Juan de Silva
Encyclopedia
Juan de Silva is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
) was a Spanish military commander and governor of the Philippines, from April 1609 until his death on April 19, 1616.
De Silva was a native of Trujillo, Spain
Trujillo, Spain
Trujillo is a Spanish city of 9860 inhabitants , located in the province of Cáceres, in the Extremadura region. Famous for its monuments, it is a premier resort in Extremadura. It was the birthplace of Francisco Pizarro and his brothers, conquerors of Peru, as well as of Francisco de Orellana...
, and a knight of the Order of Santiago
Order of Santiago
The Order of Santiago was founded in the 12th century, and owes its name to the national patron of Galicia and Spain, Santiago , under whose banner the Christians of Galicia and Asturias began in the 9th century to combat and drive back the Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula.-History:Santiago de...
. He arrived in the Philippines as governor and captain general at Easter, 1609, bring with him five companies of reinforcements for the Spanish military in the colony. He developed a reputation for bravery and determination in his fight with the Dutch in the Far East.
Defeat of the Dutch at Manila
On December 22, 1607 a Dutch fleet of the Company of the East Indies set sail from TexelTexel
Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark...
to attack the Portuguese fleet and forts in the East. The fleet consisted of 13 vessels, 225 artillery pieces and more than 2,800 men. It was under the command of Admiral Pierre Willemsz., with François de Wittert
François de Wittert
François Wittert was an admiral in the service of the Dutch republic.François Wittert was the son of Hendrik Adriaenz. Wittert and Volckgen Clementsdr. van Overschie...
as vice-admiral. The fleet fought with the Portuguese in Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
and Johor
Johor
Johor is a Malaysian state, located in the southern portion of Peninsular Malaysia. It is one of the most developed states in Malaysia. The state capital city and royal city of Johor is Johor Bahru, formerly known as Tanjung Puteri...
e before building a fort at Near, in the Banda Islands
Banda Islands
The Banda Islands are a volcanic group of ten small volcanic islands in the Banda Sea, about south of Seram Island and about east of Java, and are part of the Indonesian province of Maluku. The main town and administrative centre is Bandanaira, located on the island of the same name. They rise...
(present-day Indonesia). Here on May 22, 1609 the admiral and some of his officers were killed in an attack by the natives, and Wittert assumed command.
Thereafter Wittert sailed to Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
to attack the Spanish there. (Spain and Portugal were ruled by the same king, Philip III of Spain
Philip III of Spain
Philip III , also known as Philip the Pious, was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II , from 1598 until his death...
(Philip II of Portugal), and thus were allies.) Wittert besieged Manila for five months, beginning in 1609. However on April 24 or April 25, 1610, while supervising the unloading of junks, Wittert was surprised by at least 12 Spanish ships. His flagship, the Amsterdam, was captured after a lengthy fight, and the admiral was killed. Two ships apparently escaped, but the Spanish killed at least 85 Dutch and took 120 or more prisoners.
Also during the first part of Governor de Silva's term, the fourth archbishop of Manila, Diego Vazquez de Mercado, arrived there (June 4, 1610).
Expeditions to the Moluccas
De Silva sent an unsuccessful expedition against the Dutch in the Moluccas in 1611, although the expedition did take Sabougo on Gilolo and establish a fort there. De Silva intended to secure Portuguese help to expel the Dutch from the area once and for all. To this end in 1612 he dispatched the former governor of TernateTernate
Ternate is an island in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It is located off the west coast of the larger island of Halmahera, the center of the powerful former Sultanate of Ternate....
, Cristobal de Azcueta to Portuguese India to make plans with the viceroy there for a joint assault. However Azcueta and the entire expedition were lost in a shipwreck between Manila and Macao.
De Silva tried again, this time sending two Jesuit emissaries to Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
. They arrived in 1615 and reached an agreement with the Portuguese viceroy that he would contribute four large galleons, to be sent to Malacca. This information was received in Manila, where a large Spanish fleet was already prepared, in July 1615. In order to obtain the artillery for this expedition de Silva had weakened the defenses of Manila, with grave risks in the event of an attack on the city by the Dutch.
There was no news of the arrival of the Portuguese galleons, but against the advice of many of his subordinates, Governor de Silva sailed for Malacca on February 9, 1616. He commanded ten galleons, four galleys and various smaller vessels. The flagship was the 1,700-ton San Marcos. The fleet carried 5,000 men, both soldiers and sailors, including nearly 2,000 Spaniards and a unit of Japanese infantry. It also carried 300 artillery pieces and 6 Jesuits. It was the largest European armada yet seen in the region.
The fleet sailed for the Strait of Malacca
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow, stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is named after the Malacca Sultanate that ruled over the archipelago between 1414 to 1511.-Extent:...
, with the intention of uniting with the expected Portuguese armada and then attacking the Dutch factory on Java and thereafter the Dutch bases on the islands of the Moluccas. But the Portuguese fleet had already been attacked by the Dutch near Malacca and completely destroyed. In order to avoid their capture, the Portuguese had burned their big galleons.
The Spanish fleet entered the Strait of Singapore on February 25, 1616. From there Governor de Silva sent Juan Gutierrez Paramo with part of the fleet to reinforce Ternate (in the Moluccas).
But the governor was in poor health. He had earlier asked several times to be relieved of office for health reasons. Now his health deteriorated further, and on April 19, 1616, he died in Malacca. The whole Spanish enterprise had to be abandoned, with nothing accomplished against the Dutch.
The armada returned to Manila on June 1, 1616, sin gente (without people). Although they had not faced combat, many men had died of fevers and other illnesses that struck the fleet in Malacca and the Strait of Singapore.
Critics of the governor, both among his contemporaries and later historians, have claimed that had he sailed directly to the Moluccas rather than to Malacca, he very possibly could have dislodged the undermanned Dutch from the archipelago.
After his death
The Audiencia of Manila took charge of political affairs in the absence of Juan de Silva. Jerónimo de Silva, an uncle of the governor, was made interim governor by a royal decree in March 1616. The Audiencia governed until June or July, 1618, when the new governor, Alonso Fajardo y TenzaAlonso Fajardo y Tenza
Don Alonso Fajardo de Entenza y de Guevara, Córdoba y Velasco, Knight of Alcantara, Lord of Espinardo was Spanish Governor-General and Captain-General of the Islands of the Philippines from July 3, 1618 to his death in July 1624.Fajardo de Tenza was a native of Murcia, son of Conquistador Don Luis...
arrived and took up office.