Reconquista

The Spaniards fought the Moros from 718 to 1898. The thousand-year struggle started in Covadonga, Asturias and ended in the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.

After the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the 5^th century AD, Hispania was invaded by the Visigoths, Germanic people from the north. In 711, Tariq Ibn Ziyad led the Moros from the south to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and after only 7 years of expansion, they occupied almost the whole Iberian Peninsula except the cold mountainous region in the north along the Bay of Vizcaya (Biscay). They named the new Umayyad Caliphate territory Al-Andalus. In 718, they were defeated by the army of King Pelayo (Pelagius) of the Visigoths at Covadonga in the north. However, the intruders from North Africa and the Middle East continued to rule some parts of the peninsula for more than 700 years.

Abd Al-Rahman I reached Al-Andalus in 755 after surviving the assassination of the Umayyad clan by the Abbasids in Syria. He reinstated the Umayyad Caliphate and made Kurtaba (Cordoba) its capital. The Caliphate fragmented into nine Moorish kingdoms in the 11^th century. By the end of the 13^th century, only one Moorish kingdom remained: the Emirate of Granada. Meanwhile, five Iberian kingdoms (Portugal, Leon, Castilla (Castile), Navarra (Navarre), and Aragon) were gaining ground in the north. In 1230, King Fernando (Ferdinand) III of Castile united the kingdoms of Castile and Leon.

The marriage of Isabel (Isabella) I of Castile and Fernando (Ferdinand) II of Aragon in 1469 paved the way for the union of their two kingdoms. Isabella I was crowned as the Queen of Castile in Segovia in 1474. Ferdinand II became the King of Aragon in 1479. The unification of Castile and Aragon formed the Kingdom of España (Spain). In 1492, the Spaniards reclaimed Granada when Emir Boabdil surrendered to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The Moros were ordered to convert to Catholicism in 1502 and the last unconverted Moros were evicted from Spain in 1609.

While the Spaniards were fighting the Moros and their converts in the peninsula, the Arab traders and missionaries from the Middle East were introducing their religion and their political system to the animistic Austronesian islanders in the Far East. The Sultanate of Sulu was founded in 1450 by Sultan Hashim Abubakar, a son of an Arab noble. Its territory included Palawan, Zamboanga peninsula, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, and Sabah. The Sultanate of Maguindanao was founded in 1516 by Sultan Sharif Kabungsuwan, also a son of an Arab noble. Muslim communities were established not only in the south but also in the north such as Manila, Vigan, and Lallo in present-day Cagayan. When the Spaniards arrived in Las Islas Filipinas (The Philippine Islands), they were disappointed to encounter a strong Islamic influence in the archipelago. They called the descendants of the Arabs and their converts Moros.

The Spaniards were determined to convert the indigenous population to Catholicism. To diminish the influence of Islam, the Spaniards transformed the Islamic centers in Luzon into the hubs of their government and religion. Governor-General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi declared Manila as the capital of the colony in 1571 after Martin de Goiti defeated Rajah Sulayman in 1570. The colonizers built the walled city of Intramuros and the Real Fuerza de Santiago (Fort Santiago). Juan de Salcedo occupied and established a military settlement in Vigan in 1572 and renamed it Villa Fernandina in 1574 in honor of Prince Fernando (Ferdinand), the first son of King Felipe II (Philip II) of Spain. Juan Pablo Carreon changed the name of Lallo to Nueva Segovia in 1581. Lallo became the seat of the Diocese of Nueva Segovia from 1595 to 1755. The seat was transferred to Vigan in 1755.

The Spaniards made successful incursions in western Mindanao, the power base of the Moros. They founded Zamboanga City in 1635 and built the Real Fuerza de San Jose. In 1637, they captured the capital of the Sultanate of Maguindanao. The following year, they captured Jolo, the capital of the Sultanate of Sulu. However, they retreated to Manila in 1662 to defend the city against the Chinese led by Koxinga. Fortunately, the invasion never happened because Koxinga died.

The Spaniards returned to Zamboanga City in 1718, rebuilt the fort and renamed it Real Fuerza de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragoza (Fort Pilar). They modernized their naval force with the addition of steam boats that were faster than the vessels used by the Moros. They attacked Jolo in 1876 and forced the Sultan of Sulu to abandon the capital. In 1878, Spain extended sovereignty over Sulu while the Sultan of Sulu leased Sabah to the British North Borneo Company. Moreover, the Spaniards weakened the Sultanate of Maguindanao and built forts in the Rio Grande Valley. The last major battle happened in 1898 near Lake Lanao. The Spaniards were able to break the Moro sultanates although the Muslim warriors were using powerful weapons supplied by the Chinese.

In the Iberian Peninsula, the Spaniards fought the Moros to repossess their land. In the Philippines, the Spaniards fought the Moros to dispossess them of their land. If the Spaniards had a right to their ancestral land, the Philippine Moros (Bangsamoro) also have a right to theirs. However, the Bangsamoro territory as defined by the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro (CAB) is only part of the Moroland. Therefore, the Bangsamoro Reconquista is still far from complete.

Romanization

by 昂帝 (Andy) sltn= (Salatan)

All roads and waterways in the Old World led to Rome. The trails and shipping routes from the interior and coastal areas of the Far East, Middle East and North Africa were used to bring goods to the Roman Empire and its capital. But that is only half of the story. If we look at our civilization today, we could also say that all roads emanated from Rome. Different parts of the globe have various degrees of Roman influences. We can see them in our government, infrastructure, culture and education.

Rome was founded in 753 BC in Latium region, the ancestral land of the Latin tribe. The Roman law and the Senate were instituted and by the 3^rd century BC, Rome already had a representative government composed of only rich people, much like the present governments in many nations. The Roman state expanded and occupied the entire Italian peninsula in 264 BC. The Romans waged wars and colonized the places around the Mediterranean. They spread their culture and language to their empire. The Latin language spoken by the people in the colonies became the basis of the modern Romance languages such as Romanian, Italian, French, Catalan, Castilian (Spanish), and Portuguese.

The Romans built roads to facilitate transportation and communication among their colonies. They put stones to mark the mile similar to the posts we currently see in the highways. They constructed edifices with columns, an architectural element that is prominent in numerous buildings in several countries until now. They created a system to move water from a source to the communities, a very important infrastructure in any modern populated area. They developed urban planning and implemented it in designing the cities in the Roman provinces.

Hispania was one of the Roman territories. It was divided into three provinces: Hispania Tarraconensis, Hispania Baetica, and Hispania Lusitania. Part of Lusitania later became Portugal while the rest of Hispania became Spain. Like the Romans, the Portuguese and the Spaniards also spread their culture and language to their respective empire. Their former colonies now compose Latin America, Latin Africa, and Latin Asia. Latin America is from Mexico in the north to Chile in the south. Latin Africa and Latin Asia are not contiguous. Latin Africa include Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde. Latin Asia include Goa (India), Macau (China), East Timor, Guam (USA), and the Philippines. All of these countries (not the territories) are members of the Latin Union.

Britannia was a Roman province that later became England and Wales. Like the Portuguese and the Spaniards, the British also spread their culture and language to their empire. British colonists occupied the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The British Empire reached an area of more than 13 million square miles making it the largest empire in world history. The English language is not a Romance language but more than 50% of its vocabulary came from Latin. English is now an official language in more than 50 countries. Among those are countries in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the Philippines.

The Roman Empire started to decline in the 4^th century AD, about the same period the Tamils from south India started arriving in the Philippines and introduced their Pallava script to the native Austronesian islanders. The Philippine script is a syllabary where one letter stands for one syllable. For instance, the Arabic word “salatan” is transcribed as sltn=. The Philippine and Latin scripts were used by a Spanish missionary in writing the Doctrina Cristiana in 1593, the first printed book in the Philippines using Philippine or Latin script. An earlier version of the book inscribed in traditional Chinese script was published by another Spanish missionary in 1592 with the help of a Chinese printer.

In 1605, an Italian missionary wrote Xizi Qiji (Miracle of Western Letters), the first Chinese book in Roman alphabet. This was the first effort to romanize the Chinese language that would later result in Pinyin. For example, the Chinese name 昂帝 is transliterated as “Ang-di” in Pinyin and Americanized as “Andy.” The Pinyin system is now widely adopted in Greater China (Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines) and in every Chinatown around the world. We Chinese normally use Pinyin to teach our language to the non-Chinese. However, we still prefer to use our characters in marking their tourist sites.

The Vandals vandalized the Roman Empire in 455 AD. The grandeur of the Roman institutions was eclipsed during the Dark Ages. But after almost a millennium, the light of Rome was rekindled. The descendants of Roman citizens in former Roman provinces explored the planet and discovered places previously unknown to them. The Spaniards and the Portuguese brought the rule of Roman law and Roman statues to represent the important persons in the history of Christianity, the official religion of the Roman Empire as declared by Emperor Constantine in 325 AD. The British and the Americans brought Roman government with equal branches and a form of Christianity without Roman statues. All of them brought the Roman calendar, Latin script, and Latin lexicon to their dominions.

Latin is already a dead language but Latin words are still alive in languages currently spoken by more than 2 billion people. Latin script is being learned by all modern students. Roman calendar is being used in all computers, tablets and smartphones in all corners of the earth. Therefore, we still all live in a Roman world.

The Author: 昂帝 (Andy) sltn= (Salatan) is a descendant of Chinese migrants in the Philippines but never learned to write in Chinese or Philippine script.