Confederate States of Lanao

The Confederate States of Lanao, in Maranao Pat a Pangampong sa Ranao, the Four States of Lanao, was a legislative confederation of the four Maranao states of Bayabao, Masiu, Unayan and Balo-i, centred on Lake Lanao in the middle of Mindanao in the Philippines. The confederation is sometimes called the Lanao Sultanate, though it was a union of sultanates rather than a single monarchy. The Maranao had long formed a separate nation; a Chinese chronicle of 1225 already described a country called Maluonu southeast of Sanmalan. After Islam spread through Mindanao, the area fell under the Sultanate of Maguindanao, but in 1616 the four Lanao lords, led by Balindong B'sar of Masiu, met at Taraka and seceded, choosing their own sultan. The states kept military ties with Maguindanao and sent men to its fleet, while the Darangen, a sung epic of some 72,000 lines, preserved Maranao tradition. Spanish forces campaigned against the Maranao from 1639 onward but never subdued the lake country. The confederation's political authority ended with the establishment of American colonial government in Mindanao in 1903, although its royal houses survive to this day.