Article

Sulu

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Sulu

The Sulu Sultanate was a maritime trading state centred on the archipelago of Sulu in the Sulu Sea, whose sphere of economic and political influence extended across the eastern Philippines, the northern coast of Borneo, and the western approaches to the Indonesian archipelago. From the late eighteenth century onward, the sultanate functioned as a redistributive centre for marine and forest products—particularly tripang (sea cucumber) and mother-of-pearl shell—destined for Chinese markets, while its expansion was driven by the institution of slave raiding and cross-cultural commerce rather than by the decline or barbarism that earlier European historiography had assumed [1, pp. 21–22]. The sultanate’s political territory was ambiguous and contested: Spain claimed protectorate status over the archipelago, Britain held a cession of Sulu’s claims in northern Borneo dating from 1764, and the Sultan of Brunei asserted overlapping rights to the same coastal territories [2, pp. 259–260]. The Sulu Zone, as Warren has termed it, was a borderless region of economic influence stretching between China, Singapore, and the eastern Indonesian archipelago, in which the Taosug, Balangingi Samal, Samal Bajau Laut, Iranun, and Magindanao participated as agents of a dynamic regional political economy [1, p. 22].

Political Institutions and the Question of Sovereignty

The Sulu Sultanate developed as a hybrid political formation in which Islamic institutions were layered onto, rather than replacing, a pre-existing social order of independent datus (chieftains) who commanded followers, slaves, and inherited prestige [3, p. 24]. The sultan, while theoretically the highest political and religious authority over dar-al-islam, could not appoint panglimas (territorial governors) or enact laws without the consent of the Ruma Bichara, a council composed of the most powerful and wealthy datus [3, p. 25]. This council controlled decisions on war, taxation, the appointment of officials, and the approval of treaties with foreign powers [3, p. 25]. The Ruma Bichara varied in size from six members under Sultan Aliy-ud-din around 1800 to between fifteen and nineteen by the late nineteenth century; the sultan held two votes, and the raja-muda (heir-apparent) held two additional votes provided he voted with the sultan [3, pp. 32–33].

The genesis of the sultanate is narrated in the Sulu Tarsila (royal genealogy), which records how the Arab sherif Abu Bakr el-Hashimi married the daughter of the Muslim prince Raja Baginda, succeeded to his datuship, and proclaimed himself sultan [3, p. 26]. The resulting “working arrangement” limited the sultan’s direct land ownership to the area within hearing distance of his gong, while the datus retained their traditional territories [3, p. 26]. This foundational compromise explains the persistent tension between Shari’a (Islamic law, which the sultan guarded) and adat (customary law, which the datus upheld), and why the sultan’s claim to cede or lease territory rested on the theoretical principle that all land belonged to him as sultan [3, p. 27].

The succession mechanism further illustrated the sultanate’s composite character. The sultan nominated a successor in his will, but the Ruma Bichara could confirm or reject this nomination [3, p. 33]. The case of Sultan Muhammad Alim-ud-din I, who was imprisoned in Manila from 1748 to 1764, demonstrates the fluidity of political obedience: his brother Bantilan was proclaimed sultan (as Mu’izz-ud-din) during the captivity, yet upon Alim-ud-din’s return he was once again recognized as sultan and Bantilan’s line withdrew [3, p. 33], [4, pp. 47–48]. The 1884 election of Sultan Muhammad Amir-ul-Kiram at Maibung was certified by twelve datus, sixteen sherifs, and approximately twenty-seven panglimas, maharajas, and orangkayas; a rival election at Patikul for Datu Aliy-ud-din was signed by eleven datus, thirteen sherifs, and about thirty-five minor officials [3, p. 34].

The progressive erosion of the sultanate under Spanish protectorate arrangements and American administration culminated in the Carpenter Agreement of 1915, after which the sultan retained only a voluntary religious function [3, p. 42].

Economic Foundations and the Slave Trade

The economic engine of the Sulu Sultanate was the production and redistribution of marine and forest products for Chinese markets. As the sultanate grew in the second half of the eighteenth century, the ruling elite needed to enforce their monopoly of redistribution through the port of Jolo and to secure the labour-intensive production of tripang and mother-of-pearl shell [1, p. 23]. Raiding supplied the necessary labour and simultaneously enforced the sultanate’s control over regional trade [1, p. 23]. Warren’s central argument is that slave raiding was not a symptom of economic decline but was integral to the formation and expansion of Malayo-Muslim maritime states [1, p. 23].

The scale of the slave trade was considerable. Up to 1,500 people were carried off annually from the coasts of Luzon and the Visayas by Moro pirates, with Sulu serving as the centre of correspondence and combination for these expeditions [2, p. 267]. The main slave raiding zones in the South China Sea and the waters of Eastern Indonesia and the Philippines attracted sustained naval pressure from Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands for more than a quarter of a century; by the 1880s the number of slaves moving across the region had been reduced to a trickle [1, p. 30].

A finding of particular significance for the history of ethnicity in insular Southeast Asia is Warren’s demonstration that the Balangingi Samal, the group most infamously associated with Sulu’s slave-raiding reputation, did not exist as a distinct ethnic entity before the early nineteenth century [1, p. 30]. They were an “emergent society” composed largely of Filipino captives and their descendants who had been incorporated into the Sulu Zone and, within a single generation, became the predators of their own former compatriots [1, p. 23]. By the 1830s they had become a group “renowned and feared throughout Southeast Asia” for their slave-raiding activities [1, p. 30]. This finding reframes the question of ethnicity as a process of “accomplishment” rather than a fixed premise [1, p. 23].

Warren distinguishes between “closed” slave systems, found in mainland kingdoms such as Angkor, Pagan, and Ayutthaya, where ethnicity was not a critical integrating concept, and “open” systems like Sulu, where slavery and ethnicity became mutually reinforcing and virtually the basis of organised society [1, p. 29].

The birds’ nest trade constituted another major commodity. In the first six months of 1964, 965 katis of white birds’ nests sold for $20,534 (over $200 per kati, approximately £20 per pound sterling) were collected by Dato Galpan’s people at Gomanton, making the nest trade the single most valuable commodity still in native hands [5, p. 134].

European Competition and the Cession of North Borneo

The Sulu Sultanate occupied a position of strategic interest to multiple European powers. The Treaty of 1737 between Sulu and Spain was a genuine treaty between two sovereign and independent states, not a tributary arrangement—a legal distinction that Alexander Dalrymple later exploited to counter Spanish claims of paramountcy over Sulu [4, pp. 43]. Dalrymple’s 1759 preliminary expedition to Sulu had negotiated a treaty with the Sultan and agreed to send the first English cargo to the islands [5, p. 95]. The cargo carried on the London to Sulu was valued at £6,000 and consisted of India and European piece goods, iron, and 40 tons of cowries; it was the first English cargo ever sent to the Sulu Islands [5, p. 98].

The most consequential cession occurred in 1764. When the Treaty of Paris restored the Philippines to Spain, Dalrymple—now acting governor—engineered Alim-ud-din’s restoration to Jolo in May 1764, first securing a Ruma Bichara resolution voiding all treaties Alim-ud-din had made during his captivity, then obtaining from the restored sultan a cession of all Sulu territories in northern Borneo and southern Palawan to the East India Company, explicitly framed as a sale that was “irredeemable” [4, pp. 63–65]. The cession document, signed by Alim-ud-din I and countersigned by his sons Israel, Sharifuddin, and Ja’far, transferred all Sulu territory from “Towson Abai to Kumannus” in Borneo plus Palawan to the East India Company by way of sale [4, p. 76]. This document became a foundational legal instrument in the East India Company’s subsequent claims to North Borneo [4, p. 76].

The short-lived British trading settlement at Balambangan (1772–1775) represented an attempt to exploit this cession commercially. The settlement’s trade in opium and munitions, and its subsequent destruction by Taosug forces, constituted a critical turning point in the sultanate’s emergence as the region’s dominant redistributive centre [6, p. 73]. The Phoenix alone delivered 300 chests of opium to Balambangan in August 1773; John Herbert subsequently sold 73 chests on extended credit to coastal datus at 550 dollars per chest [6, pp. 75–76]. Fugitive indio informants reported at least 340 barrels of gunpowder, over 1,900 muskets in seventy cases, and a large crate of pistols and sabres stored at the settlement prior to its destruction [6, p. 80]. The attack of February 26, 1775, led by Datu Teteng, was an expression of interregional political strife and competition for control of advanced technology rather than a simple act of piracy [6, p. 82]. The Taosug captured 45 cannon, 200 quintales of gunpowder, 22,000 rounds of ammunition, 228 rifles, 35 pistols, and 45 swords, in addition to a brig, smaller vessels, opium, textiles, and specie worth over 900,000 Mexican dollars [6, p. 92].

In the mid-nineteenth century, the contest over Sulu intensified. The French arrangement with the Sultan over Basilan in 1845 was structured as a 100-year “governance” lease for 100,000 dollars rather than a full cession, and was ultimately abandoned by Guizot’s government to preserve the Spanish marriage alliance [2, pp. 263–264]. Sir James Brooke’s treaty of 1849, providing for cooperation against piracy and against the cession of territory without British consent, was not sustained [2, p. 261]. Urbiztondo’s 1851 expedition destroyed the fortifications and town of Sulu but left no garrison; a deputation from the Sultan and datus subsequently offered submission to Spanish sovereignty in April 1851 [2, pp. 270–271]. The Foreign Office dropped its attempt to uphold Brooke’s 1849 treaty in the summer of 1852 following confidential communications from Madrid that cited France’s abandonment of its Basilan challenge as precedent [2, p. 272]. Ultimately a division of allegiance was recognised in the agreement of 1885 [2, p. 273].

The 1878 appointment of Baron de Overbeck as datu bandahara and rajah of Sandakan by Sultan Muhammad Jamal-ul-A’lam delegated to him the power of life and death over the inhabitants of North Borneo, while as datu he owed tribute to the sultan [3, p. 28]. The North Borneo Chartered Company’s administration (1878–1909) presided over the emergence of a new social and political order that profoundly affected the Taosug, the Chinese, and especially the Samal Bajau Laut, whose maritime nomadic culture was being extinguished by political and economic development [1, p. 21].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on Sulu reveals a significant shift in interpretive priorities across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The earliest contribution in the record is T. H. Haynes’s trilingual vocabulary list comparing English, Sulu, and Malay terms, published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1886, which covers a wide range of semantic fields including body parts, verbs of motion, abstract nouns, and nautical terminology, with comparative notes on cognates across Javanese, Sundanese, Buginese, Dayak, Tagalog, and Bisayan [7, pp. 191–239]. This work reflects the linguistic and philological interests of the colonial period, in which Sulu was approached primarily as a source of lexical data.

The 1965 volume of the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 38) marks a decisive turn toward political and diplomatic history. C. A. Majul’s article on the political institutions of the sultanate was prompted by the Philippine claim on North Borneo (Sabah), which demanded clarification of how the sultan acquired, administered, and ceded that territory [3, p. 23]. H. de la Costa’s reconstruction of the reign of Muhammad Alim-ud-din I drew substantially on the Jesuit Province of Tarragona archives and the East India Company’s Home Miscellaneous Series and Factory Records, Borneo, both held in the India Office Library, London—collections that were not available to Najeeb Saleeby, whose 1908 History of Sulu remained the baseline work [4, p. 43]. Nicholas Tarling’s article on Consul Farren used Foreign Office dispatches to illuminate the diplomatic contest over Sulu that preceded the later boundary disputes, situating the sultanate within the broader framework of nineteenth-century imperialism and the developing system of international law [2, p. 259].

Tom Harrisson’s 1966 article on the unpublished Rennell manuscript represents a different methodological approach: the recovery and critical editing of a primary source that predates James Brooke’s 1839 arrival in Borneo by 77 years [5, p. 92]. Harrisson’s extensive commentary cross-references Rennell’s observations with Dalrymple’s later publications, subsequent European accounts, and his own field experience in Borneo from 1945 onward [5, p. 95]. The article’s historiographical contribution lies in its demonstration that Rennell was the first English surveyor to record the west Borneo coastline, and in its use of the Dalrymple marginalia as a primary source for understanding the professional dynamics and geographical debates of the period [5, p. 92].

J. F. Warren’s contributions represent the most sustained theoretical intervention. His 1977 article on Balambangan shifted the interpretive framework away from the familiar narrative of Dalrymple’s career and British imperial policy, and instead reconstructed the impact of the settlement from the Taosug perspective, drawing on Spanish colonial correspondence from Manila and Zamboanga [6, p. 73]. His 1996 retrospective, “Looking back on the Sulu Zone,” articulated the methodological architecture of his monograph The Sulu Zone 1768–1898, proposing a borderless, process-oriented framework that replaces fixed geographic boundaries with the larger-scale processes of trade, raiding, and structural change [1, p. 22]. The methodological innovation of using over one hundred and eighty fugitive slave testimonies—drawn from Spanish, American, Dutch, and British archives—as ethnohistorical sources that reveal the “inside” experience of slavery represents a distinctive contribution to the field [1, p. 27]. Historiographically, Warren positions his work as a corrective to the Eurocentric “piracy” narrative dominant in Spanish, Dutch, and British colonial literature, and aligns the study with the broader turn toward world-systems analysis, ethnohistory, and the de-centring of colonial perspectives in Southeast Asian historiography [1, p. 22].

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. J.F. Warren (1996). Looking back on the “Sulu Zone”: state formation, slave raiding and ethnic diversity in Southeast Asia JMBRAS 69(1): 21–33.
  2. N. Tarling (1965). Consul Farren and the Philippines JMBRAS 38(2): 258–273. Read on JSTOR
  3. C.A. Majul (1965). Political and historical notes on the old Sulu Sultanate JMBRAS 38(1): 23–42. Read on JSTOR
  4. H. de la Costa (1965). Muhammad Alimuddin I, Sultan of Sulu, 1735–1773 JMBRAS 38(1): 43–76. Read on JSTOR
  5. Tom Harrisson and J. Rennell (1966). The unpublished Rennell Ms: a Borneo-Philippine journey, 1762–1763. J. Rennell. . Harrisson JMBRAS 39(1): 92–136. Read on JSTOR
  6. J.F. Warren (1977). Balambangan and the rise of the Sulu Sultanate, 1772–1775 JMBRAS 50(1): 73–93. Read on JSTOR
  7. Haynes T.H (1886). English, Sulu and Malay vocabulary JSBRAS 18: 191–239.