Figure 1.--This Artura postcard wastaken around 1920. It shows Filipino children in font of massive Spanish walls. We are not entirely sure where it is located. It looks too rural to be Intramuros.

Since the Spanish conquistadors came, it became a Spanish colony. Charles I (better known as Charles V, commissioned Magellan to find a passage through the Americas to the Spice Islands. Magellan sailed from Seville (1519) and explored the Plate estuary (1520) before crossing into the Pacific through the straits at the tip of South America now named for him. He claimed the Philippines for Spain, but was killed there (1521). One of his ships managed to return to Seville, completing the first circimnavigation of the world (1522). A series of Spanish expeditions followed. The exploers named the Islands the Filipinas, in honor of Philip II, Spain's fervent Catholic monarch commited to spreading the faith. Spain's colonial empire in the Paific which included the Philippine Islands and the East Indies (the Moluccas and Malaca) as wel as the Marianas. The Spanish ruled Philipines from Manila. Manila before the Spanish arrived had for centuries been an important trading center. The Spanssh made Manila the seat of their colonial government after gainig contol over the Islands (1565). The Spanish government was situated within the fortified walls of Old Manila which we now know as Intramuros (within the walls). The massive fortified walls were constructed to defend agaist Chinese pirates and native uprisings. Intramuros became the center of the Captaincy General of the Philippines, the Pacific oceanic part of the Spanish Empire. It housed the colony's governor-general from its founding (1571) until 1865, and the Real Audiencia of Manila until the end of Spanish with arrical of the Ameriucans (1898). Intramuros also became the religious and educational center of Spain's Pacific empire. The Phillipines fir and most mtant schools were founded there. Intramuros was also the Soanish economic center, the Asian hub of the Manila galleon trade, transporting silver to China and goods to Acapulco. Itramurosenclosed the entire City of Manila. Ttowns and arrabales (suburbs) eventually gfew beyond the walls that became neigborhoods of modern Manila now knwn as extramuros (outside the walls). Three centuries of Spsanish rule made the Philippines the most Christian country in Asia. Roman Catholic became a majority. While the Spanish encountered considerable resistance in the 16th century, a Filipino independence movement unlike the movements in Latin America did not rise to question Spanish rule again until the late-19th century.

Created: 5:07 AM 5/8/2025
Last updated: 5:18 AM 5/8/2025