Tondo

Tondo was a Tagalog and Kapampangan settlement and polity on the northern side of the Pasig River delta on Luzon, in what is now the Manila area. With Maynila, the bayan on the southern side of the delta, it shared a monopoly on the trade in Chinese goods across much of the Philippine archipelago, making it a significant force in Southeast and East Asian commerce. Tondo is one of the oldest historically documented settlements in the Philippines: it appears in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription of 900 AD, the oldest surviving written document in the country. Early Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish visitors often called it the Kingdom of Tondo, although the Augustinian chronicler Pedro de San Buenaventura noted in 1613 that this was a mistranslation of a Tagalog term better rendered as settlement, country or city-state. Spanish forces under royal command began arriving in the Manila Bay area in 1570, and the towns around the bay, including Manila and Tondo, capitulated in 1571. Tondo was thereafter ruled from Manila, and its absorption into the Spanish monarchy ended its existence as an independent political entity. It remained a separate town until 1911, when it was made a district of the city of Manila. Its trade networks, copperplate record and later historiography make it a key case for understanding pre-colonial Philippine polities.