ABSTRACT
The shadow of Santiago, indeed the mantle of Santiago, had always enveloped Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas. In 1593 the preparations he had been setting in place, starting very soon after his arrival in Manila, for an expedition against the Muslims in the Spice Islands of Te˘rnate and Tidore, were complete. In the years before Dasmariñas arrived in the Philippines there had been a steady stream of pleas for help from the king of Tidore, one of the two Spice Islands, against the neighbouring Muslim king of the other, Te˘rnate. This island of Te˘rnate was firmly in Muslim hands. Dasmariñas was determined to settle the issue. As de Morga reports it:
From the moment the Governor Gomes Peres accepted his office in Spain, and especially after taking up his post in the islands, he was anxious to send an expedition from Manila to conquer the fort of Terrenate in Maluco, because the undertaking and its outcome were of great importance, especially since earlier attempts had been unsuccessful. With this affair in mind he was constantly planning the necessary arrangements, but so secretly that he told no one of it, until in 1593 finding himself with all that seemed needful for the task, he declared his purpose and prepared to set out in person, together with more than nine hundred Spaniards, two hundred 1 sail, consisting of galleys, galliots, frigates, virreys, and other craft. 2
