Note 47 — Chapter III · Rise and Prosperity of Sulu

The following year saw the return of a larger and still more dreadful expedition. The people of Panay abandoned their towns and fled into the mountains under the belief that these terrible attacks had been inspired by the Spaniards. To check these pirates, Juan Gallinato, with a force of 200 Spaniards, was sent against Sulu, but like so many expeditions that followed his, he accomplished nothing. * * * “From this time until the present day” (about the year 1800), wrote Zuñiga, “these Moros have not ceased to infest our colonies; innumerable are the Indians they have captured, the towns they have looted, the rancherias they have destroyed, and the vessels they have taken. It seems as if God has preserved them for vengeance on the Spaniards that they have not been able to subject them in two hundred years, in spite of the expeditions sent against them, the armaments sent almost every year to pursue them. In a very little while we conquered all the islands of the Philippines, but the little Island of Sulu, a part of Mindanao, and the other islands nearby, we have not been able to subjugate to this day.”47