Brief History Of Cebu

30,000 years ago the Negrito race crossed the Asian continent through the land bridges. With the disappearance of the bridges, islands were formed, Cebu was formed. Being part of the Malay peninsula, Cebu was part of the Malay empire around 500 A.D.

Early inhabitants refer to this island Zebu or Sugbu, whose trade and commerce reaches as far as Thailand and China was well as the near Malay countries.

The people lived in log houses with nipa roofs and used porcelain wares and earthen jars to contain wine and water. They wore gold jewelries and other ornaments to adorn themselves and their clothes. The men wore bahagui at the lower torso and silk turbans on their heads and their bodies were marked with tattoos. The women on the other hand, wore a loose sack-lined blouse, called chambarra, on tops of a square length cloth skirt wrapped around the waist. Some of the women did not wear anything from the waist up, but they painted their lips and nails and decorated their hair with flowers and colorful turbans and wore beautiful jewelries.

The later part of the year 1521 marked the Spanish era with the landing of Fernando de Magallanes and the baptismal to Christianity of Datu Humabon and Queen Juana and their followers. Magallanes was a Portuguese explorer who sailed under the Spanish expedition of 5 ships and more than 200 men. However, he died in the hands of Datu Lapulapu, a chieftain in the island of Mactan. The famous battle marked the Filipinos' aversion to foreign dominance and rule. It was 44 years later after Magellan's death when the expedition of Don Miguel Lopez de Legaspi and Fray Andres de Urdaneta (April 1565) that Christianization and Spanish colonization took place. Legaspi bombarded the palisades of Rajah Tupas and destroyed the village and called it Villa del Santisimo Nombre de Jesus. and became the first Spanish city established by the Spanish Cortes in 1571.

The Philippine revolution although it started in Luzon organized by Andres Bonifacio, had Cebu itself a site of a bloody battle. On April 3, 1898, Cebuano rebels under Gen. Leon Kilat engaged in a three-day fight and had the Spaniards cover behind Fort San Pedro.

Although the revolution did not last, the Spanish-American War, finally ended the Spanish rule when the Americans won in the Battle of Manila Bay. Spain officially turned over the Philippines to the Americans in the Treaty of Paris.

The American set the country to a semi-autonomous rule when the Philippine Commonwealth was establish in 1935, with Manuel Quezon as president and Sergio Osmena, a Cebuano, as vice-president.

Cebu, being the most densely populated island in the country, served as a vital Japanese base during the Japanese occupation in the Second World War which began with the landing of the Japanese Imperial Army on April 1942.