In 1635, upon the requests of the Jesuit missionaries and Bishop Fray Pedro of Cebu, the Spanish governor of the Philippines Juan Cerezo de Salamanca (1633?1635) approved the building of a stone fort in defense against pirates and raiders of the sultans of Mindanao and Jolo. The cornerstone of the fort, originally called Real Fuerza de San José (Royal Fort of Saint Joseph), was laid by Melchor de Vera, a Jesuit priest-engineer, on June 23, 1635, which also marks the founding of Zamboanga as a city, then known as Jambangan.[2][3]
