Chapter 16
The Treaty
Cebu
On 4 June 1565 Tupas and the chiefs of Cebu made peace with Legazpi and accepted the king of Spain as their lord. The treaty promised help to each other in war, punishment for wrongs done by either side, fixed prices, and no weapons in the Spanish camp, and gave the Spaniards land for their town.
What was the Treaty of Cebu?
The peace made on 4 June 1565 between Miguel López de Legazpi and Tupas, ruler of Cebu, after the Spanish took the town in April. Tupas and his chiefs accepted the king of Spain as their lord, agreed to help the Spaniards in war and to fixed prices for food, and gave them land for a town; Legazpi promised protection, justice for wrongs done by Spaniards, and no tribute for the first year. It is often called the beginning of Spanish rule in the Philippines.
1 June 1565
On 1 June the *San Pedro* sails for New Spain, provisioned for more than eight months. Aboard are about two hundred people: the chief pilot Esteban Rodríguez, the pilot Rodrigo de Espinosa, a few soldiers, and two friars, Urdaneta and Andrés de Aguirre. In command is Legazpi’s grandson, Felipe de Salcedo.
It carries letters to the king and the viceroy, begging for men, guns and supplies. The factor Andrés de Mirandaola writes that “Fray Andrés de Urdaneta, my uncle, is returning, and is going to serve your majesty in this discovery.”
The people left behind watch it go. If it does not reach Mexico, no one there will know where they are, or come to help them.
June 1565
A man comes to the fort from Tupas, and Legazpi sends him back with a message: he is sorry the people are hiding in the mountains; whenever they want to return in peace, they may. He has the two women and two children captured from them, and has treated them well. He will give them back without ransom.
That afternoon two chiefs walk into the fort. They say they are Tupas’s brothers. One of them, Simaquio, is the husband of one of the women and father of the children. He comes to give himself up, and tells Legazpi to do as he likes with him: keep him as a slave, or sell him in Castile. Legazpi lets him see his wife and daughters, and tells him to go and talk peace with Tupas and the other chiefs.
4 June 1565
A few days later Tupas himself comes, and a treaty is made.
The chiefs of Cebu accept the king of Spain as their lord. The man who killed Pedro de Arana must be handed over. If Tupas is attacked, the Spaniards will help him; if the Spaniards ask for warriors, Cebu will send them, and they will share the spoils half and half. A Cebuano who wrongs a Spaniard will be brought to the governor for punishment, and a Spaniard who wrongs a Cebuano will be punished under Spanish law. Runaways will be returned by both sides. Food will be sold at the usual prices, and Spanish goods at fixed ones. And no one may come into the Spanish camp armed.
For the first year, Legazpi says, they need pay no tribute. Then he asks where his men may build their town, and the chiefs give him the point where the camp already stands. He marks the line with trees, and everything outside it “was to remain to the Indians, who could build their houses and till the fields.” Simaquio’s wife and daughters are given back, and the other prisoners freed without ransom, “whereat they expressed great wonder and joy, because it is unusual among them to free prisoners without any ransom.”
June 1565
Slowly the people come back to their houses, and trade begins. One day Tupas tells Legazpi that his wife and daughters would like to meet him. They come in procession, two by two, more than sixty women singing, the wife of Tupas last of all with her arms on the shoulders of two noblewomen. They wear palm-leaf hats and garlands of flowers, gold earrings, armlets and rings, and skirts and shawls of coloured cloth.
A few days later Tupas sends his niece to the Spaniards. After some days of teaching she is baptised Isabel, the first person in the islands to be baptised by Legazpi’s friars. Soon afterwards she marries one of the fleet’s men, a Greek caulker called Master Andrea.