Latest / The Rise of Colonialism: How Europe Divided the World — Fexingo History / The Moro Pirates: How the Philippines Resisted Spanish Rule
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- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about how the Spanish built their empire—from Tenochtitlan to Manila. But there's one place where Spanish rule never really took hold, and it's a region that frustrated them for over three centuries. Luna: The southern Philippines, right? The Moro sultanates. Lucas: Exactly. Ever since the Spanish arrived in the 1560s, they ran into resistance from the Muslim communities in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. The Spanish called them 'Moros'—a reference to the Moors of North Africa—and they waged a series of conflicts known as the Moro Wars that stretched from 1565 all the way to the end of Spanish rule in 1898. Luna: That's incredible. Why couldn't the Spanish conquer them like they did the Aztecs or Incas? Lucas: Several reasons. First, the Moros weren't a single centralized empire. They were organized into sultanates—the most powerful being Sulu and Maguindanao. And they were highly adept at maritime warfare. They built fast, maneuverable warships called barangays and used them for raids, which kept the Spanish off balance. Plus, they had a strong Islamic faith that unified them against Christian colonizers. Luna: So it was a kind of holy war for both sides? Lucas: In many ways, yes. The Spanish saw it as an extension of the Reconquista—the centuries-long campaign to expel Muslims from Spain. They brought that same crusading mentality to the Philippines. But the Moros were just as determined. And they had a powerful weapon: the slave trade. Moro raiders would attack Spanish-controlled towns in Luzon and the Visayas, capturing Filipinos and selling them in the slave markets of Sulu and even as far away as the Dutch East Indies. Luna: So it was a piracy economy, essentially. Lucas: The Spanish certainly called it piracy—'Moro piracy'—but it was more complex. For the Moros, raiding was a legitimate form of warfare and a source of revenue. And they were very good at it. By the early 1600s, the Spanish were so alarmed that they built a massive fortress in Zamboanga, on the southwestern tip of Mindanao, to try to block Moro raids. Luna: Did that work? Lucas: Not really. The Moros simply adapted. They bypassed the fort or attacked when the garrison was weak. And they found allies among the Dutch, who were eager to undermine Spanish power in the region. The Dutch East India Company, or VOC, supplied the sultanates with firearms and even helped them build fortifications. So the Moro resistance was part of a larger global struggle between Spain and the Netherlands. Luna: So the Moros played the Spanish and Dutch against each other. Lucas: Exactly. One of the most famous Moro leaders was Sultan Kudarat of Maguindanao, who ruled from 1619 to 1671. He was a brilliant diplomat and military commander. He forged alliances with the Dutch and with neighboring sultanates, and he repeatedly defeated Spanish expeditions sent to subdue him. In 1635, the Spanish governor-general, Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, personally led a campaign against Kudarat. He managed to capture the fort at Lamitan, but Kudarat escaped and continued the fight. Luna: So the Spanish never got a decisive victory? Lucas: They had occasional successes. Corcuera later launched a massive assault on the Sulu sultanate and captured Jolo, the capital, in 1638. But the Spanish couldn't hold it permanently. Moro resistance was too diffuse and too mobile. By the 1660s, the Spanish had essentially given up on conquering Mindanao and settled for a policy of containment—building a chain of forts and trying to suppress raids. Luna: It sounds like the Moro Wars were a stalemate. Lucas: In many ways, yes. The Moros maintained their independence right up until the American occupation in the early 1900s. And the conflict left deep scars. The Spanish built a narrative of the Moros as savage pirates, while the Moros saw the Spanish as infidel invaders. That legacy continues to shape the Philippines today, with ongoing tensions between the Muslim south and the Christian north. Luna: I never realized the Spanish had such a hard time in the Philippines. It's always presented as a success story. Lucas: The Spanish did succeed in converting much of the lowland Philippines, but the highlands and the Muslim south were a different story. It's a reminder that colonial power was never absolute. Even at the height of the Spanish empire, there were places where the sword and the cross failed to make inroads. Luna: And the Moros were one of those places. Lucas: For centuries, yes. And that's a story we don't hear often enough.