Before the coming of the Spaniards, the Philippines was not a unified country but an archipelago scattered with many different settlements known as "barangays". These barangays each had their own leaders known as "datus" and each functioned independently from each other. As an untouched tropical paradise, records state that the Philippines had a vast number of trees and vegatation sustaining the population.

 

The natives of the Philippines Islands had also begun trading with trading with other Asian countries even before the coming of the Spaniards. It was because of this trade that larger and more permanent settlements began to spawn across the coastlines, the largest of these settlements is presently known as Manila.

 

Due to its strategic location near the coast, the Kingdom of Maynila expanded into a community of over 1,000 families. Agriculture and fishing were the main sources of sustenance for the people living here, and because of the trade, some of the settlers of Maynila converted from their Animist ways and became Islam.

 

Manila was eventually colonized by the Spanish after Governor-General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi conquered it in the 1570's.