Like Cavite City (originally called "Cavite La Punta") and Noveleta ("La Tierra Alta"), Imus used to be a part of Cavite el Viejo (now Kawit), whose parish church was built by the Jesuits during the administration of Archdiocese of Manila Archbishop Miguel Garcia Serrano, 1618–1629. For more than a century and a half the people of Imus had to endure walking or traveling of dirt road to attend religious services or transact official business in the city proper. The difficulty of communication between Imus and Cavite el Viejo was a long-standing complaint of the Imuseños until another religious order, the Augustinian Recollects, as a consequence of the British occupation of Manila in 1762, established a parish church in Imus, in what is now known as Bayang Luma.