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).
Germans in the Philippines
The first Germans to arrive to the Philippines were colonists. Otto von Bismarck’s Germany was one of the United States' rivals in replacing Spanish rule in the archipelago. From 1890 to the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, there was a lull in Germany’s colonial campaigns. Like other colonialist nations, Germany sought to protect its overseas nationals and trade interests to the extent of safeguarding free access to markets. A German squadron arrived in Manila and engaged in maneuvers which Commodore George Dewey seeing this as obstruction of his blockade, offered war — after which the Germans backed down.