Battle of Manila (1570)

Siege of Manila
Part of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines
Date May 24, 1570 Location Manila, Maynila Result Decisive Spanish victory
Belligerents
Spanish Empire	Rajahnate of Maynila
Commanders and leaders
Martin de Goiti	Rajah Sulayman

The Battle of Manila (1570) was fought in Manila between the native Filipinos led by Rajah Sulayman and the Spaniards led by Martin de Goiti, Maestro de Campo on May 24, 1570. The forces under Goiti were victorious and as a result, Manila became the capital of the Spanish East Indies.

By the late 1560s, Miguel López de Legazpi was already searching for a more suitable place to establish the Spanish colonial capital, having found first Cebu and then Iloilo undesirable because insufficient food supplies and attacks by Portuguese pirates. He was in Cebu when he first heard about a well-supplied, fortified settlement to the north, and sent messages of friendship to its ruler, Rajah Matanda, whom he addressed as "King of Luzon." In 1570, Legazpi put Martin de Goiti in command of an expedition north to Manila and tasked him with negotiating the establishment of a Spanish fort there.

De Goiti arrived in May 1570, anchored at Cavite on the mouth of Manila Bay. He was initially well received by Maynila's ruler Rajah Matanda, who, as former commander of the Naval forces of Brunei, had already had dealings with the Magellan expedition in late 1521. Negotiations broke down, however, when another ruler, Rajah Sulayman, arrived and began treating the Spanish belligerently, saying that the Tagalog people would not surrender their freedoms as easily as the "painted" Visayans did. The accounts of the De Goiti mission report that Tondo's ruler, Lakandula, sought to participate in these negotiations early on, but De Goiti intentionally ignored Lakandula because he wanted to focus on Maynila, which Legaspi wanted to use as a headquarters because it was already fortified, whereas Tondo was not.

By May 24, negotiations had broken down, and according to the Spanish accounts, their ships fired their cannon as a signal for the expedition boats to return. Whether or not this claim was true, the rulers of Maynila perceived this to be an attack and as a result, Sulayman ordered an attack on the Spanish forces still within the city. The battle was very brief because it concluded with the settlement of Maynila being set ablaze.

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