 Further to the east of the Isabela Channel, the Spanish buried their war-dead on a small tongue of land off Malamawi's Panigayan coast, this area was called Isla Calavera (Eng.Skeleton Island) until rising tides completely submerged it.After a series of less-than-successful attempts during the centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines, Spanish forces captured the city of Jolo, the seat of the Sultan of Sulu, in 1876.