Marinduque, together with Mindoro, the southeast part of Laguna and Camarines was made a part of Batangas when the latter was founded in 1581 by the Spaniards. (Balayan was the capital from 1597-1732; Taal, earlier known as Bonbon, in 1732; then Batangas (the present city) in 1754).
Early in the 17th century, the island of Marinduque was separated from Batangas and became a part of Mindoro as a corregimiento, town. In 1671 Marinduque functioned as a province but was later reduced as a Mindoro sub-province.
On April 28, 1898, with the overthrow of the last Spanish casadores (Tagalog soldiers) after armed conflict and hostilities with the revolutionists during the Philippine-Spanish War, Marinduque declared its separation from Mindoro and from Spanish rule, a move that was ratified by the ruling class from the different towns of the island-province. The local struggle was led by Martin Lardizabal, who was military governor of Marinduque's first revolutionary provincial government.
The first major victory of the Filipinos during the second phase of the Philippine revolution (the Filipino-American War) in Marinduque (1900-1901), occurred at the Battle of Pulang Lupa (Torrijos), when local forces led by Col. Maximo Abad defeated the American contingent under the command of Capt. Deverieux Shields. (The said battle was considered one of the most dramatic reversals the Americans suffered during the war with the Philippines).
On May 1, 1901, the United States-Philippine Commission (The Philippine Commission was a body appointed by the President of the United States to exercise legislative and limited executive powers in 1901, acting as the upper house of a bicameral legislature, with the elected Philippine Assembly acting as lower house. The Jones Act of 1916 later created an elected Philippine Senate to replace the Philippine Commission), passed Act No. 125 which created the Province of Marinduque, composed of the islands of Marinduque and the adjacent small islands. The provincial government was established in the municipality of Boac, the capital.
By virtue of Act No. 423, dated June 23, 1902, the US-Philippine Commission annexed the island of Mindoro, including the island of Lubang (then separated from Cavite), to the Province of Marinduque. Boac remained as the capital of the consolidated provinces.
Four months later, on November 10, 1902, by virtue of Act No. 499, Marinduque was made a part of the Province of Tayabas, the present Quezon. On May 17, 1907, under Act No. 1649, the Commission made Marinduque a sub-province of Tayabas with Juan Nieva as Lieutenant Governor.
Finally, on February 21, 1920, Act No. 2880, sponsored in the Lower House by elected representative Ricardo Paras of Marinduque, separated the sub-province of Marinduque from Tayabas and re-established the former Province of Marinduque. That law was signed by American Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison.
(Note: On the claim that Quezon as president proclaimed Marinduque as a province on February 23, 1920, as stated in previous tourist brochures issued by the provincial government, this could not have happened for the following reasons: The Jones Act of 1916 brought the legislative branch under Filipino control but the executive still was firmly under the control of an appointed American governor general. Even most Supreme Court justices, who were appointed by the United States president, still were Americans in 1916. In 1920,the year in question, Manuel L. Quezon was Senator for the Fifth Senatorial District (Batangas, Mindoro, Tayabas, Cavite, and Marinduque) from 1916-1935. He became the first president of the transitional Philippine Commonwealth in 1935).
Old archive copy of "Brief History of Marinduque" (undated but believed to have been printed in the mid-'60s).
Marinduque Tourist Brochure 2004..
History of Boac, Ramon Madrigal, 1975
The U.S. Army's Pacification of Marinduque, Philippine Islands, April 1900-April 1901 Andrew J. Birtle. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), pp. 255-282
Electronic sources:
http://www.batangasnow.com/history.html
http://philippines-archipelago.com/politics/map/region4b/mimaropa.html
http://www.pangulo.ph/prexy_mlq.php
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9043951/Jones-Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_L._Quezon
http://balete.tripod.com/history.html
http://www.ulongbeach.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Commission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Burton_Harrison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_de_Goiti
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Marathon/9112/MARINDUQUE.htm
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