Luzones
Luzones was a demonym used by Portuguese sailors during the early 1500s, referring to the Kapampangan and Tagalog people who lived in Manila Bay, Philippines which was then called Lusong. The term was also used for Tagalog settlers in Southern Tagalog region, where they created intensive contact with the Kapampangans.
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.
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. 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. This included a "young prince" named Ache who would later become known as Rajah Matanda.
There have proposals to rename the current Central Luzon region into Luzones or an abbreviation of the current provinces of the region.
Primary sources and orthography
Surviving primary documents referring to the Luzones include the accounts of Fernão Mendes Pinto ; Tomé Pires ; and the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, including expedition members Gines de Mafra and Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz and the Italian scholar Antonio Pigafetta who served as the expedition's primary scribe, and published his account in 1524. There were also books from the Chinese Ming Dynasty which recorded the presence of a "Kingdom of Luzon" over Luzon island.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."
Maynila as "Luçon"
As written in the book of Dong-Xiyang kao 東西洋考, the Chinese Ming dynasty recorded, before the Spanish and Portuguese came, that there was a "Kingdom of Luzon" that existed over the current island of Luzon.Portuguese and Spanish accounts from the early to mid 1500s state that Maynila was the same as the Kingdom of Luzon or Lução, and whose citizens had been called "Luções".
Magellan expedition member Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz's account of the events of 1521 specifically describes how the Magellan expedition, then under the command of Sebastian Elcano after the death of Magellan, captured of one of the Luções: Prince Ache, who would later be known as Raja Matanda and was then serving as an admiral for the Bruneian navy. Aganduru Moriz described the "young prince" as being "the Prince of Luzon – or Manila, which is the same." corroborated by fellow expedition member Gines de Mafra and the account of expedition scribe Antonio Pigaffetta.
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.
Kapampangan researcher Ian Christopher Alfonso, 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 1571 Battle of Bangkusay Channel.
Contacts with the Portuguese (1510s to 1540s)
The Portuguese first established a presence in Maritime Southeast Asia with their capture of Malacca in 1511, and their contacts with the seafarers they described as Luções, the area now known as Manila Bay became the first European accounts of the Tagalog people, as Anthony Reid recounts:The first European reports on the Tagalogs classify them as "Luzons", a nominally Muslim commercial people trading out of Manila, and "almost one people" with the Malays of Brunei.
Descriptions of culture, social organization and trade activities
Pires noted that the Luzones were "mostly heathen" and were not much esteemed in Malacca at the time he was there, although he also noted that they were strong, industrious, given to useful pursuits. Pires' exploration led him to discover that in their own country, the Luções had "foodstuffs, wax, honey, inferior grade gold," had no king, and were governed instead by a group of elders. They traded with tribes from Borneo and Indonesia and Philippine historians note that the language of the Luções was one of the 80 different languages spoken in Malacca When Magellan's ship arrived in the Philippines, Pigafetta noted that there were Luzones there collecting sandalwood. Pigafetta noticed the presence of Luzones who were loading their ship at Timor. Furthermore, the Boxer Codex said that: "The Luções, called Lequios, bring gold and cotton from their land, and trade Chinese silk and porcelain" It is also recorded that every year, the Luções load Canton with 175 casks of pepper. In addition to this, they also brought tortoise-shell and resins from their coast, which fetched a high price in China. Overall, “In the fairs of Malacca, the Luções were famed merchants of pepper and gold, even exchanging them for Chinese silk.” As Fernão Lopes de Castanheda writes of them.Naval and military actions
When the Portuguese arrived in Southeast Asia in the early 1500s, they witnessed the Luzones' active involvement in the political and economic affairs of those who sought to take control of the economically strategic highway of the Strait of Malacca.Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, in História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia Vol. 1, pp. 201–205, Malacca garrison ; wrote as such:
Portuguese records show Lução soldiers in every garrison of Malaca, prized for their seamanship and ferocity in skirmishes with the Johor fleet.
For instance, the former sultan of Malacca decided to retake his city from the Portuguese with a fleet of ships from Lusung in 1525.
And it was written in Gaspar Correia's, Lendas da Índia Vol. 1, pp. 312–318 Malacca restoration :
When the Sultan of Malacca fled, he took refuge with a Luções chieftain; fifty Lução ships then returned him to power, fighting their way through Johor’s blockade.
One famous Luzones was Regimo de Raja, who had been appointed by the Portuguese at Malacca as Temenggung or Governor and General. Pires noted that Luzones and Malays had settled in Mjmjam and lived in two separate settlements and were "often at variance" or in rivalry with each other.
João de Barros, wrote in Décadas da Ásia Vol. 3, pp. 102–105 Malacca & Perak; this:
The ex-Sultan of Malacca enlisted 500 Luções arquebusiers and 20 caracoas, whose veterans later became Temenggung of Perak under the Portuguese.
Pinto noted that there were a number of Luzones in the Islamic fleets that went to battle with the Portuguese in the Philippines during the 16th century. In 1539 Filipinos formed part of a Batak-Menangkabau army which besieged Aceh, as well as of the Acehnese fleet which raised the siege under command of Turkish Heredim Mafamede sent out from Suez by his uncle, Suleiman, Viceroy of Cairo. When this fleet later took Aru on the Strait of Malacca, it contained 4,000 Muslims from Turkey, Abyssinia, Malabar, Gujarat and Luzon, and following his victory, Heredim left a hand-picked garrison there under the command of a Filipino by the name of Sapetu Diraja. Sapetu Diraja, was then assigned by the Sultan of Aceh the task of holding Aru in 1540.
Pinto also says one was named leader of the Malays remaining in the Moluccas Islands after the Portuguese conquest in 1511.
Pigafetta notes that one of them was in command of the Brunei fleet in 1521.
Of which, João de Barros wrote in Décadas da Ásia Vol. 3, pp. 102–105 Malacca & Perak, the following:
A fleet of twelve Luçon caracoas under the same leader joined the Brunei armada against Lawé. Their knowledge of these coasts was unmatched, and they bore the brunt of the assault.
However, the Luzones did not only fight on the side of the Muslims. Pinto says they were also apparently among the natives of the Philippines who fought the Muslims in 1538.
On Mainland Southeast Asia, Luzones aided the Burmese king in his invasion of Siam in 1547. At the same time, Luzones fought alongside the Siamese king and faced the same elephant army of the Burmese king in the defence of the Siamese capital at Ayuthaya.
Diogo do Couto wrote in, Décadas da Ásia Vol. 5, pp. 95–100 Siam ; this of them:
Under their chief Balagtas, 300 Luções fought for the King of Siam against Burmese invaders—so effective that the Siamese granted them land.
The fact that the Siamese ennobled the Luções by granting them royal land and that Luções military and trade activity reached as far as Sri Lanka in South Asia where Lungshanoid pottery made in Luzon were discovered in burials is proof that the Luções formed a long range geographic network applying soft power among the many nations the Philippines traded and worked with.
Scholars have thus suggested that they could be mercenaries valued by all sides. The Luzones had military and commercial interests mainly across Southeast Asia with some minor reach in East Asia and South Asia, so much so that the Portuguese soldier Joao de Barros considered the Luções who were militarily and commercially active across the region, "the most warlike and valiant of these parts."
Ultimately, Fernão Mendes Pinto wrote in Peregrinação pp. 256–261 Aceh, these words, of the Luções:
Sapetu Diraja, a chieftain from Luçon, brought with him two hundred Luções veterans to serve the Sultan of Acheh. Their valor and skill with the kris so impressed the court that they were retained as the Sultan’s guard.
To be assigned as the Sultan's royal guard, is proof of Luçoes men's physical strength, martial prowess, and masculine attractiveness; as during that time period, among Medieval kingdoms, that office was only reserved to the most strong, intelligent, handsome, attractive, virile, aristocratic, and combat-worthy, of warriors.