Bukidnon - History and Cultural Relations



Bukidnon trace their origins to a pre-Islamic, Proto-Manobo-speaking population located along the southwestern coast of Mindanao, perhaps near the mouth of the Rio Grande. According to their oral epic known as the Ulagina, or Olagina, the central event in their history involved their journey away from the coast and the trials they endured in the wilderness as they followed their great culture hero named Agyu. They settled on the plateau and developed trade ties with both the Islamicized Maguindanao to their south and the Hispanicized Visayans to their north. They remained relatively uninfluenced by Spanish rule until the 1880s and 1890s when Jesuits baptized over 8,000 of the 20,000 people whom they estimated to comprise the Bukidnon population, and persuaded most of these to settle in towns built on the model of the Philippine plaza complex. Bukidnon also became more and more closely tied to the Philippine economy as producers of cash crops like abaca, cacao, coffee, and tobacco. The American colonial government created a special province called Agusan in 1907, with Bukidnon as one of two subprovinces whose "non-Christian" population came directly under American governance. Bukidnon became a full province in 1914, but as an area predominantly of "non-Christians" and hence still a Special Province, it remained directly under American control. Americans initiated a flourishing cattle industry on the plateau, which employed a number of Bukidnon men as cowboys. They also opened a pineapple plantation, which involved still more Bukidnon in the new cash economy. Guerrillas and Japanese soldiers destroyed the cattle herds during World War II, leaving the land open for thousands of farmers who migrated to Bukidnon in the 1950s and 1960s, thus raising the province's population from 63,470 in 1948 to 194,368 in 1960, and to 414,762 in 1970. During this time of rapid population growth, the Binukid-speaking population remained comparatively stable. Today they may be divided into three principal categories. First, some continue to reside in very remote settlements near the headwaters of the Pulangi or high up on the slopes of Mount Kitanglad or Mount Kalatungan. A second category, comprising the majority of Bukidnon who reside in small barangay spread out across the plateau, is more acculturated. Finally, a third and much smaller category embraces those living in Malaybalay and other towns along the highway, most of whom have ceased to regard themselves as culturally different from their Bisayan neighbors.


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Is Bukidnon still under the Americans or is it under the Spanish?And what is the total population as at today?

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