Luzones (, ; also Luzones in Spanish) 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 (Kapampangan: Lusung, ). 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 (now Central 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 been proposals to rename the current Central Luzon region to LuzonesSpanish derivation Luzones is more preferred than original Portuguese name Luções as Philippines was ruled by Spain. or an abbreviation of the current provinces of the region.
Primary sources and orthography Surviving primary documents referring to the Luzones (as Luções) include the accounts of Fernão Mendes Pinto (1614); Tomé Pires (whose written documents were published in 1944); and the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, including expedition members Gines de Mafra, 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.The Taiwan Strait between the Twelfth and Sixteenth Centuries and the Maritime Route to Luzon by Liu Yingsheng, 刘迎胜, (Vol. 46, No. 2 (2012), pp. 179 )
Portuguese and Spanish accounts from the early to mid 1500s state that Maynila was the same as the Kingdom of LuzonScott (1994) notes that Spanish chroniclers continued to use the terms "king" and "kingdom" to describe the rulers and states of Tondo and Maynila until late 1571, when Martin de Goiti's first forays into Bulacan and Pampanga impressed to the Spanish that the alliances of Tondo and Maynila with the Kapampangan states did not include territorial claim or absolute command, although these aren't necessary for kinghood. San Buenaventura (1613, as cited by Junker, 1990 and Scott, 1994) later noted that Tagalogs only applied the term hari (king) to foreign monarchs, rather than their own leaders. Nonetheless, the rulers of Luzon and Manila still referred to themselves initially as raja which could only mean king. (Portuguese: Luçon (old) or Lução (modern),p. 12: https://ec.europa.eu/translation/portuguese/magazine/documents/folha61_pt.pdf from the Tagalog or Malay name Lusong and Kapampangan name Lusung), 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 ("the Old King") 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 (1505s to 1540s) The first contact the Portuguese have of people of Luzon was in the Malabar Coast off Western India at South Asia, wherein; at the Letter from Gaspar Pereira to King Manuel I of Portugal, January 11, 1506, in Cochin. Published in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque seguidas de documentos que as elucidam, Vol. 2 (Lisbon: Academia das Sciências de Lisboa, 1898), 354−369 (364-366). Original manuscript in Arquivo Nacional/Torre do Tombo, Corpo Cronológico, Parte I, Maço 5, Doc. 70, fols. 8−8v, a "Luzam" (A person from Luzon) was serving in the Portuguese navy fighting against the Muslims of the Indian coast.
...aboard these two caravels there were many men who serve Your Highness, which I thought was good; those that serve here on the caravel of Nuno Vaz Pereira were António Lopes Teixeira, and luzam, 3 and Luís Mendes da Ilha […]and the [ship’s] clerk, Pero Vaz da Duquesa, and Francisco de Miranda, António de Matos, Cristóvão Raposo; and on Lopo Chanoca’s caravel, Francisco da Silva, [who] died, and Antão de Figueiredo, Álvaro de Brito, Valentim Rebelo, Rui Lopes de Carvalho, Bastião de Souto Mayor. They say it seemed that more than eighty of the Indians died. Things would have been very different if the wind had not died down, and the fire had not broken out on the gundeck killing most of [our men].
Afterwards, when Portuguese first established a presence in Maritime Southeast Asia with their capture of Malacca in 1511,Newton, Arthur Percival (1929) The Cambridge History of the British Empire p. 11 and their contacts with the seafarers they described as Luções (people from "lusong"), 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, and given to useful pursuits. Pires' exploration led him to discover that in their own country, the Luções had "foodstuffs, wax, honey, inferior grade gold," and no king; they were governed instead by a group of elders. They traded with tribes from Borneo and Indonesia. 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.The Mediterranean Connection By William Henry Scott (Published in "Philippine Studies" ran by Ateneo de Manila University Press) Furthermore, the Boxer Codex said that: "The Luções, called Lequios, bring gold and cotton from their land, and trade Chinese silk and porcelain".Duarte Barbosa, Livro (Boxer, pp. 132–134, § 21) It is also recorded that every year, the Luções loaded Canton with 175 casks of pepper.João de Barros, Décadas da Ásia (Stevens, vol 3, pp. 290–293) In addition to this, they also brought tortoise-shell and resins from their coast, which fetched a high price in China. Gaspar Correia, Lendas da Índia (Acad. Ciências, vol 1, pp. 290–295) Overall, as Fernão Lopes de Castanheda writes, “In the fairs of Malacca, the Luções were famed merchants of pepper and gold, even exchanging them for Chinese silk.”Fernão Lopes de Castanheda (1551 ed., vol 1, pp. 160–163)
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 (Lisbon, 1551) Vol. 1, pp. 201–205 (Livro V, cap. 34), Malacca garrison (1511–20s); 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.Barros, Joao de, Decada terciera de Asia de Ioano de Barros dos feitos que os Portugueses fezarao no descubrimiento dos mares e terras de Oriente , Lisbon, 1777, courtesy of William Henry Scott, Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994, page 194.
And it was written in Gaspar Correia's, Lendas da Índia (Acad. das Ciências de Lisboa, 1858–64) Vol. 1, pp. 312–318 (Livro III, cap. LV) Malacca restoration (1526):
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 (Jawi: تمڠݢوڠ ) or Governor and General. Pires noted that Luzones and Malays (natives of Malacca) had settled in Mjmjam (Perak) and lived in two separate settlements and were "often at variance" or in rivalry with each other.The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Volume 2
João de Barros, wrote in Décadas da Ásia (John Stevens transl., The History of the Portuguese in India, vol. 3, London 1777) Vol. 3, pp. 102–105 (Década III, Livro I, cap. XIV) Malacca (c. 1525) & 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 (Luções) 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 (northeast Sumatra) 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 (John Stevens transl., The History of the Portuguese in India, vol. 3, London 1777) Vol. 3, pp. 102–105 (Década III, Livro I, cap. XIV) Malacca (c. 1525) & Perak, the following: