Ilocano

The Ilocano are an Austronesian people of the narrow northwestern Luzon coast, between the Cordillera mountains and the sea. Their name comes from i-, meaning from, and luék, meaning bay, the people from along the bay. Before the Spaniards they farmed, fished and traded with highland and foreign merchants, worshipping anito spirits.

In 1572 Juan de Salcedo sailed north with eighty men, subdued the coastal settlements and founded Vigan, where Augustinian friars began conversion. Colonial rule provoked revolts: in 1762 Diego Silang seized Vigan and declared Free Ilocos, and after his assassination in 1763 his wife Gabriela led the revolt until captured and hanged.

In 1807 Piddig's wine-makers rose in the Basi Revolt against the Spanish monopoly on their sugarcane basi wine; by the 1790s Ilocano was spoken along the coast from Bangui to Agoo, later carried by migrants across northern Luzon.