The name Camiguin is dreived from the
word kamagong, which is a tree of the ebony family. the orginal
inhabitants were the Manobo who imigrated from Surigao. When Visayan
settlers arrived, the Manobo retreated to the highlands of Mindanao.
The people of Camuigen were already
trading with merchants of neighboring Asian Countries when Ferdinand
Magellan and Miguel Lopez de LEgaspi landed here in 1521 and 1565
repsectively. But it was not until 1598 that the Spanish settlement was
founded in what later came to be Guinsiliban.
Catarman, where barangay Bonbon is now,
became the major settlement in the island until 1871 when vulkan Daan
erupted, sinking part of the town into the sea, after which the town
proper was moved to its present site. Mambajo was not established until
1855 but it grew quikly to be the busiest part in northern Mindanao in
the early 1900.
During World War II, the Japanese burned
downtown Mambajao to retaliate against guerilla activities in the
island. When Mt. Hibok-Hibok erupted in 1951, lava covered many barrios
in Mambajao and 3000 people were killed.
Camiguin was a part of Misamis Oriental
until 1958 when it became a sub-province. It was made into a separate
province on June 18, 1966, but was formally inagurated only in 1968. |
