Iloilo: History
=== Early history ===
No pre-Hispanic written accounts of Iloilo and Panay island exist today. Oral tradition, in the form of recited epics like the Hinilawod, has survived to a small degree. A few recordings of these epic poems exist. The most notable are the works of noted Filipino Anthropologist Felipe Jocano.
While no current archaeological evidence exist describing pre-Hispanic Iloilo, an original work by Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro published in 1907 called Maragtas details the alleged accounts of the founding of the various pre-Hispanic polities on Panay Island. The book is based on oral and written accounts available to the author at the time. The author made no claim on the historical accuracy of the accounts.
According to Maragtas, Madja-as was founded after ten datus fled Borneo and landed on Panay Island. The book then goes on to detail their subsequent purchase of the coastal lands in which they settled from the native Ati people.
Datu Paiburong, one of the ten fleeing datus, established a settlement and named it Irong-Irong after an islet of the same name on the Batiano River. Afterwards, the warriors Labaodungon and Paybare, upon advice of datu Paiboring then recruited local fighters from the Philippines and fellow immigrants from Borneo and they returned to Borneo at Odtojan where the enemy of the ten datus, Makatunaw, ruled, Rajah or Sultan Makatunao, and they killed him and sacked the city he ruled and returned to the newly founded towns of the ten datus.
Spain eventually succeeded on conquering of the island of Panay when Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi moved his headquarters from the island of Cebu and creating the first Spanish settlement in the island in Ogtong in 1566. This is mainly due in part to the rivalries between the Bisaya and the Moro, of which the former found an ally in Spanish against the latter. The Bisayas accepted alliances with Spain, to defend themselves against the enslaving Moros. To this end, Iloilo contributed troops in the Castille War against the Sultanate of Brunei.
In 1581, the encomienda in Ogtong the second Spanish city in Panay island after Roxas City and founded by 80 colonists direct from Spain, the encomienda was soon moved to La Villa Rica de Arevalo, because of frequent coastal raids by the Dutch privateers. In 1586, it welcomed another 20 European Spanish Households and the garrison was reinforced by 30 Spanish and Mexican soldiers.
However, an attack in the year 1600 (Part of the Spanish–Moro conflict) where there was a large Muslim armada to destroy Iloilo City, led by two Moros named Sirungan and Salikala who lead the Muslim force of 70 ships and 4,000 warriors that had raided and attacked several Visayan islands in order to abduct slaves to sell to their allies in the Sultanate of Demak and the Sultanate of Malacca, eventually caused the move of the city center further on to the mouth of the Irong-Irong river founding what is now Iloilo City and constructing Fort San Pedro to defend it in 1616.
Nevertheless, when the 4,000 Moros led by Sirungan and Salikala tried to attack Iloilo City they were repulsed with heavy losses in the town of Arevalo by a force of 1,000 Hiligaynon warriors and 70 Mexican arquebusiers under the command of Juan García de Sierra, the Spanish officer who died in the battle. The Spanish Christianized the area. …