First Lequios Reference: Portuguese Map places Lequios of Zambales around 17 North in 1502? Yup, this is going to leave a mark! 

The Cantino planisphere [View in High Resolution], 1502, completed by an unknown Portuguese cartographer in 1502, is one of the most precious cartographic documents of all time. It depicts the world, as it became known to the Europeans after the great exploration voyages at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century to the Americas, Africa and India. It is now kept in the Biblioteca Universitaria Estense, Modena, Italy. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

🗺️ The Inscription That Refutes Ryukyu

On the Cantino map, just beneath the Tropic of Cancer and above the equator, lies a red island cluster with two major inscriptions:

"Chinachachin sta em xvii. p[ar]alelos aquém de Lauada e tressill, Lequios que saõ de Lequios de Sambalas. Babar e Rabaç..."

🧭 What It Actually Says:

Translation (modernized):

“Chinachachin is situated at 17 degrees latitude, below Lauada and Tressill, [and] the Lequios who are from the Lequios of Sambalas. Babar and Rabaç...”

📍 Deconstructing the Geography:

• Sambalas = Zambales (Luzon)
  The Portuguese label “Sambalas” is unmistakably Zambales, a gold-rich coastal region of Luzon that was, historically, part of Ilocos. This ties the Lequios to Luzon, not Ryukyu.

• Babar = Bamban (Tarlac Province)
  Inland from Zambales is Bamban, a trade-connected area in Tarlac. The correlation with “Babar” is both geographic and phonetic.

• Rabaç = Rabac / Tarlac
  Likely an older name or phonetic rendering of Tarlac, which sits between Babar (Bamban) and Sambalas (Zambales).

• 🛶 Trade Confirmed by Archaeology

• Notably, three pre-colonial shipwrecks have been discovered off the coast of Zambales—Pandanan, Lena Shoal, and Santa Cruz—loaded with Vietnamese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian trade goods. These date to the 15th century, affirming Zambales as a maritime hub long before Spanish occupation.

🧬 Cultural Continuity: Lequios, Ilocanos, and the Warrior Merchants

• Zambales was part of the Ilocos region, culturally and linguistically tied to the Ilocano people who dominate Luzon’s north. Pinto’s “Lequios” were militarized, horse-riding, ship-owning merchant warriors, matching the historical Filipino profile, not the pacifist court officials of Ryukyu.

🧭 Key Insight:

• The Cantino Planisphere (1502) predates Barbosa (1516) and Rodrigues (1512) — meaning:

• Barbosa and Rodrigues were not the originators, but recorders of an already-established Portuguese maritime-geographic understanding.

• The Cantino map reflects contemporaneous Portuguese intelligence as early as 1501–1502 — collected covertly (likely from official Casa da Índia sources) and smuggled to Italy by Alberto Cantino.

• Therefore, by 1502, the Portuguese:Already knew of the isles around Luzon, including references to Sambalas (Zambales),Already associated them with high-value resources (silver, gold),Had mapped Luzon and surrounding islands as part of the East Indies economic theatre, not as vague, undiscovered territory.

🔍 Logical Breakdown of Pinto's Directions fitting Luzon NOT Ryukyu:

1. Pinto consistently describes a Southeast Asian trading corridor, reinforced by firsthand navigation from Sumatra to Borneo to Luzon and beyond. All of these lie between ~1° and 20° North.

2. When he describes the Five Very Large Isles and the Lequios, the narrative and implied latitudinal drift place these islands firmly in the range of 9° to 20° N — fitting the Philippines, especially Luzon.

3. Ryukyu (24°–27°N) and 29°N (which is nearly Shanghai's latitude) are:Outside the regional current system Pinto traveled in,Incompatible with his multi-day drift from Batanes, andWay too far north for his described Southeast Asia itinerary.

4. The only logical reading is that 29° was a later copyist’s or editor’s error (likely in the flawed 1614 edition), especially given the fact that:Pinto was not a cartographer and relied on approximate positional recall.Scholar Rebecca Catz warned of “glaring and daring” latitudinal inaccuracies in the published edition.

🧭 Reinforcement from Map Evidence:

• Maps from 1512, 1539, 1544, and 1794 show Lequios/Lucones or Luzon between 12°–18°N.

• No credible early map places Lequios at or near 29°.

📌 Conclusion:

If Pinto intended a realistic latitudinal placement of the Lequios Isles, 9° to 20°N fits his narrative, the geography, and the ocean current logic — not 29°N, which collapses under navigational scrutiny.

🔍 Implication:

• This invalidates any claim that the Philippines was still a mystery or that Barbosa or Rodrigues were guessing. Instead, they were documenting a known and defined space, likely taught in maritime training at the time.

🔥 The Verdict:

• This is the first known map to explicitly state that the Lequios were from Luzon.

• No Ryukyu.
  No ambiguity.
  No colonial deflection.

• 🪶 The Lequios are from the Lequios of Sambalas. That’s Luzon.

🧩 Why the Colonial Narrative Ignored This

• Colonial geographers later shifted the term “Lequios” to Ryukyu—likely because Luzon, as Ophir, was too politically volatile to affirm. But this map, drawn before those revisions took hold, preserved the truth.

• Even Ortelius, who initially adopted the Ryukyu theory in early maps, corrected course in 1589 under Spanish employ, recognizing Luzon’s prominence.

📜 Final Thought:

• The Cantino Map doesn’t just preserve maritime routes.
  It preserves identity—before colonial erasure took hold.

• It is time to reclaim Lequios as Luzon and finally let the maps speak louder than the propaganda.

📽️ Watch & Explore:

• The Lequios River – Cagayan and the River of Gol

• The 1794 Spanish-British Map Affirms Lequios in Luzon

#LequiosIsLuzon #SmokingQuill #CantinoMap #PreColonialPhilippines #OphirConfirmed #ZambalesTrade #ForgottenHistory #AncientMapsSpeak

“The final page wasn’t colonial ink — it was joy, justice, and memory.”