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Who Were the Balangingi Samal? Slave Raiding and Ethnogenesis in Nineteenth-Century Sulu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Jim Warren
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Extract

The problem of ethnic identification is an important but neglected theme in Southeast Asian history. Historians of the region are indebted to Leach, Lehman, and Moerman for their pioneering work on the nature and history of upland societies in Southeast Asia. In Political Systems of Highland Burma, Leach demonstrates that culture and ethnic identity are not necessarily synonymous. He points out that the process of identification among tribal people like the Kachin is never simple; it entails migration, intermarriage, barter trade relations, warfare, interpenetrating political systems, and values and beliefs shared with non-Kachin. Manifest in the work of all these anthropologists is a conscious effort to define the nature of social categories applied to ethnic groups in Southeast Asia across time. Their work has led to a more complete understanding of the nature of ethnic groups and the processes responsible for “accomplishing ethnicity” among upland peoples in Southeast Asia.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , May 1978 , pp. 477 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1978

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References

1 See Leach, E. R., The Political Systems of Highland Burma (London: London School of Economics, 1954)Google Scholar and “The Frontiers of Burma,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, III, 1 (1960), pp. 49–68Google Scholar; Lehman, F. K., The Structure of Chin Society (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, Studies in Anthropology, No. 3, 1963)Google Scholar and “Ethnic Categories in Burma and the Theory of Social Systems” in Kunstadter, P. (ed.), Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities and Nations, I (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1967), pp. 93–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moerman, M., “Who Are the Lue?”, American Anthropologist, LXVII (1965), pp. 1215–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Accomplishing Ethnicity” in Turner, R. (ed.), Ethnomethodology (London: Penguin Books, 1974), pp. 54–68Google Scholar. For general articles relating to the genesis and persistence of ethnic boundaries, the incorporation of ethnic groups, and the organization of interethnic relations in polyethnic social systems, see Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969)Google Scholar and Despres, L. A. (ed.), Ethnicity and Resource Competition in Plural Societies (The Hague: Mouton, 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Kiefer, Thomas, The Tausug: Violence and Law in a Philippine Moslem Society (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1972)Google Scholar and “The Tausug Polity and the Sultanate of Sulu: A Segmentary State in the Southern Philippines,” Sulu Studies, No. 1 (1972), pp. 19–64Google Scholar. Kiefer has published numerous articles and monographs on the extensive ethnological research he conducted, principally in the years 1966–68, on the Taosug (Tausug, Tawsug, Suluk, Su'ug).

3 For a cogent discussion of the advent of Islam in Sulu and Mindanao, and its relationship to Southeast Asian Islam until the coming of the Spaniards in the 16th century, see chap. 2 of Cesar Majul's Muslims in the Philippines (Quezon City: Univ. of the Philippines Press, 1973).Google Scholar

4 Geoghegan, William, “Balangingi Samal” in Southeast Asia, II (New Haven: HRAF, 1975), pp. 6–8Google Scholar. Ethnographic studies of the Samal (Bajau) Laut, spanning nearly a decade, have been conducted in the environs of Tawi-Tawi in the Sulu Archipelago; see Nimmo, Harry Arlo, “The Structure of Bajau Society” (Ph.D. diss., Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of Hawaii, 1969).Google Scholar

5 “Trade, Raid, Slave: The Socio-Economic Patterns of the Sulu Zone, 1770–1898” (Ph.D. diss., Dept. of Pacific and Southeast Asian History, Australian National University, 1975).Google Scholar

6 See ibid., pp. 1–244, for a detailed discussion of the various trading patterns.

7 In these Euro-centered histories, which dwell on the activity of the Iranun and Balangingi at length, the term “piracy” is conspicuously present in the titles: Vicente Barrantes, Guerras Piratical de Filipinos contra Mindanaos y Joloanos (Madrid, 1878); Emilio Bernaldez, Resana Historica de la Guerra a Sur de Filipinas, sostenida por las armas Espanoles contra los piratas de aquel Archipielago, desde la conquista hasta nuestras dias (Madrid, 1857); Jose Montero y Vidal, Historia de la Pirateria Malayo Mahometana en Mindanao, Jolo y Borneo (Madrid, 1882); Tarling, Nicholas, Piracy and Politics in the Malay World (Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1963).Google Scholar

8 Reber, , “The Sulu World in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A Historiographical Problem in British Writings on Malay Piracy” (M.A. thesis, Cornell, 1966)Google Scholar. In fact, as Reber points out, Raffles could have reached very different conclusions regarding the subject of piracy and the Sulu Sultanate. He seems to have been unaware of the accurate published accounts and the manuscript material (written by Alexander Dalrymple, Thomas Forrest, and James Rennel at the end of the eighteenth century; and available in the archives of the East India Company) on the Sulu world.

9 See Mills, Lennox A., British Malaya, 1824–1867 (orig. pub. 1925; Kuala Lumpur: Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints, 1967), pp. 323–24Google Scholar, 328–29; Tarling (n. 7 above), p. 20, 146; Tregonning, K. G., A History of Modern Sabah 1881–1963 (Singapore: Univ. of Malaya Press, 1965), p. 186Google Scholar; Wright, L. R., The Origins of British Borneo (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 5, 39Google Scholar; Majul (n. 3 above), chaps. 7, 8.

10 See Blake to Maitland, 13 Aug 1838, Public Records Office-London [hereafter PRO], Admiralty 125/133 [hereafter A 125/133]; Declaraciones de todos los cautivos fugados de Jolo y acogidos a los Buques de la expresada divicion, con objeto de averiguar los puntos de donde salen los pancos piratas, la clase de gente que los tripulan, la forma en que se hacen los armamentos y otros particulares que arrogan las mismas declaraciones, Jolo, 4 Oct 1836, Philippine National Archive-Manila [hereafter PNA], Mindanao/Sulu [hereafter M/S] 1803–1890, pp. 1–72; Relacion de los 45 cautivos venidos de Jolo sobre el Bergantin Espanol Cometa, 19 Mar 1847, PNA, Piratas 3; Verklaringen van ontvlugten personen uit der handen der Zeerovers van 184 5–1849, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia-Jakarta, Menado 37.

Freed captives and captive marauders expressed their own attitudes toward raiding in numerous statements and interrogations, recorded over several decades. These were occasionally published in Dutch scholarly journals; see Jansen, A. J. F., “Aantekeningen omtrent Sollek en de Solloksche Zeeroovers,” Tijdschrift voor lndischi Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde, uitegeven door het (Koninklyk) Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen [hereafter TBG], VII (1858), pp. 212–43Google Scholar; “Berigten omtrent den Zeeroof in den Nederlandsch-Indischen Archipel, 1857,” TBG, XVIII (1868–1872), pp. 435–57Google Scholar; “Berigten … 1858,” TBG, XX (1873), PP. 302–26; Van Hoevell, W. R., “De Zeerooverijen der Soloerezen,” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indies, II (1850), pp. 99–105.Google Scholar

11 See Tarling, N., “Some Notes on the Historiography of British Borneo” in Cowan, C. D. & Wolters, O. W. (eds.), Southeast Asian History and Historiography (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1976), p. 293.Google Scholar

12 Kuder, Edward, “The Moros in the Philippines,” Far Eastern Quarterly, IV, 2 (1945), p. 123Google Scholar; Najeeb Saleeby, “The Moros,” 1906 (#161 in Beyer and Hollerman, Papers on Philippine Customary Law, II), p. 10; also, introductory chapters of Mednick, Melvin, “Encampment of the Lake: The Social Organization of a Moslem Philippine People” (Ph.D. diss., Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of Chicago, 1965).Google Scholar

13 N. 839, De Resident van Menado, Jansen, aan den Gouveneur der Moluksche Eilanden te Amboina, 8 June 1855, Algemeen Rijksarchief-Schaarsbergen, Kolonien, 5873.

14 Saleeby (n. 12 above), p. 11.

15 Admiralty to Under Secretary of State, 14 July 1862, PRO, Foreign Office-London [hereafter FO], 12/30.

16 Combes, Historia de las Islas de Mindanao y Jolo (Madrid, 1667), cols. 28–32; Forrest, , A Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas from Balambangan: Including an Account of Magindano, Sooloo and Other Islands (London: G. Scott, 1779), pp. 372–74Google Scholar; Geoghegan (n. 4 above), p. 4.

17 Several ”Itanun” prahu were destroyed by the steamboat Diana on the east coast of Malaya in 1836, and some of the survivors when interrogated called themselves Balangingi after the island that was their home. See Warren (n. 5 above), pp. 459–60.

18 In regard to the treacherous character of these currents, Bernaldez (n. 7 above) wrote: “They usually swirl about at six or seven miles an hour [and] we have seen a steam warship dragging both anchors, after letting out more than 60 fathoms of chain on each anchor in Balangingi waters” (p. 15). Also see p. 153.

19 El Gobierno Politico y Militar del Zamboanga a El Gobernador Capitan General [hereafter GCG], 30 May 1842, PNA, M/S 1838–1885.

20 Bernaldez (n. 7 above), p. 153.

21 El Gobierno Politico y Militar de Zamboanga a GCG, 30 May 1842, PNA, M/S 1838–1885; statements of Francisco Gregorio, Diomicio Francisco, and Mariano Sevilla in Expediente 12, Declaraciones de todos los cautivos fugados de Jolo, 4 Oct 1836, PNA, M/S 1803–1890 [Exp. 12, unless otherwise specified, will hereafter refer to this set of Declaraciones]; J. Farren to Viscount Palmerston, 29 Feb 1848, PRO, FO, 72/74.

22 Kiefer, “Tausug Polity” (n. 2 above), p. 51; Majul, C., “Political and Historical Notes on the Old Sulu Sultanate,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch Royal Asiatic Society, XXVIII, Pt. 1 (1965), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

23 Statements of Juan de la Cruz and Jose Ruedas in Exp. 12; Van Hoevell (n. 10 above), p. 102.

24 Tarling (n. 7 above), pp. 146–85.

25 Exp. 12: statements of Angel Custodio, Juan Salvador, Domingo Candelario, Juan Santiago; Diary of William Pryer, 9 Mar 1879, Colonial Office-London, 874/68; Warren (n. 5 above), Appendix XVIII: The Statements of the Fugitive Captives of the Sulu Sultanate, 1836–1864, pp. 461–82.

26 Barth (note 1 above), p. 22.

27 Exp. 12: Jose Ruedas, Gabriel Francisco, Matias de la Cruz.

28 El Gobierno Politico y Militar de Zamboanga a GCG (n. 21 above); 15 Feb 1845 letter of Jayme Simo in Expediente 12, sobre haber salido la expedicion contra Balangingi, 17 Feb 1845, PNA, M/S 1836–1897.

29 Information obtained by Charles Grey at Singapore from Wyndham relating to Sulo, 24 Feb 1847, PRO, A 125/133; Van Hoevell (n. 10 above), p. 102.

30 Tarling (n. 7 above), pp. 146–85; Majul (n. 3 above), pp. 271–77.

31 Hunt, J., “Some Particulars Relating to Sulo” in Moor, J. H. (ed.), Notices of the Indian Archipelago and Adjacent Countries (London: Cass, 1967), p. 40.Google Scholar

32 Blake to Maitland, 8 Aug 1838, PRO, A 125/133; Jansen (n. 10 above), pp. 217, 229.

33 (Note 31 above), pp. 35–37, 50–51.

34 Statement of Silammkoom, 31 May 1838 in Bonham to Maitland, 28 June 1838, PRO, A 125/133.

35 Exp. 12: Matias Domingo, Juan de la Cruz; extract from Singapore Free Press, 6 Apr 1847, in PRO, A 125/133. Majul (n. 3 above) fails to recognize the important redistributive role of the Taosug raiding, and its relationship to the economy of the Sulu Sultanate: “All the evidence points to the fact that the Sulu Sultan and chief datus never encouraged or approved of piracy by Samal or Iranun datus, for they were themselves traders having an interest that all shipping lanes be kept safe especially for traders going or coming from Jolo” (p. 285).

36 Jansen (n. 10 above), pp. 216, 227.

37 Wilkes, Charles, “Jolo and the Sulu” in Blair, E. & Robertson, J. (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898, XLIII (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1906), p. 180.Google Scholar

38 d'Urville, Dumont, Voyages au pole sud et dans l'Oceanie sur les corvettes l'Astrolobe et la Zelee (Paris: Gide et J. Baundry, 1844), VII, pp. 179, 303–08Google Scholar; Belcher, Edward, Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Samarang, during the Years 1843–1846 (London: Reeve, Benham & Reeve, 1848), p. 270Google Scholar; Exp. 12: Juan Santiago, Juan Sabala, Francisco Zacarias, Pedro Antonio, Vizcente Remigio.

39 Exp. 12 : Juan de la Cruz; Bonham to Maitland (n. 34 above).

40 Jansen (n. 10 above), p. 228.

41 Bonham to Maitland (n. 34 above).

42 Exp. 12: Juan Florentino, Manuel Feliz, Diomicio Francisco, Mariano Sevilla; extracts from Singapore Free Press, 6 Apr 1847, PRO, A 125/133; Numero 137, Carlos Cuarteron, prefecto apostolico, a GCG, 12 Aug 1878, PNA, Isla de Borneo (2); Comyn, Tomas de, State of the Philippines in 1810 (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1969), p. 124Google Scholar; Barrantes (n. 7 above), pp. 108, 161, 265–66.

43 Statements of Abdul and Sendie in Verklaringen (n. 10 above); Jansen (n. 10 above), p. 225.

44 Jansen (n. 10 above), pp. 215, 222–24.

45 Ibid., p. 222; Bonham to Maitland (n. 34 above).

46 Exp. 12: Angel Custodio, Alex Quijano, Mariano Sevilla.

47 Exp. 12: Mariano Sevilla, Juan Santiago.

48 Exp. 12: Francisco Basilo, Mariano Sevilla.