 This absence of centralised power meant that a minority of Spanish explorers were able to convert larger numbers of indigenous peoples than attempting such in larger, more organized, dominions such as the Indianised or Theravada Buddhist kingdoms in mainland Southeast Asia, the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipelago.With his arrival in Cebu on March 17, 1521, his first attempt was to colonize the islands and to Christianise its inhabitants.The story goes that Magellan met with Rajah Humabon, ruler of the island of Cebu, who had an ill grandson.