Slavery in Sulu and Malacca

Southeast Asia is a region located east of the Indian subcontinent and south of present-day China. It mainly consists of a group of peninsulas and islands surrounding what is known today as the "South China Sea". The area is bordered by the Philippine Sea to the east and the Indian Ocean to the south. The peoples of Southeast Asia have historically been heavily reliant on maritime trade, as the land is not arable and much of it is covered by mountainous regions. [2] Thus, the region is associated with the creation of many innovative shipbuilding and sailing techniques. On the flip side, slavery and piracy have also been widely associated with the region. Slavery was fairly common in early Southeast Asian civilizations, but it really came to a head during colonial rule, and some remnants of that slave-raiding culture are still present today.

The Straits served as a place of transit and fresh supplies of goods and provisions for long-distance voyages and a point of collection of all goods from the archipelago, which was later distributed to traders from India and China. In addition, it also acted as a place of distribution of goods from the two regions to the whole archipelago. The Straits also provided a convenient place for traders to stop while waiting for the changing winds to the east and the west. [4]

Malacca was founded in the early 15th century and with the help of Ming Dynasty China and due to the fantastically strategic location of its waterways, Malacca soon became a major port city that regulated the trading patterns between Southeast Asia, India, China, and Europe. [4] During this time, Islam had also spread to the Malay Peninsula through the Indian Ocean Trade Network. Like other coastal states in the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia, Malacca abandoned its Hindu-Buddhist roots in favor of Islam and becoming a sultanate, in the hopes of attracting Muslim Arab and Indian merchants. [2] The Malaccan sultanate would be essential in spreading Islam to the rest of Southeast Asia, including the Sulu region, later on.

Here, slavery and servitude operated as part of an intricate web of social debt and obligation and often functioned as way to care for the poor and destitute. [8]

Slavery was a crucial social and economic institution for most Southeast Asian societies, Malacca included. Slavery was not only a source of labor, but slave-trading also played a huge role in the economy. [8] Debt was the greatest reason for enslavement, but slaves were also commonly "procured" like goods from smaller, more divided societies in the Malay Peninsula for labor in the sultanate, and enslavement and slave-raiding were common tactics for inciting animosities between smaller societies. [9] In fact, slavery was so common in and around Malacca, that the number of slaves owned was an indicator of status for the people in nearby Indonesia. [2] Even as trade declined in Malacca throughout the colonial period, slavery remained exceedingly common. This is reflected in the brutal policies of the Dutch East India Company, who were in control of Malacca throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The company was known for its ruthless policies of killing and enslaving laborers, among other things, in order to maintain trade flow. [2]

Although bordered by China to the north, with the exception of Vietnam (which has always defined itself in opposition to the Chinese), much of Southeast Asia was heavily influenced by Indian and Islamic culture. These influences are reflected in the modern-day Southeast Asia, as Indonesia is among the countries with the largest Muslim populations. [3] Similarly, although Spanish colonial efforts spread Christianity and Catholicism much of the Philippines throughout the 16th century, Western Mindanao and the Sulu sultanate remained tied to Islamic beliefs first spread through the region via Arab traders from Malacca. [2] Due to its significant location (Sulu is situated right in the middle of trade routes to India, Europe, and China) and Muslim identity, there was much conflict when the Christian Spanish colonizers attempted to take control of the region. The religious difference left the area divided and competitive, where it once was an expansive and connected trade network.

Slavery and dependent labour were not solely economic institutions which enabled the late eighteenth century expansion of the Sulu state and domination of the regional trade network; slavery and the accomplishment of ethnicity had virtually become the very basis of organized society in the Sulu sultanate. [5]

In the late 17th century and through the 19th century, as trade in Qing Dynasty China re-flourished, so did its demands for goods from Southeast Asia. This demand led to a huge trade opportunity and accordingly large shortage of manpower. [5] The Sulu peoples were able to successfully circumvent Spanish attempts to gain control of the trade network and support this huge increase in demand through an expansive system of piracy and slavery. Much of the manpower the Sulu sultanate provided was derived from a dramatic increase in slave-raiding by Iranun communities and the Samal-speaking people of Balangingi of poorly defended populations in the Visayan Islands and Luzon for slave labor. [5,6] The increase in demand and trade also led to explosive development within the Sulu sultanate and especially in its capital, Jolo, which became one of the most important slave-marketing centers in the Sulu sultanate by 1800. [6] This system of slave-raiding became integral to life in the Sulu sultanate, as slaves were used for all purposes (domestic, agricultural, industrial) and also as merchandise. [5] The Sulu sold slaves in a variety of places, from Makassar to within their own sultanate. [2] As a result, it became imperative for the sultanate to maintain this slave system at all costs.

To some extent, in the early twentieth century slavery in Southeast Asia had been on a decline. There were policies put in place by colonial governments to put an end to the practice, but in many ways, it still continued.

An example would be British-colonial Malaysia and Singapore. By the turn of the 20th century, present-day Malaysia and Singapore were pretty much full under British colonial rule. In 1811 Parliament passed an act forbidding slavery, and in 1819, after the British East India Company acquired Singapore, officials of the company banned slavery in the region. However, the illegal trafficking of women and girls through the Straits of Malacca was overlooked and the slaves were written off as "debtors, and continued into the mid-20th century. [8]

In the Sulu region, piracy and slave-raiding seemed to have stopped for the most part, after the Philippines were ceded to America at the turn of the century. Weapons were confiscated from outlaws (pirates, slave-raiders, slave-traders) in the south, and peace was maintained by the Philippine Constabulary. [11] The brief peace was disrupted, however, once Japanese forces invaded the American colony in the 1940s, firearms were once again widely distributed across the region and Sulu piracy and slave-raiding burst back into full force. There was a heavier emphasis on looting, rather than slaves in the mid-20th century, and the violence was focused mainly upon small-scale fishermen and villages. [11]

World War 2 in general seems to have brought slavery back to Southeast Asia with a renewed vigor. Japan wanted access to the natural resources that were abundant in the region, and after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces quickly invaded the colonies of Southeast Asia. Throughout the war, the Japanese enslaved thousands of Southeast Asians for manual labor. In addition, young women were also enslaved in order to serve as prostitutes, or "comfort women". [2] There exists much antagonism towards the Japanese in Southeast Asia in general, even today.

Slave-raiding occurred in Sulu for centuries, and it left a few permanent marks on the region. There was a dramatic rise in population within the archipelago, mostly due to displacement from the slave trade. Lingering feelings of embarrassment and resentment regarding Spain and Japan also littered all of the Philippines after both colonial periods. And because for the majority of its history, the Sulu archipelago has been consistently reliant on illegal and violent means of economic development, the state framework remained relatively weak. [10]

[1] "Southeast Asia Political Map." Geographic Guide: Maps of Asia, Geographic Guide, http://www.geographicguide.com/asia/maps/southeast.htm.

[2] Lockard, Craig A.. Southeast Asia in World History, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rochester/detail.action?docID=431066.

[3] Diamant, Jeff. “The Countries with the 10 Largest Christian Populations and the 10 Largest Muslim Populations.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 1 Apr. 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/01/the-countries-with-the-10-largestlchristian-populations-and-the-10-largest-muslim-populations/.

[4] Hussin, Nordin. “Trading Networks of Malay Merchants and Traders in the Straits of Melaka from 1780 to 1830.” Asian Journal of Social Science, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 51–82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43498828.

[5] Warren, James Francis. “Looking Back on ‘The Sulu Zone’: State Formation, Slave Raiding and Ethnic Diversity in Southeast Asia.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 69, no. 1 (270), 1996, pp. 21–33. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41493291.

[6] James Francis Warren (2010) Saltwater Slavers and Captives in the Sulu Zone, 1768–1878, Slavery & Abolition, 31:3, 429-449, DOI: 10.1080/0144039X.2010.504539

[7] "File:Malacca Sultanate Palace.JPG." Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. 26 Feb 2018, 14:35 UTC. 24 Oct 2019, 12:28 < https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Malacca_Sultanate_Palace.JPG&oldid=289220995 >.

[8] Herzog, Shawna. "Domesticating Labor: An Illicit Slave Trade to the British Straits Settlements, 1811–1845." Journal of World History, vol. 28, no. 3, 2017, pp. 341-369,III. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1980909215?accountid=13567.

[9] Scott, James. “Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast Asia: A Review.” Indonesia, no. 39, 1985, pp. 141–143. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3350990.

[10] “The Sulu Factor: Trading, Raiding, Slaving.” Empire of the Winds: the Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring, I.B. Tauris, 2019, pp. 217–224.

[11] “Opportunistic Piracy.” Pirates in Paradise: a Modern History of Southeast Asia's Maritime Marauders, by Eklöf Stefan, NIAS Press, 2006, pp. 36–37.