Surigaonon

The Surigaonon people are a Visayan ethnolinguistic group of the eastern Mindanao coast, around Surigao, the Dinagat islands and the Agusan shore, whose Southern Visayan language lies close to Cebuano and Tausug. In 1521 Ferdinand Magellan's expedition met their noble Rajah Siawi on Limasawa, where Antonio Pigafetta described tattooed men heavy with gold and recorded the region as Calagan.

Another Spanish expedition under Ruy López de Villalobos tried to subdue the coast in 1543 but was driven back by local resistance. A military expedition imposed Spanish authority on Tandag in 1609, creating the district of Caraga, and Recollect friars opened a permanent mission there in 1622, gradually turning the coastal farmers into Roman Catholics.