FEATURES
FEATURES
TEA, TRADE, AND TEARS The Muslim Slave Raids in the 17th-18th Century Philippines. Article and photos by Estan Cabigas www.langyaw.com
Churches were burned and sometimes towns were abandoned. This was what happened in Mindoro, where many ruins can still be seen. These coastal settlements became ghost towns.
IF not for the strange confluence of events in the middle of the 18th century: a volcanic eruption in Mindanao and a shift in the food and drink preferences in China and Britain, respectively, Sulu wouldn’t have risen into an international emporium and thus become the center of Euroasian trade. The Muslim slave raids that engulfed the country and most of maritime Asia wouldn’t have been as wide and as devastating as before that time. It has precipitated one of the darkest histories in the region and all because of the insatiable need of the British for a mildly addicting beverage, tea. As early as 1590, Spanish chroniclers have already recorded a major Muslim raid in Northern Mindanao and the Visayas. But the raids from the late 16th to the middle of the 18th century were not as extensive when compared to the succeeding decades. This period, especially the latter part, was tied up with the rise of the Maguindanao Sultanate that employed the unique raiding talents of a sea/river dwelling people, the Iranuns (also called the
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Ilanun, Lanun), in the coasts of Ilana Bay in Western Mindanao and upstream to the banks of Lake Lanao. Captured slaves were made to work in the forests, fields and seas to fulfill the need for manpower to support trade with regional markets especially centered in Batavia (now Jakarta). After the Maketering Volcano erupted, it signalled the decline of the sultanate when the once verdant farmlands and rich rivers and lake were affected by the cataclysm. As a consequence, the Iranuns dispersed region wide with many relocating to Sulu due to hard economic times. Tea has been consumed in China for centuries, and when it was introduced in Britain in 1610, it took about 115 years to become popular. In 1750, the demand was so high that estimates of legal imports were around 40 million pounds and displaced ale as the national drink. The commodity was imported by the English East India Company paid with silver from its colony in India, but in the long term, it was economically unviable. The British didn’t have trade items that interested the Chinese and thus, they set
their eyes in other parts of Asia. Beyond this point, most western accounts are silent on the pivotal role of Sulu in this trade. Muslim Mindanao has always been a challenge for the Spanish colonizers. It was here that their hold was tenuous and shaky, if not unsuccessful and have been despised by the Muslims. After the British Invasion of Manila in 176264, a consequence of the Anglo-Franco Seven Years War with Spain dragged into the conflict by reason of an alliance with the latter. The Muslims of Sulu and the British found a more or less common ground. Fortunately, Sulu was at the right place, and with the relocation of the Iranuns, at the right time. Its strategic location made it the conduit of the Chinese-Indian/ British trade. Britain, by way of the East India Company, traded with the Sultan of Sulu providing rich fabrics, utensils and other items, and in succeeding decades, English manufactured steel products from knives to even the Mindanao kris (from Sheffield) to opium in exchange for camphor, pearls, bird’s nest, tripang (sea
The lone sentinel at Obong, Dalaguete, Cebu. This watchtower was one of a chain of telegraphic structures built by the soldier-priest Fray Julian Bermejo that stretched from the coastal town of Carcar all the way to the south in Santander. Once marauders are sighted by the guardians, smoke/ fire alarms were set off to warn the next watchtower. Within minutes, this effective alarm system ran the whole stretch of southeastern Cebu to warn the townspeople.
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