The people of Bohol are said to be the descendants of the last group of inhabitants who settled in the Philippines, called Pintados (the tattooed ones). Before the Spaniards came in 1521, Boholanos already had a culture of their own, as evidenced by the artifacts dug at Mansasa, Tagbilaran, and in Dauis and Panglao, using designs associated with the Ming Dynasty (960-1279). They had already a system of writing although most materials used were perishable, like leaves and bamboo barks. They spoke a language similar to that of the nearby provinces.
The name Bohol
is thought to be derived from the name of the barrio of Bo-ol, a
barangay found in Tagbilaran City, which was among the first places
toured by the Magellan expedition. History has it that one of the
Spanish ships of Magellan (the Concepcion) was burned in this province
after Magellan was killed by Lapu-Lapu in Mactan.
Between 1521,
when Ferdinand Magellan became the first from Europe to reach Asia by
sailing west and where he would meet an untimely death on the islands
that would become known as the Philippines, and 1564, Spain sent four
more expeditions to colonize some part of the East Indies in their race
with Portugal to control the lucrative spice trade but all failed. It
wasn’t until Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, sailing from Mexico with four
ships and nearly four hundred men, reached the Philippines in the early
part of 1565 that a Spanish settlement was finally established.
Establishing a colony wasn’t any easier for Legazpi than for the five
previous expeditions. Like Magellan forty years earlier, Legazpi met
hostile native warriors uninterested in foreign invasion. An attempted
landing on the island of Cebu resulted in the death of one of his
soldiers and prompted Legazpi to weigh anchor to seek friendlier isles
with the fate of Magellan certainly on the back of his mind.
Attempting to sail south toward Mindanao, Legazpi’s fleet met contrary
winds that forced them northward to the island of Bohol. Here he
captured a trading vessel from Borneo whose Mohammedan Malay pilot gave
him the information that the Filipinos there carried on trade with the
Moluccas, Borneo, Java, Malacca, India, and China. This fateful shift in
the winds would lead to an alliance with native kings that finally gave
the Spaniards their opportunity for colonization.
THE LEGAZPI – KATUNA BLOOD COMPACT – 1565
At Bohol, Legazpi first noticed the hostility of the people. From the
Mohammedan Malay pilot he gathered the information that such hostility
was due to the marauding expeditions conducted by the Portuguese from
the Moluccas, and, since the Spaniards look like Portuguese, the Bohol
inhabitants naturally mistook them to be the white vandals. As late as
1563 the Portuguese raiders prowled the Visayan waters, plundered Bohol,
and killed or enslaved about 1,000 inhabitants.
Legazpi, with the aid of the Malay pilot, explained to the two kings of
Bohol, Katuna (Si Katuna) and Gala (Si Gala) that the Spaniards were
not Portuguese and that they had come on a mission of peace not to
destroy, kill or plunder. On learning this, the Bohol kings and their
people became friendly and welcomed the Spaniards.
On March 16.
1565, Legazpi and Katuna performed a blood compact to seal their
friendship. A few days later Legazpi had a similar pact with Gala. In
his report to Philip II, Legazpi described the ceremony of the blood
compact in the following words:
“It is observed in the following
manner: one from each party draws two or three drops of blood from his
own arm or breast and mixes them in the same cup, with water or wine.
Then the mixture must be divided equally between two cups, and neither
person may depart until both cups are alike drained.”
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