History The city of Manila was established in 1571 when the Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi arrived

and made it the capitol of the colony "Felipinas." At t he time of Legaspi's arrival, Manila was a walled Moslem settlement ruled by the Rajah Sulayman, who collected duties from the traders from neighboring island c ountries who wanted to travel up the Pasig River. Sulayman resisted the intrusio n of the Spanish and fled across the river to the area known today as Tondo. Whe n Sulayman's men met Legaspi's forces at the Battle of Bangkusay Channel on June 3, 1571, they faced the muskets and cannons of the Spanish with only spears and arrows. The Moslems were defeated, and Sulayman himself lost his life during th e battle. Although the Chinese invaded Manila in 1574 and the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, the Spanish retained control of Manila for 327 years, except for a bri ef interlude in 1762 (during the Seven Years' War) when the British occupied the city. When the Seven Years' War ended, Manila was once again under the rule of Spain as a condition of the 1763 Treaty of Paris. The Spanish brought Roman Cath olicism to Manila, founding many churches, convents, and schools. This influence remains to this day, as the Philippines is the only Asian country in which Chri stianity is the predominant faith. The citizens of Manila chafed under the yoke of Spanish domination. The seeds of revolution germinated in 1886 with the publication of Dr. Jose Rizal's book Nol i Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), a novel critical of the way the Spanish friars were governing the Philippines. The Spanish condemned Noli Me Tangere, and Rizal was exiled to Hong Kong. In 1892 he returned to Manila to found La Liga Filipina, a nationalistic organization. Later that year in the Tondo section of Manila, And res Bonifacio founded the Katipunan, a secret organization devoted to attaining Filipino freedom from Spain. The Spanish discovered the Katipunan in August of 1 896 and banished hundreds of Filipinos. Many others were killed. Within ten days , the Katipunan Revolt began, with an open declaration of war against Spain. Jos e Rizal became a martyr of the revolution when the Spanish executed him by firin g squad on December 30, 1896, in Bagumbayan, Taguig (now part of Metro Manila), for his alleged role in the Katipunan Revolt. With the unmasking of the Katipunan, Andres Bonifacio called the Tejeros Convent ion, at which the revolutionary Tejeros government was formed, with General Emil io Aguinaldo at its head. The Tejeros government was unsuccessful in its fight f or freedom from Spain, and as part of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato peace treaty, Gen eral Aguinaldo accepted exile in Hong Kong. Despite the failure of the Tejeros revolution, Spanish rule of the Philippines w as soon to come to an end. The Spanish-American War battlefield spread to Manila in 1898, where U.S. Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet in the Ba ttle of Manila Bay. With the Americans came General Aguinaldo, arriving on the U .S. warship USS McCullock, ready to resume his revolutionary activities against Spain. On June 12, 1898, in Manila, General Aguinaldo declared the Philippines i ndependent from Spain; however, his declaration was not recognized international ly. The United States paid Spain 20 million dollars for their former colony, and Filipinos once again found themselves under foreign rule. War broke out between the Filipinos and the Americans on February 4, 1899, when an American soldier shot and killed a Filipino in Manila. The Philippine-America n War continued through 1903 at the cost of many lives both in Manila and elsewh ere throughout the islands.