CHAPTER III Ramon Monteyola Madrigal (1899)
MARINDUQUE EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION OF MARINDUQUE. About the close of the 16th century when the Spaniards and the Jesuit missionaries were exploring and colonizing the small islands of the Philippine Archipelago, those who landed in the island now known as Marinduque, found that the island was more thickly populated than the other islands of the same size and had about double the population of the big island of Mindoro which was about ten times bigger in area than the island of Marinduque. The island of Marinduque is lying between Bondoc Peninsula in the east and Mindoro island in the west and Tayabas Province in the north and Tablas Island in the far south. At the beginning of the 17th century, Marinduque was included under the administration of Mindoro when the latter was separated from Bonbon (now called Batangas) and made into a “corregimiento”. Tagalog is the dialect spoken in Marinduque the same as that spoken in Mindoro.
#The Jesuit Father Pedro Chirino writing in his “La Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas” published in Rome in 1604, gave valuable information about the number and the status of the natives at the close of 16 th century. Father Chirino dealt briefly with the islands in general and said that islands which were mostly populated where Manila, Mindoro, Lubang, Marinduque, La isla De Fuegos, Guimaras, las isla de Cabras, Masbate, Capul, y Ibavao (Leyte), Bohol, Panay, Cagayan, Guyo, Calamianes y Paranan, sin mecionar algunas de menos importancia, nunque esteban pobladas, que en su totalidad ascendieron a cuarenta o mas; ademas de otras islas que no esteban habitadas algumas de a cuales eran pecuarias y otras de un tamaño regular.”
#The name Mindoro came from Mina de oro which means “Mine of Gold”.