Sultanate of Sulu

The Sultanate of Sulu was the Tausug sea state from 1405 to 1915, ruling the Sulu archipelago, Palawan and the Sabah coast from the wooden palace at Jolo. Sharif ul-Hashim, an Arab missionary prince, married a local princess about 1405 and founded the line; Islam made the sultan sacred and the datus' fleets made him rich on pearls, sea cucumbers and the China trade. At its height under the great sultans the realm ran from Mindanao to Borneo, and Brunei, Maguindanao and Sulu played their triangular game of raid and marriage. Spain never conquered it in three centuries of trying: Jolo burned and was rebuilt, governors came and went, and the sultans signed treaties they kept at sea. The end came in pieces: the British North Borneo Company leased Sabah in 1878, Spain burned Jolo in 1876 and claimed sovereignty, and after 1898 the Americans paid the sultan a pension to disarm, ending his temporal power in 1915 while keeping his titles. The sultanate outlived every European empire in the Philippines except the last, and its heirs still dispute Sabah to this day.