Ibanag

The Ibanag are an Austronesian people of the lower Cagayan River in north-eastern Luzon, concentrated around Tuguegarao and Lal-lo. Their name combines i-, people of, with bannag, river, making them the river people. Their Ibanag language, close to Gaddang and Itawis, was promoted by Spanish authorities as the lingua franca of the north-eastern Philippines, carried from Lal-lo, Nueva Segovia, to Tuguegarao.

Spanish contact began with Juan de Salcedo's 1572 expedition, and in 1585 Juan Pablo de Carrión established the Nueva Segovia alcaldia at Lal-lo. By 1591 encomienda and forced labour reached Tuguegarao; the Nueva Segovia diocese followed in 1595 with Dominican missions. Tribute and labour exactions drove headman Magalat to revolt at Tuguegarao, the first of a long series of Cagayan uprisings.

Seventeenth-century Ilocano settlers were brought into the valley's tobacco plantations, their language overtaking Ibanag as the common tongue of northern Luzon.