After obtaining peace with various indigenous tribes and kingdoms, he made Cebu City the capital of the Spanish East Indies in 1565 and later transferred to Manila in 1571.

Miguel López de Legazpi was born on 12 June 1502 in the town of Zumarraga in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, Spain.

He may have been part of the retinue of Juan de Zumárraga, a fellow Basque who was appointed by Charles V to become the first bishop and inquisitor in New Spain.

[8] López de Legazpi's expedition anchored off the Indianized Rajahnate of Cebu on 13 February 1565, but did not put ashore due to opposition from natives.

The Spanish colony proved to be resistant to the blockade and the Portuguese fleet withdrew as it suffered from an outbreak of typhoid fever.

Landing in Batangas with a force of 120 Spaniards, de Goiti explored the Pansipit River, which drains Taal Lake.

Rajah Soliman had his conditions for Bambalito that if they were able to kill as least 50 Spaniards, he would revoke his alliance with López de Legazpi, and the Old Ache would help to expel the conquerors.

[13] On 30 May 1570, Bambalito sailed to Tondo with Caracoas and encountered the Spaniards at Bangkusay Channel, headed by Martin de Goiti on 3 June 1571.

[b] In the same year, more reinforcements arrived in the Philippines, prompting López de Legazpi to leave Cebu for Panay and then for Luzon.

During the early phase of the exploration of the northern part of the Philippines, López de Legazpi remained in Cebu and did not accompany his men during their conquest of Maynila because of health problems and advanced age.

In Maynila, López de Legazpi formed a peace pact with the native councils as well as the local rulers, Rajah Sulayman and Lakan Dula).

In September 1571, Goiti pacified Lubao and Betis, using riverine tributaries of Rio Chico, then he reached the settlements in Calumpit and Malolos on 14 November 1571 and other old villages mostly along Manila Bay.

López de Legazpi governed the Philippines for a year before dying suddenly of a stroke in Manila on 20 August 1572 after scolding an aide.

[citation needed] During his final years, López de Legazpi wrote several letters to Philip II of Spain about his journey to the East Indies, and the conquest he had achieved.

At the time of López de Legazpi's arrival, the natives of the archipelago practiced Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and animism.

With the Augustinian, Franciscan and other friars, who had helped him establish a government on the islands, López de Legazpi worked to convert the natives to the Christian religion.

In 1609, Antonio de Morga, Alcalde of Criminal Causes, in the Royal Audiencia of New Spain wrote: After the islands had been conquered by the sovereign light of the holy gospel which entered therein, the heathen were baptized, the darkness of their paganism was banished and they changed their own for Christian names.

[17]The López de Legazpi and Urdaneta expedition to the Philippines effectively created the trans-Pacific Manila galleon trade, in which silver mined from Mexico and Potosí was exchanged for Chinese silk, porcelain, Indonesian spices, Indian gems and other goods precious to Europe at the time.