Josephine Bracken

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Josephine Bracken

Josephine Bracken (1876-1902) was the betrothed of the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal. Some believed that she was married to Rizal, although no proof of a civil or church wedding has ever been found.

She was born in Hong Kong on August 9, 1876 to a British father and an Irish mother. When her mother died shortly after childbirth, she was adopted by an American named George Taufer. Bracken met Rizal when the latter spent several months in Hong Kong in 1891-92. She later recommended that her blind adopted father go to see Rizal, who was a respected ophthalmologist. By this time, Rizal was a political exile in Dapitan, on the Zamboanga Peninsula. Although Taufer's condition was beyond Rizal's help, the physician fell in love with Josephine. They were allegedly wed in a civil union,^[1] unable to obtain Catholic Church sanction for the marriage.

They lived together in Dapitan. The day before his execution on charges of treason, rebellion and sedition by the Spanish colonial government, the Catholic Church claimed that Rizal returned to his Catholic faith and was married to Josephine in a church ceremony, although there has never been proof that this event happened.

After Rizal's death, Josephine joined the revolutionaries for a time. When called before the Governor-General, she was threatened with torture and imprisonment if she did not leave the Philippines, so she voluntarily returned to Hong Kong.

She subsequently married Vicente Abad, a Cebuano mestizo, who represented his father's Tabacalera Company in Hong Kong. A daughter, Dolores, was born to them on April 17, 1900. On March 15, 1902, Josephine died of tuberculosis.