MIGUEL LÓPEZ DE LEGAZPI (1547-74)

He died Aug. 20, 1572, Manila.

Spanish explorer who established Spanish dominion over the Philippines that lasted until Spanish-American War of 1898.

Legazpi went to New Spain (Mexico) in 1545 serving for a time as clerk in the local government.

Although the Portuguese Fernando Magallanes had discovered the Philippine archipelago in 1521 neither Portuguese nor Spanish had settled there and so Luis de Velasco the viceroy of New Spain sent Legazpi to claim it in 1564.

He left Acapulco with five ships and reached Cebu, one of the southern islands of the archipelago in April 1566 founding the first Spanish settlement on the site of modern Cebu City.

Legazpi served as the first governor of the Philippines from 1565 until his death.

In 1570 he sent an expedition to the northern island of Luzon following himself the next year. After deposing a local Muslim king he established the city of Manila which became the capital of the new Spanish colony and Spain´s major trading port in East Asia on June 24, 1571.

Legazpi repulsed two attacks by the Portuguese in 1568 and 1571 and easily overcame the poorly organized Philippine Malays resistance. The Mulisms in the southern islands resisted Spanish rule up to the 19th century but Islam was weak in Luzon and the northern islands and Legazpi and his chaplain Andrés de Urdaneta were able to lay the foundations for the conversion of the people to Christianity which proved their most durable legacy.