Tarhata Kiram

In 1984, the National Historical Institute erected a marker in her hometown, Jolo, to honor Kiram’s lifelong dedication to fighting for the interests of Muslim Filipinos. In the same year, the Philippine government printed her portrait on the 3 peso stamp.

Princess Tarhata died of heart failure on May 23, 1979 at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City.

In the mid-1970s, she was appointed member of the AFP Southwest Command (SOWESCOM) Advisory Council, and later served as consultant on Islamic affairs in the Office of the Regional Commissioner for Region IX under Rear Admiral Romulo Espaldon.

Kiram attempted to run for the Philippine Senate in 1969, but the Nacionalista Party rejected her candidacy. The move signaled a continued lack of interest in prioritizing Filipino Muslim issues and representation.

In an October 9, 1960 speech to the University of Chicago Alumni Association, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Alejo S. Santos mentioned Tarhata Kiram in his plea for help with the economic development of Sulu. Santos said:

In July 1958, Kiram met with President Carlos P. Garcia to discuss the poverty and unrest in Sulu. Meeting notes reveal the decision to abandon the iron fist methods unsuccessfully attempted by the previous American and Spanish colonial powers. Parties agreed to a soft power approach using the influence of Kiram and the sultans, datus, and imams to promote the peace, including the regulation of unlicensed firearms.

Princess Tarhata Kiram was a Moro leader. She was the niece and adopted daughter of Jaramul Kiram II, Sultan of Sulu. After being educated in Manila and the United States, she returned to Jolo and married a Moro chieftain, Datu Tahil. In 1927, they staged a brief, failed rebellion against the corruption and excessive land taxation of American-supported Filipino governmental authorities. Kiram worked throughout her life to protect the economic and political rights of Muslim Filipinos.

In January 1927, hundreds of Datu Tahil’s followers joined Tarhata Kiram and her husband in a prolonged standoff with the Philippine Constabulary at a cotta (fort) in Patikul. Some say it was Kiram who encouraged her husband to build the fort after her efforts to secure him the governorship of Jolo failed. An American officer named Major Malone was also involved in encouraging and helping plot the rebellion. Kiram acted as sometime translator between Malone and her husband.

The Philippine officers held off on attacking until they heard Kiram had escaped, via tunnel, on January 27. When they finally raided the cotta, 35 of Tahil’s followers were killed. They captured Kiram on February 4, 1927. She was described as tired and sick upon being detained and charged with sedition. At the time of her capture, the search for her husband, who the government wanted to charge with sedition, was ongoing.

Kiram remained active in political affairs throughout the American occupation of the Philippines. In 1927 she joined Senator Hadji Butu Rasul in rejecting an attempt to exclude the Sulu archipelago from being considered part of Mindanao.

In 1926, Tarhata Kiram became the fourth wife of the much older Moro chieftain Datu Tahil, son of Datu Jokonain and veteran leader of the 1913 Battle of Bud Bagsak. Her uncle, Sultan Jamulul Kiram II, objected to the marriage on the grounds that she would be Datu Tahil’s fourth wife and that he had not provided an adequate dowry.

Soon after their marriage in 1926, the couple instigated a rebellion on the island of Jolo. They protested the high land taxes the Filipino colonial authorities sought to impose on the people. Though similar rebellions had gone on for decades in the burgeoning nation-state’s predominantly Muslim southern islands, Kiram’s having been educated in the United States led to much media attention. As Oliver Charbonneau, a historian of American foreign relations, explained: “The colonial fantasy of the Moro’s journey from jungle primitive to modern subject reached its apex in the figure of Princess Tarhata Kiram.” Her anti-colonialist rebellion came as a disappointing shock to Americans. Many viewed her case as evidence that the Muslims of the Philippines could not be educated into obedient subjects.

Kiram returned to Jolo in 1924 without receiving a degree from the University of Illinois. By this time, Frank Carpenter, the governor who had sponsored her education, had fallen from power. The Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes gave her the job of “government agent.” Though she worked with local charities, her broader position involved acting as a liaison between the local Muslims and the Philippine government. She and her aunt, Dayang Dayang Hadji Piandao performed this job together.

Tarhata attended the University of Illinois between 1919 and 1924. This made her the first Muslim woman from the Philippine Islands to attend a U.S. university. She arrived in August 1919 with roommate Carmen Aguinaldo, revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo’s daughter.

Tarhata Kiram was born in 1904 on the island of Jolo. Her father was Datu Atik Kiram. From birth, she held the title Dayang Dayang (Princess).