Place:Cavite, CALABARZON, Philippines

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Cavite, officially the Province of Cavite (; Chavacano: Provincia de Cavite), is a province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region in Luzon. Located on the southern shores of Manila Bay and southwest of Manila, it is one of the most industrialized and fastest-growing provinces in the Philippines. As of 2020, it has a population of 4,344,829, making it the most populated province in the country if the independent cities of Cebu are excluded from Cebu's population figure.

The de facto capital and seat of the government of the province is Trece Martires, although Imus is the official (de jure) capital.

For over 300 years, the province played an important role in both the country's colonial past and eventual fight for independence, earning it the title "Historical Capital of the Philippines". It became the cradle of the Philippine Revolution, which led to the renouncement of Spanish colonial control, finally culminating in the Philippine Declaration of Independence on June12, 1898 in Kawit. The old provincial capital, Cavite City also hosted docks for the Manila galleon, becoming an essential part of commerce between Asia and Latin America.

Originally an agricultural province, its northern cities of Bacoor, Imus, and Dasmariñas (with a combined population of 1,864,560 at the 2020 Census) are now suburbs of Manila due to increasing urbanization in the late 1900s. This province forms part of the Greater Manila Area.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Pre-Hispanic period

The present Cavite City was once a mooring place for Chinese junks that came to trade with the settlements around Manila Bay. The land was formerly known as "Tangway". Archeological evidence in coastal areas shows prehistorical settlements. According to local folklore, the earliest settlers of Cavite came from Sulu or Borneo.

Spanish colonial period

The Spanish colonizers who arrived in the late 16th century saw the unusual tongue of land jutting out on Manila Bay and saw its deep waters as the main staging ground where they could launch their bulky galleons. It would later become the most important port linking the colony to the outside world through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade. In 1571, Spanish colonizers established the port and City of Cavite and fortified the settlement as a first line of defense for the city of Manila. Galleons were built and fitted at the port and many Chinese merchants settled in the communities of Bacoor and Kawit, opposite the Spanish city to trade silks, porcelain and other oriental goods.

"A defensive curtained wall was constructed the length of Cavite's western side," beginning from the entrance, "La Estanzuela", and continuing to the end of the peninsula, "Punta de Rivera", with the eastern shore unprotected by a wall. Cavite contained government offices, churches, mission buildings, Spanish homes, Fort San Felipe and the Rivera de Cavite shipyard. Docks were in place to construct galleons and galleys, but without a dry dock, ships were repaired by careening along the beach.^[1]

Fort San Felipe, La Fuerza de San Felipe, was built between 1609 and 1616. This quadrilateral structure of curtained walls, with bastions at the corners, contained 20 cannons facing the seashore. Three infantry companies, 180 men each, plus 220 Pampangan infantry, garrisoned the fort.^[1]

The galleons Espiritu Santo and San Miguel, plus six galleys were constructed between 1606 and 1616. From 1729 to 1739, "the main purpose of the Cavite shipyard was the construction and outfitting of the galleons for the Manila to Acapulco trade run."^[1]

The vibrant mix of traders, Spanish seamen from Spain and its Latin-American colonies, as well as local residents, gave rise to the use of pidgin Spanish called Chabacano. A great number of Mexican men had settled at Cavite, spread throughout Luzon, and had integrated with the local Philippine population. Some of these Mexicans became Tulisanes (Bandits) that led peasant revolts against Spain.

In 1614, the politico-military jurisdiction of Cavite was established. As with many other provinces organized during the Spanish colonial era, Cavite City, the name of the capital, was applied to the whole province, Cavite. The province covered all the present territory except for the town of Maragondon, which used to belong to the Corregimiento of Mariveles. Maragondon was ceded to Cavite in 1754 when Bataan province was created from Pampanga province. Within Maragondon is a settlement established in 1660 by Christian Papuan exiles brought in by the Jesuits from Ternate in the Maluku Islands, and named this land Ternate after their former homeland.^[2]

Owing to its military importance, Cavite had been attacked by foreigners in their quest to conquer Manila and the Philippines. The Dutch made a surprise attack on the city in 1647, pounding the port incessantly, but were repulsed. In 1672, the British occupied the port during their two-year control in the Philippines.^[3]

In the 17th century, encomiendas (Spanish Royal land grants) were given in Cavite and Maragondon to Spanish conquistadores and their families. The religious orders began acquiring these lands, with some donated, enlarging vast haciendas (estates) in Cavite during the 18th and 19th century, enriching themselves. These haciendas became the source of bitter conflicts between the friar orders and Filipino farmers and pushed a number of Caviteños to live as outlaws. This opposition to the friar orders was an important factor that drove many Cavite residents to support reform, and later, independence.^[3]

In 1872, Filipinos launched their revolt against Spain. Three Filipino priests—Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez and Jacinto Zamora—were implicated in the Cavite mutiny when 200 Filipinos staged a rebellion within Spanish garrisons. On August 28, 1896, when the revolution against Spain broke out, Cavite became a bloody theater of war. Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, Caviteños made lightning raids on Spanish headquarters, and soon liberated the entire province through the Battle of Alapan. Aguinaldo commanded the Revolution to its successful end – the proclamation of the First Republic of the Philippines on June 12, 1898, in Kawit.

During the Spanish–American War, American forces attacked the Spanish squadron in Cavite. The Spanish defeat marked the end of Spanish rule in the country.^[3] A captured Spanish cannon from the Cavite arsenal now sits in Village Green Park in Winnetka, Illinois, USA.

World War II: Japanese occupation and liberation

In May 1942, after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor Island, the Japanese Imperial forces occupied Cavite and made garrisons in each town of the province.

After surviving the Bataan Death March and released from Capas, Tarlac concentration camp USAFFE Col. Mariano Castañeda, returned to Cavite and secretly organized the guerilla forces in the province.

The Japanese authorities pressured him to accept the position as Provincial Governor of Cavite, he refused many times over until his excuses did not work, much against his will he was forced to accept the position by the Japanese, and by thinking that it would be beneficial to further organize the resistance movement as Governor by day and a guerilla commander by night. Eventually, the Japanese discovered his guerrilla connection and raided his house in the attempt to capture him, but he escaped along with Col. Lamberto Javalera by swimming the Imus river up to Salinas, Bacoor and finally joined his comrades in the field in Neneng, the General Headquarters of the FACGF located in Dasmariñas.

At this time due to his organizational skills the Fil American Cavite Guerilla Forces (FACGF) raised a regiment in each of the administrative units and also created attached special battalions Overall, 3 special battalions, 1 medical battalion, 1 signal company, 1 hospital unit, Division GHQ and Staff were raised to provide administrative and combat support. Later on, the FACGF, with a peak of 14,371 Enlisted Men and 1,245 officers, grew into a formidable force to take on the omnipresent rule of the Japanese in the province. At its peak the force contained 14 infantry regiments:

• 1st Infantry Regiment, Imus (Col. Lorenzo Saulog)
• 2nd Infantry Regiment, Bacoor (Col. Francisco Guererro)
• 3rd Infantry Regiment, Silang (Col. Dominador Kiamson)
• 4th Infantry Regiment, Dasmariñas (Col. Estanislao Mangubat Carungcong)
• 5th Infantry Regiment, Barangay Anabu, Imus (Col. Raymundo Paredes)
• 6th Infantry Regiment, Cavite City (Col. Amado Soriano)
• 7th Infantry Regiment, Alfonso (Col. Angeles Hernais)
• 8th Infantry Regiment, Naic (Col. Emilio Arenas)
• 9th Infantry Regiment, Mendez (Col. Maximo Rodrigo)
• 10th Infantry Regiment Kawit (Col. Hugo Vidal)
• 11th Infantry Regiment Imus (Col. Maximo Reyes)
• 12th Infantry Regiment, Amadeo (Col. Daniel Mediran)
• 13th Infantry Regiment, Rosario (Col. Ambrosio Salud)
• 14th Infantry Regiment, Brgy. Paliparan, Dasmariñas (Col. Emiliano De La Cruz)

On January 31, 1945, the liberation of the province of Cavite started with the combined forces of the American 11th Airborne Division under General Swing and Col. Hildebrand and the valiant Caviteño guerrilleros of the Fil-American Cavite Guerilla Forces, which liberated the province of Cavite from the Japanese occupiers, and protected at all costs the National Highway 17 from Tagaytay to Las Piñas that serve as the vital supply route of the 11th Airborne Division, paving the way towards the road to the bitter but victorious Battle of Manila.

Postwar growth

The economic growth of the country began to creep its way to the province following the end of the Second World War and the restoration of independence. Given its distance from Manila, the province soon began to feel a transformation into an economic provider of food and industrial goods not just for Metro Manila but for the whole of the country. In 1954, Trece Martires City was created out as a planned capital city from portions of Tanza, Indang, Naic, and General Trias. Despite the transfer of capital status to Imus in 1979, it retains many offices of the provincial government, acting thus as the de facto capital of the province. Also, Tagaytay's high location and cool temperatures would enable it to become a secondary summer capital and a vacation spot especially during the Christmas season, given its distance to the Manila area.

Plan CALABARZON of 1972, in the midst of martial law and the communist and anti-government aggression that occurred in the rural areas and the western highlands, set the roadmap for the arrival of industrial estates to the province, beginning an era of economic progress. Carmona was the first town to have industrial estates, through the rising number of residents from the capital region enabled the creation of a new town, General Mariano Alvarez, in 1981, from parts of the town's north and west. In addition, Bacoor, given its distance from Metro Manila, saw the building of the first residential villages to accommodate the rising number of workers in the capital in the same period, and today, this city, alongside other towns and cities in the province's north and central parts, have more residential subdivisions and townships, as well as a number of shopping malls and other private business establishments.

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