Chapter 25
Rajah Sulayman
Maynila
Rajah Sulayman ruled Maynila, a walled trading town at the mouth of the Pasig River, with his uncle, who also bore the title of rajah. In May 1570 he made a blood compact with Martín de Goiti, but fighting broke out on 24 May; the Spaniards stormed the palisade, and the town burned.
What did Rajah Sulayman say to the Spaniards?
According to the Spanish account of 1570, he told Martín de Goiti that he was pleased to be the friend of the Spaniards, “but the latter should understand that the Moros were not painted Indians,” and that they “would repay with death the least thing that touched their honor.”
May 1570
Manila Bay is so wide that it looks like an inland sea. The fleet anchors in a sheltered cove two leagues from the town, on the advice of Mahomete, a man of Maynila who has traded with the Spaniards for years at Cebu and has lately been baptised. His brother goes ahead to ask for peace with the town’s ruler, Rajah Sulayman, “the greatest chief of all that country.”
He comes back with his own uncle, a servant of the king, as envoy. With grand words the envoy says that the king of Maynila would be glad to have the Spaniards settle in his land, as they have in Cebu and Panay. Goiti sails for the town at once. All along the coast people come out in boats to complain that Sulayman has raided their villages.
Maynila stands on the bank of a river behind a palisade, with guns at its gates and gunners standing by with lighted matches. Crowds fill the shore. Four Chinese junks lie off the town, and their merchants row out to Goiti with brandy, hens, rice and silk, and complaints that the people of Maynila have taken their rudders and goods.
May 1570
The two sides meet at the edge of the water. First comes an older man with a large following, the rajah’s uncle, who also bears the title of king; he embraces Goiti warmly. Then comes the younger man, Sulayman.
He is pleased to be the friend of the Spaniards, he says, “but the latter should understand that the Moros were not painted Indians.” They would not put up with mistreatment, as others had; they “would repay with death the least thing that touched their honor.”
The next day he sends word that he has heard the Spaniards mean to demand tribute, and will not let them enter the river. Goiti goes into the fort alone, with only his interpreters, to talk. There, in a house, he makes a compact of blood with both rajahs, uncle and nephew. They drink his blood mixed with wine, and he drinks theirs. The Maynila people will feed any Spaniards who settle there, and pay no other tribute. They give him the names of forty towns around the bay.
24 May 1570
Nobody lays down their weapons. Friendly rowers warn Goiti that the Maynila men plan to attack at the first rain, when the Spaniards’ matchlocks will not fire. On the morning of 24 May the guns of the fort open up on the Spanish ships. One ball goes through the side of Goiti’s junk.
The Spaniards charge the palisade, cut down the gunners before they can reload, and take the town, then set it on fire. The people flee up the river and across the bay, among hundreds of boats. Around a hundred are killed and eighty captured. The Spaniards seize thirteen guns. The rain the defenders were waiting for comes only when the town is ashes.
The prisoners say the young Sulayman fired the first shot himself. Living in the town, the Spaniards find, were forty Chinese families and twenty Japanese. And next to Sulayman’s house is a gun foundry, with moulds of clay and wax for cannon, one of them seventeen feet long.
6 June 1570
On 6 June Goiti takes possession of Luzon for the king. Because the town was won “in lawful and just war,” and Maynila, the people say, is the chief town of the island, he claims the whole of it, has his ensign raise the company’s flag over the captured fort, and the notary writes it all down.
The Chinese merchants, glad to have their rudders back, give the Spaniards white cloths painted with their arms as letters of safe conduct, and promise to come to Panay to trade next year. Then the southwest winds are coming, and Goiti sails for Panay.
Legazpi is not pleased. He had meant to make Maynila his home, and they have burned it.