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• he Spanish conquest altered indigenous politics and culture and it is only logical that it should alter the practice of warfare in the archipelago. In brief, two traditions of armed combat were created during the Spanish colonial period: an evasive, defensive tradition that was evolved from prehispanic notions of warfare, and a newer tradition of w...
• The datu therefore tried to become the nexus of debt relations—to have as many people as possible owe gratitude or utang ng loob to the datu.23 The datu did this by becoming the community’s benefactor, by offering followers benefits like feasts where rare or expensive foods like rice or meat were eaten, with “prestige” goods like Chinese porcelain...
• This kind of charisma-based “theater state” made for a considerable amount of instability or “political cycling.”36 Since authority relied on an individual datu’s ability, it could disappear with that datu’s death or decline in fortunes: power therefore tended to “cycle” from one polity to the other, or from one person to the other.37
• By the seventeenth century, there were only a few thousand Spanish, almost all living in Manila or Cebu.62 As late as 1825, a Spanish writer complained that the Spanish rule was primarily confined to the coastlands
• Until communications and travel were improved, political centralization would remain difficult, and even with new technologies fragmentation remained an issue that had serious implications for warfare. Localism, or the importance of elites at very local levels, began during this period. The importance of interpersonal ties and personalism in muster...

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