History of the Philippines (1521–1898)
The history of the Philippines from 1521 to 1898, also known as the Spanish colonial period, was a period during which Spain controlled the Philippine islands as the Captaincy General of the Philippines, initially under New Spain until Mexican independence in 1821, which gave Madrid direct control over the area. It was also known as Spanish East Indies to the colonialists. It started with the arrival in 1521 of European explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailing for Spain, which heralded the period when the Philippines was a colony of the Spanish Empire, and ended with the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in 1898, which marked the beginning of the American colonial era of Philippine history.
Cordillera Central (Luzon)
The Philippines, named after King Philip II of Spain in 1618, was already of interest to Spain before the Spaniards even reached the land. In 1565, reports of huge gold mines in the Cordillera reached the Viceroy of Mexico, which led to the first official Spanish expedition to the Cordillera in 1576. King Philip III, waging the Thirty Year War which needed funding, sent orders for large expeditions to the Philippines.
In 1620, Captain Garcia de Aldana Cabrera offered the resisting Igorot tribal leaders clemency if they were willing to accept Catholic religion, obey the Spanish government and pay a fifth of all their mined gold to the Spanish King. They refused and the Spanish conquerors built forts and organized military troops to start the exploitation of the gold mines.