September 23, 1762 - Admiral William Draper, together with Vice-Admiral Samuel Cornish arrived in Manila Bay from Madras (now Chennai), India. With them were expeditionary force of some 2,000 European and Indian (Sepoy) regulars, volunteers and mercenaries in the service of the British East India Company, to attack Manila which at that time was a Spanish colony. The Seven Years' War (1756-63) was a world-wide conflict between Britain and France that also involved Spain as an ally of France. The British troops encamped south of Intramuros, Spanish offered little opposition and on October 2, 1762, the acting governor-general, Archbishop Manuel Antonio Rojo surrendered the city. News that Manila an important province of Spain, had been lost did not reach Spain until after the cessation of hostilities between the two powers.
During their time in the Philippines, the British found themselves confined to Manila and Cavite in a deteriorating situation, unable to extend British control over the islands and unable to make good their promised support for an uprising led first by Diego Silang which the British gave the title "Sargento Mayor, Alcalde-Mayor y Capitan a Guerra por S.M. Britanica" and later by his wife Gabriela, which was crushed by Spanish forces.
The British occupation lasted until 1764, when the Philippines reverted to Spanish control as part of the peace settlement. However, over the subsequent decades and centuries, Britons built increasing economic links with the Philippines and were instrumental in developing foreign trade between the Philippines and the rest of the world.
The Indian Sepoys backstabbed their abusive British officers and sided with the combined forces of the Spanish Conquistadors assigned by the Governor-General Simon de Anda y Salazar, local rice farmers, fisher folk and Sangley (Chinese) traders. The term "sepoy" or "sipahi" is derived from the Persian word "sipah" meaning "infantry soldier" in the Mughal Empire. In its most common application Sepoy was the term used in the British Indian Army and earlier in that of the British East India Company, for an infantry private (a cavalry trooper was a sowar). After the British Invasion, the Sepoys were allowed by the Spanish Cortes to remained and intermarried with Filipina women, one enduring legacy of 1762-1764 is to be found in the City of Cainta’s Sepoy community, descendants of Indian Sepoys soldiers that explains the Hindu features of some of today's citizens and neighboring cities of Pasig and Taytay.
- ka tony
- the 22nd of September, '13
