7,
Spain first tried to organize them into a dependent government. These
treacherous pirates, the descendants of the fierce Dyacs of Borneo,
had begun still earlier to terrorize the southern coasts, raiding the
villages and carrying off the children into slavery. In 1599 a Moro
fleet descended on the coast of Negros and Panay, and would, no doubt,
have occupied this territory permanently had not the arms of Spain
been there to interfere. Hereafter Spanish galleons were to oppose
the progress of these pirate fleets, while troops of infantry were to
defeat the savages on land. The Spaniards early in the seventeenth
century succeeded in establishing a foothold on the island of Jolo
and at Zamboanga. It was Father Malchior de Vera who designed the
fort at Zamboanga, which was destined to become the scene of many an
attack by Moro warriors, and to be the base of military operations
against the surrounding tribes. A Jesuit mission was established in the
sultan's territory after the defeat of the Mohammedans by Corcuera. In
the interior, around the shores of Lake Lanao, the fighting padre,
Friar Pedro de San Augustin, backing the cross with Spanish infantry,
carried the Christian war into the country of the infidels, continuing
the conflict that for many years had made a battleground of Spain. It
was in memory of their old enemies, the Moors, that when the Spaniards
met the infidels in eastern lands, they named them Moros (Moors).

The war between Spain and the Moros was relentless. Time and again the
pirates had been punished by the Spanish admirals, until, in 1725,
the sultan sent a Chinese envoy to Manila to negotiate a truce. A
treaty was ratified, but broken, and again the Sulu Moros learned
what Spanish hell was like. In spite of this continual warfare the
Mohammedans grew stronger, and in 1754 the ocean was infested with
the Moro _vintas_, till another friar, Father Ducos, in a sea-fight
off the coast of Northern Mindanao, sunk one hundred and fifty of
their boats and killed three thousand men. Bantilan, the usurper of
the Sulu throne, was one of the foremost of the mischief-makers who,
in 1767, sent a pirate fleet as far north as Manila Bay. Although the
Spaniards had repeatedly won victories in Jolo, Zamboanga, and Davao,
and by treaties had made all this country vassal to the crown of Spain,
up to the time of the evacuation of the Philippines, when, as a last
act, they had sent their own tiny gunboats to the bottom o