<P> The civilization of the pre ‐ colonial societies in the Visayas, northern Mindanao, and Luzon were largely influenced by Hindu and Buddhist cultures . As such, the datus who ruled these principalities (such as Butuan, Cebu, Panay, Mindoro and Manila) also shared the many customs of royalties and nobles in southeast Asian territories (with Hindu and Buddhist cultures), especially in the way they used to dress and adorn themselves with gold and silk . The Boxer Codex bears testimony to this fact . The measure of the prince's possession of gold and slaves was proportionate to his greatness and nobility . The first westerners who came to the archipelago observed that there was hardly any "Indian" who did not possess chains and other articles of gold . </P> <P> When the Spaniards expanded their dominion to the Americas and, later on, to the East Indies, they encountered different cultures that existed in these territories, which possessed different social structures (more or less complex), where and as a common trait among them, there was a ruling class that held power and determined the destinies of peoples and territories under its control . These elites were those that the Spaniards discovered and conquered in the New World . It was these Spanish conquerors, using European terminology, who correlated the identity of classes of the pre-Hispanic elites, alongside with the royalty or with the nobility of Europe at the time, according to appropriate categories, e.g., emperor, king, etc . The thoughts of the more notable among them give useful insights on how the first European settlers regarded the rulers of Indians in the New World . Fray Bartolome de las Casas, for example, would argue that indigenous nobles were "(...) as Princes and Infantes like those of Castile ." Juan de Matienzo, during his rule of Peru, said that the "Caciques, curacas and principales are the native princes of the Indians ." In the Lexicon of Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás and Diego González Holguín, as well as in the work of Ludovico Bertonio, several entries included were devoted to identify the pre-Hispanic society, comparing their old titles to those of their counterpart in the Iberian peninsula . </P> <P> The same approach to the local society in the East Indies was used by the Spaniards . </P> <P> The principalía was the first estate of the four echelons of Filipino society at the time of contact with Europeans, as described by Fr . Juan de Plasencia, a pioneer Franciscan missionary in the Philippines . Loarca and the Canon Lawyer Antonio de Morga, who classified society into three estates (ruler, ruled, slave), also affirmed the pre ‐ eminence of the principales . All members of this first estate (the datu class) were principales, whether they were actually occupying positions to rule, or not . The Real Academia Española defines Principal as a "person or thing that holds first place in value or importance, and is given precedence and preference before others". This Spanish term best describes the first estate of the society in the archipelago, which the Europeans came in contact with . San Buenaventura's 1613 Dictionary of the Tagalog language defines three terms that clarify the concept of this principalía: </P>

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