barangay

Type of early Filipino settlement.

The term was derived from balangay, the sailboats that brought Malay settlers to the Philippines from Borneo. Each boat carried a family group that established a village. These villages, which sometimes grew to include 30–100 families, remained isolated from one another; the fact that no larger political grouping emerged (except on Mindanao) facilitated the 16th-century Spanish conquest. The Spanish retained the barangay as a unit of local administration.

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▪ Filipino settlement

      type of early Filipino settlement; the word is derived from balangay, the name for the sailboats that originally brought settlers of Malay stock to the Philippines from Borneo. Each boat carried a large family group, and the master of the boat retained power as leader, or datu, of the village established by his family.

      Barangay villages sometimes grew to include 30 to 100 families, but the barangays remained isolated from one another. Except on Mindanao, the part of the Philippines where Islām first got a foothold, no larger political grouping emerged. This fact greatly facilitated Spanish conquest of the Philippines in the 16th century, since resistance remained uncoordinated and sporadic. The Spaniards retained the barangay as their basic unit of local administration in the islands.

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