page_title: Bulacan
section_title: Spanish Colonization
hierarchical_section_title: Bulacan / History / Spanish Colonization
caption_attribution_description: Congreso de Malolos
context_page_description: Bulacan is a province in the Philippines located in the Central Luzon region. Its capital is the city of Malolos. Bulacan was established on August 15, 1578, and part of the Metro Luzon Urban Beltway Super Region.
  It has 569 barangays in 21 municipalities and three-component cities. Bulacan is located immediately north of Metro Manila. Bordering Bulacan are the provinces of Pampanga to the west, Nueva Ecija to the north, Aurora and Quezon to the east, and Metro Manila and Rizal to the south. Bulacan also lies on the north-eastern shore of Manila Bay.
  In the 2015 census, Bulacan had a population of 3,292,071 people, the most populous in Central Luzon and the third most populous in the Philippines, after Cebu and Cavite. Bulacan's most populated city is San Jose del Monte, the most populated municipality is Santa Maria while the least populated is Doña Remedios Trinidad.
  In 1899, the historic Barasoain Church in Malolos was the birthplace of the first constitutional democracy in Asia.
  On November 7, 2018, the Provincial Government of Bulacan bagged its fourth Seal of Good Local Governance award.
context_section_description: The Conquest of Bulacan traces to the first years of the Spanish in the Philippines. Upon the defeat of the Macabebe and Hagonoy natives led by Bambalito in the Battle of Bangkusay on June 3, 1571, that caused Martin de Goiti to move up north first to Lubao in September 1571.
  Two months later, on November 14, 1571, Martin de Goiti reached Malolos and Calumpit respectively and it was reported to Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the first Governor-General of the Philippines. Adelantado established Calumpit and Malolos as an Encomienda entrusted to Sargento Juan Moron (Morones in other documents) and Don Marcos de Herrera. These two conquistadores was one of the first group of conquerors accompanied by Legaspi who have arrived in the Islands in 1565.
  On April 5, 1572, the Encomiendas of Calumpit and Malolos were unified co-administered by Moron and Herrera. Also on that year, Alcaldia de Calumpit was formed in which the areas of Macabebe, Candaba, Apalit in Pampanga, and the settlements of Meyto, Panducot, Meysulao, and Malolos. And on December 28, 1575, Governor-General Francisco Sande order to include Hagonoy in Calumpit. (NHCP Journal February 2015)
  In 1575, Bulakan was established as a visita of Tondo and it is not part of Calumpit as the boundary between Tondo and Calumpit was marked in Mambog River and placed the statue of Our Lady of Visitacion (patroness of Calumpit) was erected. It was gone and recreated in 1997 upon the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Parish of Our Lady of Presentacion in Malolos.
  On April 30, 1578, Bulakan town was officially established by the Augustinians with Fray Diego Vivar as its first prior and the convent was dedicated to San Agustin. (when it was changed to Our Lady of Assumption was uncertain). It was reported that the western part of the present-day Bulacan was to be very well populated and rich. No exact date and year when Alcaldia de Calumpit was dissolved and the exact foundation year of the Province of Bulacan. It was only documented that Malolos (then part of Calumpit in 1572) was first to appear as part of Alcaldia de Bulacan was in 1582. It may be assumed that the reorganization of encomiendas has occurred between 1580-1582 at the time of Governor-General Gonzalo Ronquillo de Penalosa.
  Same document also from the 1582 Relacion de las Islas Filipinas by Miguel de Loarca reports that Alcaldia de Calumpit have the jurisdiction in the areas of Calumpit (capital) Capalangan, Cabangbangan and Hagonoy as its villages. Then Loarca was mentioned that Alcaldia de Bulacan have Bulakan (capital) Malolos, Caluya, Guguinto, Binto and Catanghalan (instead of Meycauayan) as it Encomiendas which formerly have one alcalde mayor but he said that Alcaldia de Bulacan was formed in 1580 at the time of Penalosa.
  In the document of Governor-General Luis Perez de Dasmarinas in the Account of the Encomiendas for the King of Spain furnished on June 21, 1591. Dasmarinas mentioned that Alcaldia of Bulacan was part of La Pampanga with the Encomiendas subject to it such as the Encomiendas of Malolos (3,600 persons), Binto (2,000 persons), Guiguinto (2,000 persons),  Caluya (2,800 persons), Mecabayan (2, 800 persons) and Bulacan identified as " capital" and residence of "alcalde mayor" with 4,800 persons. In the same 1591 document, it was mentioned that Calumpit y Hagonoy belongs to Juan Moron with the 12,800 persons, 2 Augustinian Convents, and One Alcalde Mayor of its own.
  However, the establishment and development of the southern part of the present-day Bulacan was not simultaneous and identified with the West. It was because this part of the Province was established by another group of missionaries, the Franciscan Order who came in the islands only in 1577 at Manila. In 1578 Order of Friars Minor headed by Juan de Plasencia and Diego Oropesa arrived in the area called Toril (now part of Meycauayan) and their headquarters. Also in 1578 Plasencia established the Town of Meycauayan. Its pueblos were first only settlements of the Old Meycauayan, founded by Franciscan
  Secondary sources mentioned that 
caption: Opening of the Malolos Congress (1898)
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