Spanish Establish Cebu

1564

Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and his Augustinian chaplain Andres de Urdaneta landed on the Philippine island of Cebu and founded the first Spanish settlement in the archipelago. The priests began baptizing. Urdaneta, a veteran navigator, was already plotting a return route across the Pacific to Mexico. Urdaneta's discovery of the Pacific return route inaugurated the Manila Galleon trade operating for two and a half centuries.