Josephine Bracken and Women’s Month

I read a recent Facebook post that stated that after the death of Jose Rizal, Josephine Bracken, Rizal’s companion in Dapitan, eventually found her way back to her birthplace of Hong Kong and married Don Vicente Abad y Recio. Many people, especially Cebuanos, have often erroneously identified Vicente Abad as Cebuano, mainly because records in the Spanish period identified him as ‘natural de Cebu’. However, digging deeper into his family tree, one would discover that he was just born in Cebu, but was not Cebuano. Certainly, he was not an Abad from Barili as some would also claim. Vicente’s family was of creole origin, unlike that of the Barili Abads who were, by the time of Josephine’s and Vicente’s marriage, already classified under the indio racial category. Vicente Abad was the third son and fourth child of Vicente Abad and Maximina Recio, who were both Spaniards from Manila.

Vicente Sr. was hired by the colonial government to oversee the tobacco industry of the colony, being considered one of the foremost tobacco experts. In 1885 he was named chief technical adviser for the Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, a position he held until the Philippine Revolution when he decided to return to his country of origin in 1900. His son Vicente Jr. obtained his degree in Pharmacy in 1896 and was also an agent of the Tabacalera Company in Hong Kong where he met Josephine Bracken and later married her on September 15, 1898.

Vicente was also assigned to Cebu for a few months, and it was in Cebu where she taught English. Some have even written that she also taught English to Sergio Osmeña, although more research needs to be done on this.

As we close another month-long celebration of women, it is fitting to note that Josephine Bracken, Rizal’s dulce extranjera (sweet foreigner) and errante golondrina (the wandering swallow), died on March 15, 1902, during the month dedicated to women. Josephine being a woman continues to suffer today and is without a doubt one of the most misunderstood women in Philippine history. Some have portrayed her in the most negative light and even educated and respected writers and politicians have written negatively of her, such as Austin Coates, who wrote in his 1968 Rizal biography that Josephine was illegitimate and of mixed race, and the late Senator Raul Roco, who implied in a keynote lecture at a national conference in Cebu that Josephine was a bar girl whose relationship with her foster father George Taufer was probably far from innocent.

More reliable and less-biased writers like Rizal biographer Austin Craig, wrote in 1913 that the Taufers adopted Josephine and raised her as their own daughter after her mother had died in Hong Kong. Based on available records from Hong Kong and Ireland, we know that Josephine’s earliest ancestor was her grandfather, Michael Bracken, who was a baker living in a small village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. His son, James, joined the 28th Infantry Regiment of the British Army in 1858 and married Elizabeth “Lizzie” McBride in 1868. Elizabeth would later die in Hong Kong in September 1876, a month after Josephine’s birth. James Bracken was posted in various places until he and his regiment returned to Ireland in May 1879, leaving his youngest daughter to his friend, George Taufer.

Josephine’s marriage to Vicente Abad produced only one child, Maria Dolores Abad, born on April 17, 1900, in Hong Kong and died on December 9, 1987, in Manila, Philippines. She married Salvador Mina on April 4, 1926, in Manila, Philippines, and they have several descendants today.

As we close another International Women’s month celebration, let us not just remember the life of the woman who remained by Rizal’s side until his death, but also make sure that we get Josephine Bracken’s story correctly. Josephine Bracken’s greatest contribution to our history is her companionship and love for our national hero. Josephine Bracken’s life was already sad from the very start and it was only in Rizal’s company that she finally found some happiness. The least we can do is honor her memory and correct every negative and erroneous story told about her.