The first Spaniards to arrive in the…
June 1594 CE
The first Spaniards to arrive in the Philippines earlier in the sixteenth century had found the Filipinos with a developed civilization of their own and living in well-organized independent villages called barangays.
(A barangay, also known by its former Spanish adopted name, the barrio, is today the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward.)
The Spanish government has from the beginning of the colonial period built on traditional Philippine socio-political organization of the barangay and co-opted the traditional indigenous leaders such as the datus, thereby ruling indirectly.
Philip II of Spain on June 11, 1594, recognizes the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paves the way for the creation of the Principalía, or noble class, the educated upper class in the towns of colonial Philippines.
He also orders the Spanish governors in the Philippines to treat these native nobles well, and further orders the natives to pay the same respect to these nobles that they did before the conquest without prejudice to the things that pertain to the king himself or to the encomenderos (trusteeship leaders).
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