Datu Ali

Datu Ali (died 22 October 1905) was Rajah of Buayan from his cousin Datu Uto's death in 1902 until his own death, and the last, most formidable Moro chieftain to oppose American rule on Mindanao. Full name Rajamuda Datu Ali bin Sultan Bayao bin Sultan Maitum, he was Rajahmuda of Tinungkup within Buayan, a son of Sultan Bayao and brother of Datu Djimbangan and of Sultan Tambilawan of Kudarangan. No source gives his birth date; the article on him has carried cleanup banners since May 2024, and the facts used here are those its cited works support. ^{1 2}

In 1886 Datu Ali and his cousin Datu Uto refused to honour the Spanish flag and swore to leave no Spaniards alive in Cotabato; Ali attacked the town of Lepanto near the Spanish fort of Bugcaon, killing fourteen and looting the place. Uto's fall to Spanish advances in 1890 and his exile created a vacuum in Buayan that Ali, Datu Djimbangan and Datu Piang filled. Piang had served Uto as his minister of lands but, in the article's account, declared himself Sultan of Mindanao; Uto answered by turning over command of his warriors to his cousin Ali. Ali went on to conquer Buluan and Talik, defeating the Sultan of Talik, and became the most powerful leader in the region between Koronadal and Maganoy, paramount leader of the Sultanate of Maguindanao in the early twentieth century, claiming the title Rajah of Buayan. ¹

Where Djimbangan and Piang conceded to the American establishment, Ali declared he would not yield one iota of his independence or liberate his slaves, and swore vengeance on his pursuers. From 1903 he headed the revolt with some 3,000 followers through open battle and guerrilla warfare. The Moro Province's anti-slavery law of late 1903 fell at the centre of the conflict: abolition destroyed the political and economic order of the valley, and Ali's refusal to give up slaveholding united most datus behind his resistance. General Leonard Wood's expedition of March 1904 captured and destroyed his great fort, taking nineteen iron and two brass cannon and forty-five lantakas; in May 1904 his men ambushed a detachment near Lake Liguasan, killing two officers and thirteen to seventeen men in what the Americans called the Simpetan massacre. Wood posted a reward of $500 for his capture, dead or alive, and American attempts to kill him, including through his own nephew, failed. ¹

Datu Piang, who by then cooperated with the Americans, informed Captain Frank McCoy of the 22nd Infantry where Ali was encamped with his family along the Malala River, his men mostly sent back to their villages. A provisional company of volunteers force-marched from Digos and surrounded the ranch in the early morning of 22 October 1905. Ali ran back inside, armed himself and fired; he was hit by Lieutenant Remington's pistol charge and cut down by the second squad as he fled through the back door. With his death, organised insurrection on a major scale in Mindanao ended; General Wood testified that he was "by far the most capable Moro we have run into", and when Maguindanao Moros gather for the rice planting or harvest, the article closes, songs are sung and tales told of Datu Ali. ¹

His faith is recorded as unknown, and the case is flagged. The Sunni reading exists in exactly one infobox — the English article's. Wikidata gives Islam in general, and the article's text names no school: it frames his wars, and his refusal to surrender his slaves, in political and economic terms, and resistance leadership is not affiliation. One infobox family short of the two-source bar, the Sunni reading stands in the record's note, unresolved. ^{1 2}

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