Yangon Region Pagoda named Dagon. The British first captured Yangon in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26) but returned it Burmese administration after the war. The British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon was the capital of British Burma and Hanthawaddy Province, which covered today's Yangon and Bago divisions. The British brought in many Indians to serve as workers and civil servants. By the 1930s, the Indians made up half of Yangon city, and only one-third was Bamar (Burmese). Between World
Bago, Negros Occidental of these settlers petitioned the Spanish authorities to declare their village a "pueblo" or town and to name it "Bago". Among the petitioners were Manuel Sitchon, Gregorio Varela, Paulino Torres, Jacinto Araneta, Clemente Celis, Mariano Gonzaga and Fernando Villanueva, whose forebears hailed from the town of Molo, lloilo. The said petition was finally granted by the Spanish authorities in the year 1800; thus, Bago officially attained the status of a "pueblo" or town in that same year. Between the years 1800 and 1898, the inhabitants of Bago are among those who suffered tremendously under the Spanish tyranny, injustice and oppression.