Tondo (historical polity)

Tondo
ᜆᜓᜈᜇᜓ
Barangay state (15th century) Personal union with Namayan through its leaders (1175–1571)
before 900 CE–1589
The district of Tondo, highlighted in sepia on a Detail of the 1819 Map "Plano de la ciudad de Manila, capital de las Yslas Filipinas", prepared by Francisco Xavier de Herrera lo Grabó for the Manila Land Survey Year of 1819. The consensus among contemporary historiographers is that the location of the district during the Spanish colonial period approximates the location of the archaic polity of Tondo.
Capital		Tondo (Now a modern district of Manila)
Languages		Old Tagalog,Kapampangan,Bikol (local languages) Old Malay,Middle Chinese (trade languages)
Religion		Indigenous Tagalog religion, syncretistically adapting elements from Hinduism and Buddhism. Islam was nominally practiced among the "Maginoo" class; and by seagoing traders. Before Islamization, a Majapahit-influenced mix of Hinduism and Buddhism may also have been nominally practiced by the Maginoo class, although the evidence regarding specific beliefs and practices is considered ambiguous by academics.
Government		"Bayan" led by a paramount leader called a Lakan, consisting of several Barangay social groups led by a Datu and initially misidentified as a Monarchy by foreigners
Lakan
•	c. 900	Jayadewa (first according to LCI)
•	c. 1500s	Rajah Salalila
•	1558–1571	Lakandula
•	1575–1589	Agustin de Legazpi
History
•	First historical mention, in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription; trade relations with the Medang Kingdom implied	before 900 CE
•	Earliest proposed legendary founding date of neighboring polity of Maynila; defeat of Rajah Avirjirkaya by Rajah Ahmad	c. 1258
•	Alternate proposed legendary founding date of neighboring polity of Maynila	c. 1365
•	Establishment of regular trade relations with the Ming dynasty	1373
•	Battle of Manila (1500) (legendary); alternatively also the latest proposed founding date of neighboring polity of Maynila, Muslim influence introduced via intermarriage of ruling family with the Sultanate of Brunei	c. 1500
•	Last resistance against the Spanish	1571
•	Dissolution upon integration into the Spanish East Indies	1589
Currency		Piloncitos, Gold rings, and Barter
Preceded by Succeeded by Barangay state Prehistory of the Philippines Rajahnate of Maynila New Spain Spanish East Indies
Today part of		Philippines
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In early Philippine history, the Tagalog settlement at Tondo (Tagalog: [tonˈdo];Baybayin: ᜆᜓᜈᜇᜓ or ᜆᜓᜈᜇᜓ; Chinese: ; pinyin: dōngdū) was a major trade hub located on the northern part of the Pasig River delta, on Luzon island.

It is referred to in academic circles as the "Tondo polity" or "Tondo settlement", and the earliest Tagalog dictionaries categorized it as a "Bayan" ("country" or "polity", lit. "settlement"). Travellers from monarchical cultures who had contacts with Tondo (including the Chinese, Portuguese and the Spanish) often initially mislabelled it as the "Kingdom of Tondo". Early Augustinian chronicler Pedro de San Buenaventura explained this to be an error as early as 1613 in his Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala, but historian Vicente L. Rafael notes that the label was nevertheless later adapted by the popular literature of the Spanish colonial era because of the influence of the Hispanic linguistic tradition. The earliest firsthand Spanish accounts described it as a smaller "village", in comparison to the fortified polity of Maynila.

Tondo is of particular interest to Filipino historians and historiographers because it is one of the oldest historically documented settlements in the Philippines. Scholars generally agree that it was mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the Philippines oldest extant locally produced written document, dating back to 900 CE.