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The province of Agusan del Sur was born on June 17, 1967 under Republic Act No. 4979 providing for the division of the province of Agusan into Agusan del Norte and Agusan Del Sur. In January 1970 the first set of provincial officials assumed office after the provincial election of November, 1969. The same law provided that the capital of Agusan del Sur shall be the municipality of Prosperidad and the Government Center has been set up in Barangay Patin-ay. Hon. Rufino C. Otero was elected as the first Provincial Governor and Hon. Democrito O. Plaza the first Congressman in the election of November, 1969. The term of office of Congressman Democrito Plaza would have continued until December 1973 had it not for the proclamation of Martial Law on September 21, 1972, which in effect abolished the Congress. When the Interim Batasang Pambansa was convened in 1978 after almost a decade of absence under Martial Law, Hon. Edilmiro Amante represented the province in the Interim National Assembly. Agusan literally means "where the water flows", after the great river that split the land from south to north in a 250 km rush to the Butuan Sea. Agusan's pre-hispanic cultural history is traced back to the great influence of the Majapahit Empire through the discovery of an eight-inch tall image of a woman in pure gold at Maasam, Esperanza in the early 1920's and molten jars unearthed at Bahbah, Prosperidad in the early 1960's. The aborigines of Agusan were the ancestors of the present day Mamanwas who were driven to the hinterlands by the waves of Malay immigrants from the nearby Borneo, Celebes and Malaysia. These people, in turn, sought the protection of the interior jungles because of the forays and the constant raids of "Moro" pirates. The "Moros" being a sea-faring people confined themselves to the coastal areas where they started settlement.