History of Basilan - Spanish Era

Spanish Era

The first Europeans to ever document Basilan were the remainder of the ill-fated Ferdinand Magellan expedition, led by Juan Sebastián Elcano, and extensively documented by Italian scholar Antonio Pigafetta in the later part of 1521. Fresh from the debacle in Mactan, and after having their numbers reduced from 254 to less than a hundred scurvy-ridden sailors, the Spanish party scoured the area of the Sulu Archipelago for a route to the Moluccas (Spice Islands). After passing reefs and bountiful seaweeds, they came to an archipelago, the main islands Pigafetta recorded as "the islands of Zolo and Taghima (Sulu and Basilan) near which pearls are found". Food and water were difficult to come by in this episode of their voyage, however, so they eventually returned to Mindanao. The expedition eventually found its way to the Moluccas and then finally returned to Spain. They were the first Europeans to circumnavigate the world. Only 18 of them survived the long voyage and made it back to Spain.

Upon the return of Adelantado Miguel López de Legazpi in 1565, and the establishment of the Spanish colonial government first in Cebu, then in Iloilo and finally in Manila, the island of Basilan was gradually colonized and settled, inducted as a Spanish possession as early as 1636, formally organized as the 6th District of the Police-Military Government of Mindanao by 1860, and completely pacified by 1886 - a period spanning exactly 250 years.

In September 1581, Msgr. Domingo de Salazar, O.P., the first bishop of the islands, arrived in Manila. It was during his time and on his initiative that an assembly of sorts was convened in 1582 on the lines of a council, "to deal with matters concerning the furthering of the Faith and the justification of past and future conquests by Spain".

The fathers of the council were of the opinion that no valid claim could be laid to the conquest of the Philippines other than that based on the right to preach the gospel, with the qualifying clauses, mentioned above. But for this right to justify possession of territories, it was unnecessary to depend on any direct opposition of the natives to the preaching of the gospel, since the inferior or primitive organization of their government and of their laws as would hinder or thwart their conversion was, in itself, sufficient reason.

This theory of the Council of 1582 was unanimously accepted by the religious of the Philippines, including Bishop Salazar.

Stemming from this Council's resolutions, real Spanish authority spread over the islands hinged on the theory of "voluntary submission" or "free consent" from the natives. Such a consensual contract was institutionalized in the "cedula" imposed by the Spanish government on all its subjects in the islands.

There is also the free consent given in 1845 by the different chieftains of Basilan Island in Mindanao, who were contacted by the governor of Zamboanga upon instructions to that effect given him by the then Governor-General Narciso de Claveria. This free consent was construed as having been represented by the issuance of "cedulas" to residents of Basilan.

It is noteworthy though, that in a later communication to the central government in Spain, Governor Claveria corrected the earlier erroneous information that Dato Usuk and the people of the Maluso region, in the said island had given their consent. Governor Claveria made it clear that such had not been the case, so the government was to refrain from exercising any sovereignty over them. Such was the scrupulousness with which this matter of free consent was regarded by Spain. Even as late as 1881 the same criterion would be followed by the Spanish government.