with the European powers enabled Brunei to survive as a state and become the oldest continuously Islamic state.

literature

• Teodoro A. Agoncillo: History of the Filipino People . RP Garcia, 1990, ISBN 978-971-8711-06-4 (English).
• Jeremy Atiyah: Rough guide to Southeast Asia . Rough Guide, 2002, ISBN 978-1-85828-893-2 (English).
• Steve Frankham: Footprint Borneo . Footprint Guides, 2008, ISBN 978-1-906098-14-8 (English).
• Robert Day McAmis: Malay Muslims: the history and challenge of resurgent Islam in Southeast Asia . Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8028-4945-8 (English).
• Eufronio Melo Alip: Political and cultural history of the Philippines, Volumes 1-2 . 1964 (English).
• Oxford Business Group (Ed.): The Report: Brunei Darussalam 2009 . 2009, ISBN 978-1-907065-09-5 (English).
• Graham E. Saunders: A history of Brunei . Routledge, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7007-1698-2 (English).

swell

1. ↑ Pusat Sejarah Brunei ( Malaisch ) Government of Brunei Darussalam. Archived from the original on April 15, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
2. ↑ Agoncillo, 1990, p. 22
3. ↑ McAmis, 2002, p. 35
4. ↑ Nicholl, Robert: European sources for the history of the Sultanate of Brunei in the Sixteenth Century . Muzium Brunei, 1975.
5. ↑ United States. War Dept: Annual reports , Volume 3.Government Printing Office , 1903, p. 379.
6. ↑ McAmis 2002, p. 33
7. ^ Letter from Francisco de Sande to Felipe II, 1578 . Archived from the original on October 14, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 17, 1009. 
8. ↑ Melo Alip, 1964, p = 201, 317
9. ↑ Frankham 2008 p. 278
10. ↑ Atiyah 2002 p. 71
11. ↑ Saunders, 2002, pp. 54-60
12. ↑ Saunders, 2002, p. 57
13. ↑ Saunders, 2002, pp. 57-58
14. ^ Oxford Business Group, 2009, p. 9
15. ^ The era of Sultan Muhammad Hassan . March 1, 2009. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 27, 2019.