Sogod, Southern Leyte
The name of the municipality originated from the Cebuano word, "sogod", meaning ""to start."" Founded as a Catholic mission station by the Society of Jesus in 1601, Sogod became a regular municipality on June 10, 1853.
Sogod, Southern Leyte
Early annals account that Sogod was first located near the mouth of the Subangdaku River. It was then a satellite territory under the domain of "Seilani", which comprises the areas from Bontoc and Sogod to the island of Panaon. Around 1544, due to unfavorable winds, a Spanish expedition headed by Ruy López de Villalobos arrived at the eastern town of Abuyog, Leyte where an aged inhabitant informed Garcia de Escalante Alvarado, the chronicler of the expedition, on the presence of trading posts found in the archipelago:"I asked him [writes Escalante], whether there was a big town anywhere on the island of "Abuyo" [mistakenly referred by the Spaniards as Leyte] and he said yes, on the other side of the island to the north-west [south-west?] there was a big town called Sugut whither Chinese junks come every year and where there are resident Chinese who have a house for their merchandise. He said that what they buy there is gold and slaves..." On September 6, 1571, Leyte was established as an "encomienda" with "Tandaya" as the command post of the Spanish colony in the island.Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the first Governador-General of the Philippines, assigned Juan de Trujillo as the first "encomendero", or land trustee, of Tandaya. Miguel de Loarca, one of the first Spanish conquistadores to arrive in the Philippines and conducted one of the earliest census in the country, affirmed that Sogod was already drafted to the "encomienda" system in 1582. However, the town was pronounced as Tugud or Tugut:""Island of Baybay." About three (3) leagues [fourteen (14) kilometers from Camotes] farther east lies the island of Baybay, or Leyte, as it is also called. It is a large and well-provisioned island, although the people dress in "medriñaque" [a fiber from the sago palm in the Philippines]. Leyte is thickly settled; it may have a population of fourteen or fifteen thousand (14,000-15,000) Indians, ten thousand of whom pay tribute because that has been a people hard to conquer. There are twelve (12) "encomenderos"; but his Majesty owns none of the Indians. This island is about eighty (80) leagues in circumference, and fifteen (15) or sixteen (16) wide. Its principal settlements and rivers are Vaybay, Yodmuc, Leyte, Cavigava, Barugo, Maraguincay [a river and a current village in Tanauan, Leyte (barangay Malaguicay)], Palos, Abuyo, Dulaque, Longos, Bito [a lake bordering the towns of MacArthur and Abuyog in Leyte] , Cabalian, Calamocan [the old name of Inopacan, Leyte] and Tugud. This island possesses neither mines nor gold-placers; the only cloth it produces is "medriñaque", which, as I have said before, resembles "calico", and is made from a kind of wild banana."