NEGROS OF HISTORY IN CAPSULE

by Modesto P. Sa-onoy

The island was called Buglas until the Spaniards first touched base here in 1565 and had an armed encounter with the Aeta, aborigines of the island. The encounter earned for Buglas the name Negros for the small, black men.

Negros was colonized in 1565 with the division of Negros into 8 encomiendas, but it was not until 1572 that the first town of Binalbagan was established. The Agustinian missionaries followed and created a parish in this town in 1575 where Christian evangelization began. The island, however, was so poor that this convent was abandoned, including the new one in Ilog established in 1585.

The Spanish government created Negros into a corregimiento in 1628 but the work of Christianization slowed down with one religious order coming and leaving and the seculars replacing them. But the poverty of the island was such that after over 250 years only eight towns and eight parishes were established.

To develop the island, the government invited the landless from other provinces to settle in Negros and since 1840 the flow of immigrants, attracted by opportunities, increased the population from 50,000 to 380,000 in 1898. The main attraction was the expansion of the sugar industry from a mere 3,000 piculs to over a million in 1898, most of which was exported. The Recollect order sent in missionaries to expand the work of evangelization and help in the economic and social development of the island.

With wealth came education for the rich who lived in luxury. New ideas about freedom and self-rule came and when the Philippine revolution in 1896 erupted, the idea of an uprising also reached Negros and Panay. In a coordinated move, Negros and Iloilo rose in revolt on November 5, 1898, and forced the Spanish forces to surrender the following day on negotiation between the rebel forces headed by Aniceto Lacson and Juan Araneta and the Spaniards through Jose Ruiz de Luzuriaga. Negros established its own republic repudiating the one established in Luzon.

The Americans waged a war against the Filipino government in Luzon but in Negros, the US forces were welcome and slowly the Americans imposed their will and the Negros Republic became irrelevant. The Americans offered and Negros accepted to be a civil province of the Philippines under American rule in 1901. The Negros Republic ceased to exist.

American capital expanded the sugar market, and new sugar mills producing centrifugal sugar were established throughout the island. By 1935, Negros was producing over a million tons of sugar, 90% of which was exported to the US. American sugar interests disadvantaged by the tariff free, cheap Philippine sugar demanded a reduction in volume for them to support Philippine independence. A quota system was imposed.

World War II broke out in the Philippines in 1941 and in May 1942, Japanese forces occupied Negros but over 80% of the Filipino troops waged guerilla warfare while the Americans surrendered. Liberation came in 1945 and Negros revived and expanded the sugar industry bringing wealth back, and more when the US imposed an embargo against Cuba in 1961. More mills were established so that progress and human, infrastructure, educational and religious development continue with new products and services spinning out of the sugar money.