A History of the Mountain Province is a nonfiction / history book written by Howard T. Fry.
In this book, the history of the Mountain Province is seen to fall into three distinct periods. In the first of these, when the Republican Party controlled the Presidency of the United States, the emphasis was upon creating a form of mountain reservation for the "non-Christian tribes" of the Cordillera Central. After a series of adventurous expeditions had been undertaken in order to define the ethnology of the region, policy was directed toward developing roads and trails whereby to put an end to the intertribal feuding and headhunting, thus laying the foundations for the future civilization of these "wild men", as Dean C. Worcester was in the habit of describing these mountain peoples. This policy of creating mountain reservation inevitably lent itself to "divide and rule" tactics on the part of the imperial power. The second period was inaugurated by the incoming Democrats in 1913, when the idea of separating the mountain peoples from their lowland Christian neighbors was abandoned in favor of a policy aimed at achieving their integration in the body politic of the Philippine nation, and the emphasis shifted from the building of roads and trails to the provision of better and more widespread health and educational facilities. The third period, hastened by the events of the Second World War, saw the mountain peoples taking over the local control of their own affairs.
Throughout these three periods of political growth there has been a continuing search for the best means of achieving the economic growth of the region, both to enable the growing population to be fed, and to allow these mountain peoples to escape from the abject poverty which is the main barrier to their further advance in civilization. Increased food production has been sought through expansion into hitherto unsettled areas, in conjunction with the introduction of more efficient and scientific farming techniques. The search for the best means whereby to generate greater income has been a recurring quest for promising new marketable crops, with reiterated calls, over the years, for a revival of the coffee industry, and for perseverance in the attempts to develop a silk industry. As the mining industry has developed, so there have been calls for realizing the hydro-electric potentialities of these mountains, thus paving the way for the establishment of further industries, which in turn will provide more jobs for the local people. For present and future reference it has seemed worthwhile to record these various ideas and plans in some detail, as the problem is a continuing one, and it is wise to pay heed to what has been suggested and tried in the past.
In the preparation of this work I have been unable to trace one major primary source. With the enactment of the Jones Law in 1916, the system of submitting the reports of the Governors and Deputy Governors of the Mountain Province and its subprovinces clearly changed, and apart from a number of the reports of Governor Dosser, preserved in the Hayden papers, I have been unable to locate these reports after 1916. I am told that this disappearance of the provincial governors' reports after 1916 is not confined to the Mountain Province, and the fact is mentioned here in the hope that it may bring to light more information on this problem, or prompt a further research for this important series of missing documents.
