Spanish–Moro conflict
The Spanish initiated the conflict by conquering the Philippines and invading Moro territory in an effort to subjugate the region to their rule since the 1500s. When the Spanish conquered the Muslim Kingdom of Maynila, a vassal of the Sultanate of Brunei, the Islamic rajah, Rajah Sulayman resisted the Spanish. Manila then became the capital of the Spanish Philippines after the conquest, with the Spanish forcibly converting people to Catholicism. The Spanish–Moro Wars started with the Castille War, a war between Spaniards and the Sultanate of Brunei. (The term "Moro" at this time included Muslim Tagalogs who were ruled by the Sultanate of Brunei).
History of the Philippines (900–1521)
Historian Ambeth Ocampo notes an overlap in the history of pre-colonial Philippines and the Spanish colonial period, claiming that while Magellan's arrival in 1521 marked the first documented arrival of European colonizers to this country, it was not until the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi in 1565 that the Europeans had any marked impact on the lifestyle of the residents of the Philippine Archipelago.