Luzones
Luzones (Portuguese: Luções, pronounced [luˈsõjʃ]; also Luzones in Spanish) was a demonym[1] used by Portuguese sailors in Malaysia[2] during the early 1500s, referring to the Kapampangan and Tagalog people who lived in Manila Bay, which was then called Lusong (Kapampangan: Lusung, Portuguese: Luçon).[3][4][5][2] The term was also used for Tagalog settlers in Southern Tagalog region, where they created intensive contact with the Kapampangans.[6]
Eventually, the term "Luzones" would refer to the inhabitants of Luzon island, and later on, would be exclusive to the peoples of the central area of Luzon (now Central Luzon).
None of the Portuguese writers who first used the term in the early 1500s had gone to Lusong themselves, so the term was used specifically to describe the seafarers who settled in or traded with Malay Archipelago at that time.[2] The last known use of the Portuguese term in surviving records was in the early 1520s, when members of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, notably Antonio Pigafetta, and Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz used the term to describe seafarers from Lusong whom they encountered on their journeys.[7] This included a "young prince" named Ache[7] who would later become known as Rajah Matanda.
There have proposals to rename the current Central Luzon region into Luzones[Notes 1] or an abbreviation of the current provinces of the region.[2][8]
Primary sources and orthography[edit]
Surviving primary documents referring to the Luzones (as Luções) include the accounts of Fernão Mendes Pinto (1614);[2] Tomé Pires (whose written documents were published in 1944);[2] and the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, including expedition members Gines de Mafra[2] and Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz[7][2] and the Italian scholar Antonio Pigafetta[9][2] who served as the expedition's primary scribe, and published his account in 1524.
These original references deferred to the Portuguese orthography for the term, which spells it out Luções. Later authors, writing after English had become an official language of the Philippines, spell the term out using the English and Spanish orthography, "Luzones."[10][11][12]
Maynila as "Luçon"[edit]
Portuguese and Spanish accounts from the early[7][13] to mid[2] 1500s state that Maynila was the same as the Kingdom of Luzon[Notes 2] (Portuguese: Luçon (old) or Lução (modern),[14] from the Tagalog or Malay name Lusong), and whose citizens had been called "Luções".[7][13][2][8][1]
Magellan expedition member Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz's account of the events of 1521 specifically describes[7] how the Magellan expedition, then under the command of Sebastian Elcano after the death of Magellan, captured of one of the Luções:[2] Prince Ache, who would later be known as Raja Matanda ("the Old King") and was then serving as an admiral for the Bruneian navy.[7] Aganduru Moriz described the "young prince" as being "the Prince of Luzon – or Manila, which is the same."[7] corroborated by fellow expedition member Gines de Mafra[2] and the account of expedition scribe Antonio Pigaffetta.[13]
Ache being the King of Luzon was further confirmed by the Visayan allies of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, who, learning that he wanted to "befriend" the ruler of Luzon, led him to write a letter to Ache whom he addressed as the King of Luzon.[2]
Kapampangan researcher Ian Christopher Alfonso,[1] however, posits that the demonym Luções was probably expansive enough to include Kapampangan sailors, such as the sailors from Hagonoy and Macabebe who would later be involved in the 1572 Battle of Bangkusay Channel.[1]
Contact with the survivors of Magellan's expedition (1521)[edit]
Aside from the Portuguese, the Luzones were also encountered by the survivors of the Magellan Expedition, who were under the command of Sebastian Elcano, in 1521.[9][2] This encounter was mentioned by expedition scribe Antonio Pigafetta and extensively described in an account by expedition members Gines de Mafra, Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz, among others.[2]
The Aganduru Moriz account[7] describes how Elcano's crew was attacked somewhere off the southeastern tip of Borneo[8] by a Bruneian fleet commanded by one of the Luzones.[2][8] Historians such as William Henry
Scott and Luis Camara Dery assert that this commander of the Bruneian Fleet was actually the young prince Ache of Maynila,[2][8] a grandson of the Bruneian sultan who would later become Maynila's Rajah Matanda.[2][8]
Under orders from his grandfather the Sultan of Brunei, Ache had previously sacked the Buddhist city of Loue in Southwest Borneo for being faithful to the old religion and rebelling against the authority of Sultanate.[28] Ache had then just won a naval victory at the time,[8] and was supposed to be on his way to marry a cousin[8][2] – a typical custom by which Tagalog nobles at that time gained influence and power.[2][29]
Dery suggests that Ache's decision to attack must have been influenced by a desire to bring Elcano's ship back to Manila bay,[8] for use as leverage against his cousin, the ruler of Tondo,[8] who was usurping territory from Ache's mother,[7] who was ruling Maynila at the time.[7]
Elcano, however, was able to defeat and capture Ache.[7] According to Scott, Ache was eventually released after a ransom was paid.[2] Nevertheless, Ache left a Spanish speaking Moor in Elcano's Crew to assist the ship on the way back to Spain, "a Moor who understood something of our Castilian language,
who was called Pazeculan."[30] This knowledge of the Spanish language was scattered across the Indian Ocean and even into Southeast Asia after the Castilian conquest of the Emirate of Granada forced the Spanish speaking Granadan Muslims to migrate across the Muslim world even until Islamic Manila.[31]