The second is Kawit or "hook," referring to the hook-shaped landform along the coast of Bacoor Bay,[6] and from which the Chinese Keit and Spanish Cavite are derived.

[7] The early inhabitants of Cavite City were the Tagalogs ruled by the Kampilan and the bullhorn of a datu, the tribal form of government.

[citation needed] According to folklore, the earliest settlers came from Borneo, led by Gat Hinigiw and his wife Dayang Kaliwanag, who bore seven children.

[8] In 1590, the Spaniards fortified Cavite Nuevo/Cavite City with murallas (high thick curtain walls) on its western, northern, and eastern sides, while Bacoor Bay remained open to the south.

[14]: 539 [15]: 31, 54, 113 As the town grew, it developed a cosmopolitan reputation, and attracted various religious orders to set up churches, convents, and hospitals within the confines of the fortified city center.

The fortified town enclosed eight churches, the Jesuit college of San Ildefonso, public buildings and residences, all meant to serve the needs of its population of natives, soldiers and workers at the port, transients, and passengers aboard galleons.

[9] During this period, the city was called "Tierra de Maria Santisima" (Land of Most Holy Mary) because of the popularity of the Marian devotion.

Galleons and other heavy ocean-going ships were not able to enter the Port of Manila along the Pasig River because of a sand bar that only allows light vessels to reach the river-port.

[18][19] The Port of Cavite was fondly called Ciudad de Oro Macizo meaning the "City of Solid Gold".

One of these was the Puerto Rican Alonso Ramirez, who became a sailor in Cavite, and published an influential early Latin American novel entitled "Infortunios de Alonso Ramirez"[21] Between 1609 and 1616 the galleons Espiritu Santo and San Miguel were constructed in the shipyard of the port, called the Astillero de Rivera (Rivera Shipyard of Cavite), sometimes spelled as Ribera.

[9] Local government administration was reorganized under the Presidentes municipales with the direct supervision of American army officers (the first being Colonel Meade).

In 1945, during the fight to liberate the country from Japan, the US and Philippine Commonwealth militaries bombarded the Japanese forces stationed in the city, completely destroying the old historic port of Cavite.

Only the bell tower of the Church of Santa Monica of the Augustinian Recollects and the two bastions of Fort San Felipe remain from the old city.

981, passed by the Congress of the Philippines in 1954, transferred the capital of the province from Cavite City to the newly established Trece Martires.

[25] Economic analysts generally attribute the crisis to the ramp-up on loan-funded government spending to promote Ferdinand Marcos’ 1969 reelection campaign.

[31] On February 25, 1972, amidst a spate of assassinations against Cavite government officials, mayor and former congressman Manuel S. Rojas was assassinated just past noon by multiple gunmen in the barrio of Panapaan within the town of Bacoor, Cavite while on the road with his driver, a policeman, to Manila; both mayor Rojas and the driver were unarmed.

[32][33] The excesses of the Marcos Family[31] prompted opposition from various Filipino citizens despite the risks of arrest and torture[34] Victims of human rights abuses during this period included Cavite City resident and University of the Philippines student leader Emmanuel Alvarez.

[35] During the 1986 snap elections, Marcos won against Corazon Aquino in Region IV (which then included the provinces of MIMAROPA) according to the official COMELEC results, but this was disputed by NAMFREL.

An exit poll conducted by American election observers found that voters from Cavite City preferred Aquino over Marcos.

[24] Half of the old port city, including Fort San Felipe, is now occupied by Naval Base Cavite and is closed to the public.

The original proponent status (OPS) contract was initially awarded to a consortium between MacroAsia Corporation and China Communications Construction Company Ltd.,[38] until it was dropped by the provincial government in 2021.

An inscription was found on the back of the painting – A doze de Abril 1692 años Juan Oliba puso esta Stma.

During this period, the people that lived near the military arsenal in Cavite City communicated with Spaniards and Mexicans and began to incorporate Spanish words into their dialect.

According to the Philippine professor Alfredo B. German, who wrote a thesis on the grammar of Chabacano, the present conditions do not encourage people to learn the dialect.

Don Jaime de Veyra, writer and famous Philippine historian, wrote the following lines: "I am afraid that the inevitable absorption of the 'Tagalog invasion' on one side and the 'invasion of the English' on the other hand, will wipe out or extinguish this inherited Castilian language in existence with its last representatives in the following generation."

[66] A proposal to construct an expressway from Kawit to Cavite City via Bacoor Bay has been raised to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

[74][75] A new service from the Intramuros district of Manila to the nearby town of Noveleta to the south debuted in January 2018 and is currently the nearest water-based transport to the city.

On November 3, 1993, the National Historical Institute and the president, through the Department of the Interior and Local Government, issued a Certificate of Registration recognizing the new seal.

The inclusion of the rays portrays the role of Cavite as one of the original provinces that rose up in arms against Spanish domination in 1896 in the Philippine Revolution.

[6] The white triangle inscribed within the shield with the letters KKK at the corners represents the part played by The city in the organization of the Katipunan.