Cotabato Under Spanish and American Rule: The Emergence of a Collaborationist Elite
Effective Spanish political control of the Cotabato Basin was shortlived and lightly felt. Although the Spaniards occupied the delta in 1861, it was not until 1888 that they were able, with the help of some early datu collaborators, to splinter the powerful alliance constructed by Datu Utu, the de facto Sultan of Buayan, and pressure him into retirement in 1890, thus finally attaining military supremacy of the entire region (Ileto 1971). Spanish colonial control consisted almost exclusively of the establishment and maintenance of military garrisons, with little attempt made to administer the native population. By 1899, the Spaniards were withdrawing from Cotabato, leaving it, after a brief independent interlude, to a new colonial power.
Early rule by Americans in the Muslim Philippines followed a pattern quite similar to their governance of the rest of the colony—pious paternalism punctuated by often brutal pacification operations. In the Muslim South, however, pacification took longer to achieve, requiring even harsher methods, while paternalism was also more pronounced. Military government gave way to civil rule in the Visayas and Luzon in 1901, but continued in Muslim areas until 1913. In 1906 in Sulu, more than six hundred men, women, and children were killed by
American forces in the battle of Bud Dajo, prompting American journalists to decry the carnage (Gowing 1983, 164).[3] Gowing observes that the slaughter at Bud Dajo—the consequence of a local rebellion against the imposition of a head tax—"was simply the last, most dramatic and most publicized of a long list of military operations" authorized by General Leonard Wood, the first military governor of the Muslim Philippines (1983, 164). In all, at least three thousand Philippine Muslims were killed by American forces between 1903 and 1906 (Gowing 1983, 164).[4] Violent repression was supplemented by an administrative paternalism grounded in the colonial perception that, as non-Christians, Muslim Filipinos were among the most benighted members of a backward people and required additional tutelage and protection to bring about "their advancement into civilization and material prosperity" (Philippine Commission Act No 253, Oct. 2, 1901, quoted in Thomas 1971, 9).
That Mindanao did not became an American planter colony, despite the wishes of a considerable number of colonial administrators and businessmen (and notwithstanding its demonstrated suitability for rubber cultivation—see Pelzer 1945, 105), is attributable to the same complex of causes that saw America's Philippine colony persist for more than forty-five years while purportedly on the verge of decolonization virtually since its inception. The peculiar policy that undergirded American colonial rule in the Philippines is termed by David Steinberg "self-liquidating imperialism" (1987, 276). That policy was originally shaped and periodically reconfigured as the result of contention between two domestic political blocs divided along party and sectoral lines. Arrayed around the Republican Party were interest groups in favor of American imperialist expansion: industrialists searching for markets and cheap sources of raw materials, and military analysts mindful of the strategic advantages of Far Eastern naval bases. Aligned against them were interests associated with the Democratic Party: a powerful lobby consisting principally of domestic beet-and cane-sugar producers (but also tobacco, hemp, and fruit growers, fearing competition from foreign crops), and the considerable political influence of the Anti-Imperialist League, headquartered in Boston (Pelzer 1945; Wernstedt and Simkins 1965; Constantino 1975; May 1987; Walton 1984).
With its dual doctrines of "free trade (especially sugar for manufacturers) and scheduled decolonization (at least in its formal trappings)," American colonial policy reflected a compromise between
those opposed domestic interests (Walton 1984, 49). The anticolonial political bloc strongly opposed the large-scale entry of plantation capital into the Philippines and succeeded in limiting the maximum amount of public land that could legally be acquired to 16 hectares per individual and 1,024 hectares for corporations and associations. Philippine nationalist politicians (with the help of a reluctant American Congress) resisted all later attempts (including strong lobbying by American administrators of Muslim areas) to relax limits on the size of private landholdings (Pelzer 1945; Thomas 1971). Those limits effectively foreclosed the development of plantation agriculture on any significant scale in Mindanao until the end of the American period. Instead, Mindanao was developed as a settler colony. The homestead system instituted under the Americans had little impact on Muslim areas during the colonial period, but its successor programs under the Philippine Commonwealth and Republic were to have profound consequences for the indigenous inhabitants of the Cotabato Basin.
Colonial Policy and the Cotabato Triumvirate
The course of colonial policy in the region that the Americans termed "Moroland" (Gowing 1983) was altered abruptly more than once as American aims in the rest of the archipelago (and Philippine nationalist opposition to those aims) evolved. The earliest American governance in the Muslim South was an indirect rule similar to that found at the time in British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. It was a strategy intended to neutralize Muslim groups in the South in order to concentrate on overpowering Philippine independence forces in the North. In 1899, a formal treaty, the Bates Agreement, was signed with the Sultan of Sulu in which the Americans promised not to interfere in Sulu religion, law, and commerce (and to pay the sultan and his datus monthly stipends) in exchange for the sultan's acknowledgment of United States sovereignty. Informal agreements of a similar nature were made during that period with Muslim leaders in the rest of the Muslim South, including Cotabato (Gowing 1983).
The colonial policy of indirect rule was soon modified and not long thereafter abandoned. In 1903, a tribal ward system was established in the newly constituted Moro Province wherein local headmen were placed under the direct supervision of a district governor (Gowing 1983). The rationale for the administrative shift toward direct rule was given by General Leonard Wood, the first governor of the Moro
Province, in a 1904 letter to an English friend: "You are quite content to maintain rajahs and sultans and other species of royalty, but we, with our plain ideas of doing things, find these gentlemen outside of our scheme of government, and so have to start at this kind of proposition a little differently. Our policy is to develop individualism among these people and, little by little, to teach them to stand on their own two feet independent of petty chieftains. In order to do this the chief or headman has to be given some position of more or less authority under the government, but he ceases to have any divine rights" (Wood quoted in Gowing 1983, 115).[5] The Bates Agreement was unilaterally abrogated by the United States in 1905 with the Sultan of Sulu retaining only colonial recognition as the "religious head" of Sulu Muslims (Wood quoted in Gowing 1983, 119). The policy of indirect rule was entirely abandoned in 1914 when the administrative act that inaugurated civilian colonial governance in Mindanao and Sulu also explicitly repealed the previous official recognition of the customary (adat) law of Muslim populations.
In what follows I illuminate the earlier colonial period in Cotabato by means of biographies of the three principal collaborating datus of the early twentieth century. These three datus have been called the "triumvirate" of Cotabato (Millan 1952, 9). While they lived contemporaneously and their careers overlapped, their major contributions to the transition from sultanate to colony occurred at different periods. I will therefore introduce them chronologically.
Datu Piang
The first and most influential of the colonial datus of Cotabato was Datu Piang. According to the hagiographic biography of Piang contained in the 1952 Cotabato Guidebook (Millan 1952), he was born circa 1850, the son of a Chinese trader from Amoy named Tuya Tan and a Magindanaon mother. Datu Adil relates the following story about the birth and boyhood of Datu Piang: "The trader Tan came to Dulawan [the capital of the Buayan Sultanate] selling China goods. He presented silks and perfumes to Datu Utu and they became friends. Datu Utu gave one of his concubines to Tan and called a pandita [religious practitioner] to marry them. The girl became pregnant but Tan went off trading and never returned. The child that was born was unique—it had fair skin, so it was believed he was the child of Tan. He was named Piang and was an industrious child. He cultivated the
friendship of the officers of the Spanish garrison at Bakat by running errands for them." Throughout his life Piang was unashamedly aware that he had little or no noble blood in his veins. The 1952 biography notes that he never used the honorific "datu," instead calling himself "Ama ni Mingka" (or its shortened form "Amai Mingka"), or father of Mingka, the name by which he is still best known among the Magindanaon.[6]
Piang became a fast-rising protégé of Datu Utu, the Sultan of Buayan, who made him his "Minister of Lands" (Ileto 1971, 63). By 1890, however, the Spanish tactic of establishing forts in Cotabato to dissolve local lines of communication had proved successful and Datu Utu's inged was encircled, cutting him off from all sources of slaves and firearms (Ileto 1971). Piang as well as other of his lieutenants broke with Datu Utu when he was no longer able to provide them with firearms (Ileto 1971). Oral tradition relates that Utu's other followers deserted him in favor of Datu Piang because they could no longer tolerate his cruelty (see also Millan 1952). Piang very quickly replaced Datu Utu as the most powerful datu in the upper valley by forming an impressive alliance that included Utu's most forceful former confederates. Utu retired downriver to "spend his last years under Spanish protection" (Beckett 1982, 399).
Piang also quickly allied himself with Spain and sought the goodwill of Spanish authorities. His turugan (palace or stronghold; literally "sleeping place") was a short distance from the new Spanish fort at Reina Regente (just south of present-day Datu Piang). The fort provided him a shield from his Magindanaon enemies while he supplied its garrison with foodstuffs in exchange for cash (Ileto 1971; Beckett 1982). Equally important were Datu Piang's downriver ties in Cotabato town, particularly with Chinese traders. Beckett cites a 1901 American dispatch reporting 204 Chinese in the town of Cotabato, primarily engaged in the export of rice, beeswax, coffee, almaciga, and gutta-percha, the aggregate value of which was estimated at 150,000 Mexican dollars (1982, 402). Most of these products originated in upriver areas under the command of Piang, who apparently controlled both their production or collection as well as the terms of their export via Chinese merchants. Another contemporary American chronicler, Najeeb Saleeby (see below) reported that by "the time of the Spanish evacuation [Piang] had become the richest Moro in Mindanao and the most influential chief in the island" (Saleeby 1908, 292).
3.
Datu Utu (seated center) with his wife, Rajah Putri, and retinue, circa 1890.
This photograph was probably taken on the occasion of the elderly Utu's move
downriver to live under Spanish protection in Cotabato town in 1890. Datu Utu's
severely crossed eyes may be the source for some of the stories told about
his fierce appearance. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.
Piang's loyalty to Spain lasted just as long as the physical presence of Spanish soldiers. With the Spanish evacuation of Cotabato in 1899, the men of Piang and his allies sacked Cotabato town, and a number of Christian Filipinos were killed or forced to flee. The Cotabato Chinese remained under Piang's protection and were spared. Ileto (1971) reports that Piang also declared himself Sultan of Mindanao in spite of his lack of genealogical precedent. Whether or not Piang made such a formal declaration it appears clear that at that point he was the effective ruler of Cotabato.
Piang's independent leadership of Cotabato lasted only a few months. The American occupying forces arrived in late 1899, and within a short time Piang was on his way to becoming—as described in his 1952 biography—"America's Great Friend" (Millan 1952, 292). One of the early significant services rendered by Piang to the
Americans was his assistance in eliminating the threat to American policies posed by his son-in-law, Datu Ali, the highborn nephew of Datu Utu. Between 1903 and 1905, Datu Ali led the only large-scale armed resistance to American rule in Cotabato.[7] Ali commanded a large number of armed followers, was skilled in guerrilla warfare, and, as heir apparent to the sultanate of Buayan, seemed capable of mobilizing the entire upper valley in revolt against the Americans. Datu Piang provided the intelligence that allowed Ali, stricken with malaria, to be surprised and slain by American soldiers. Oral tradition asserts that the Americans obtained Piang's assistance only by torturing him. Nevertheless, as Beckett points out, "Ali's death saw [Piang] on the winning side, the authorities in his debt, and his aristocratic rival out of the way" (Beckett 1982, 401).
By 1908, Cotabato was reported to be the most peaceful district in the Muslim Philippines, due in large part to the influence of Piang (Mastura 1979; Beckett 1982). Piang was also exceptionally responsive to American programs. The great majority of high-ranking datus were deeply distrustful of Western education and, when told they must have their sons educated at colonial schools, sent slaves in their place.[8] Piang, however, sent his own sons all the way to Manila to study (Beckett 1982). He also supported the settlement of Christian immigrants from northern islands and the establishment of agricultural colonies, which began in 1913 (Thomas 1971).
In 1915, with the end of the tribal ward system and the establishment of colonial administration in the South similar to that in the rest of the colony, Datu Piang was appointed as the only Muslim provincial board member for what was now the province of Cotabato. In the following year he was appointed to the National Assembly by the American governor general. These two positions had few formal responsibilities and conferred virtually no legal authority. They were, however, emblems of official American recognition of Piang as the preeminent leader of Cotabato Muslims as well as incentives to assure his continued cooperation with the now expressly stated colonial policy of integrating Muslims into the national political structure.
The political potency achieved by Datu Piang through his association with the armed might of the Americans, and before them the Spaniards, was symbolized by Magindanaons in their representations of Piang's index finger as supernaturally efficacious. According to Datu Adil: "It is said that the index finger of Piang was magical. If he pointed it and said 'enemigo,' people were killed; if he said 'amigo'
4.
Datu Piang (front row, second from right, with cane) and his officials and attendants,
circa 1914. Despite his quite considerable wealth and power, Datu Piang is reported always
to have dressed quite simply, in contrast to the more elaborate attire worn by most
Magindanaon datus of the period (see, for example, the dress of Datu Utu in Figure 1). The
datu's attendants include two kris bearers, a kampilan (long sword) bearer (second from left,
rear), and two men carrying brass containers for betel nut. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.
they were saved. He was feared because of that."[9] Piang's economic achievements under American rule were comparably impressive. He continued his lucrative connections in the Chinese-controlled export trade while expanding into rice-milling and lumber (Beckett 1982). He also maintained his base in the upper valley and by 1926 was reported to have accumulated massive wealth that included "42,000 coconut trees (they are good for $1 per tree each year) thousands of carabao [water buffalo] [and] thousands of hectares of rice land . . . to say nothing of the tithe paid him by his loyal subjects."[10]
Evidence from various sources suggests that Datu Piang was an exceptionally shrewd and independent-minded collaborator, ever mindful of the opportunities for personal gain made available through his
gatekeeper role. A 1906 letter from the American governor of the Moro Province to the district governor of Cotabato expresses anger and exasperation at Datu Piang's attempt to collect rent from the superintendent of schools for the use of a school building that Piang had constructed in his inged at Dulawan. The letter states in part: "You will tell him, furthermore, that if he and his people cheerfully paid the cedula [head tax] and other taxes due from them to the government, we would ask from him no such assistance, but that in view of their dereliction in this and in view of the further reasons set forth above, it is believed to be a fair proposition that he should give the free use of this building for school purposes" (Bliss to the district governor of Cotabato, August 14, 1906, quoted in Gowing 1983, 198). Datu Adil tells of a road that Datu Piang contracted to build for the Americans across a swampy tract in the upper valley for twenty thousand pesos: "Piang called on his [client] datus to assist him. They arrived with their followers and enough food to feed them. The road took more than two months to build but Piang never shared any of the money he received with his datus."
These stories illustrate how collaborating datus were often able, relying on traditional power relations, to call out corvée labor in order to avail themselves of new opportunities to enrich themselves during the early colonial period. Datu Piang seems to have been more successful at this strategy than any of his contemporaries. He died in 1933 at the approximate age of eighty-four (Millan 1952). Five of his sons became either politicians or professionals.
In 1918, Piang's niece, Bai Bagungan of Buluan, became the first female municipal district president (a colonial-era post comparable to mayor) in the Philippines. Though her late husband preceded her in the post, she did not automatically succeed him. Shortly after her husband's death she married a younger man of much lower status who had served in his household. Datu Piang was furious that he had not been consulted in the matter and ordered the couple confined in the provincial jail to force Bagungan to change her mind. She remained steadfast and Piang eventually gave way and sanctioned the marriage. When the datu appointed by Piang to fill the municipal post resigned, Bai Bagungan was appointed municipal district president after receiving an overwhelming vote of confidence from the male electors of the district. Bai Bagungan was an active official who, in the words of Philippine Governor General Cameron Forbes, "became a vigorous partisan of public schools, especially for girls, and in other ways a
valuable influence in the extension of American administration in Mindanao" (Forbes 1928).[11]
Datu Ignacio Ortuoste
Datu Ignacio Ortuoste was the most extraordinary member of the Cotabato triumvirate in that he was entirely a product of colonialism. His career, which spans the years between 1904 and 1935, illustrates most dramatically the disjunctions wrought by colonialism in Cotabato. There is very little written information available on Datu Ortuoste. Beckett (1982) does not mention him and Gowing (1983) assumes him to be a Christian Filipino. According to Datu Adil, Ortuoste was neither a Christian Filipino nor a Magindanaon nor originally from Cotabato. He was a Maranao from the Lanao Plateau who was captured as a child in a skirmish between Spanish soldiers and Maranao warriors. He was brought to the Jesuit mission at Tamontaka, on the south fork of the Pulangi River. There he was reared and educated, baptized and given a Christian name.[12]
Like his contemporary Datu Piang, Ortuoste made a very successful transition from Spanish to American rule. Unlike Piang, his main assets were his ability to read, write, and speak Spanish as well as local languages, and his familiarity with colonial as well as local culture. Utilizing these attributes, Ortuoste became a highly effective intermediary between the local representatives of colonial authority and those who militantly resisted that authority. His singular personal background made him an ideal cultural and political broker, negotiating the subjugation of defiant local leaders to an occupying foreign power.
The first reported occasion for Ortuoste's mediation occurred in 1904 when he reportedly played a prominent role in dissuading Datu Ali from attacking the American military garrison in what was then the town of Cotabato (Millan 1952). Ortuoste's next recorded assignment for the Americans was in 1914, when he assisted in negotiating the surrender of Datu Alamada, an Iranun insurgent who had fought the successive colonial regimes for twenty years in the mountainous area between Cotabato and Lanao with a force of more than five hundred men (Gowing 1983).
American administrators again sought the assistance of Ortuoste in 1923 as a mediator in the surrender of another Iranun insurgent, Datu Santiago, the last leader of resistance to American rule in Cotabato. Santiago had rebelled against the imposition by the Americans of a
head tax (cedula ), the compelling of Muslim girls to attend Christian schools, and the practice by school authorities of using forced labor without compensation to construct and repair school buildings (Hurley 1936; Tan 1982). Datu Adil remembers stories told by Ortuoste that, in this instance at least, he played a double role, simultaneously assuring colonial authorities of Santiago's imminent surrender and advising Santiago on the concessions he should demand from the Americans in return for his submission.
At some point after this, Datu Ortuoste was accorded the title Datu sa Kutawatu (Datu of Cotabato) by Sultan Mastura, who was installed as Sultan of Magindanao in 1926. Sometime after helping secure the surrender of Datu Alamada he was also appointed assistant to the governor of Cotabato.[13] In his political career, Datu Ortuoste enjoyed considerable influence among colonial administrators and gained the recognition of the Muslim elite of Cotabato. He accumulated large tracts of property in and around Cotabato City before he died, sometime before 1952. Two of his sons became civil servants in Cotabato.
That Datu Ortuoste was, in all important respects, a colonial creation is evidenced in the exceptional title bestowed upon him by the reigning Sultan of Magindanao. The office of Datu sa Kutawatu was unusual not only in that it was newly created—the creation of new royal offices was uncommon but not unheard of (see below). It was also the first traditional title that in its very nomenclature acknowledged colonial domination. "Cotabato," after all, was the Spanish and American term for the territory locally known as Magindanao. As the ceremonial Datu sa Kutawatu; Datu Ortuoste personified the new colonial construct called Cotabato. He was the first purely colonial datu.
Datu Sinsuat Balabaran
After Datu Piang, Datu Sinsuat Balabaran was the most influential indigenous ruler of the American period. He was the central consolidating figure in a three-generation dynastic line that began with his uncle, the nineteenth-century Datu Ayunan—described in a contemporary account as belonging "body and soul" to the Spaniards (Rincon 1894 quoted in Ileto 1971, 92)—and extends to his sons, three of whom at various times in the past thirty years have held the most powerful political positions in Cotabato.
Datu Sinsuat was the son of Balabaran, the younger brother of Datu Ayunan. Ayunan led the pro-Spanish, anti-Utu faction in the mid1880s. Saleeby (1908) suggests that because Ayunan was much lower in rank than Datu Utu he intended to use an alliance with Spain to strengthen his own position. Datu Ayunan died in 1898, just at the close of the Spanish period. Before he died he passed on to his brother Balabaran the title gobernadorcillo del delta (petty governor of the delta), an office conferred on him by the Spaniards and one that he dearly prized (Ileto 1971; Beckett 1982).
There is little historical information on Balabaran. Datu Adil recalled a story about his demise: "There is a legend that Datu Balabaran was devoured by crocodiles because he tried to proclaim himself sultan. Balabaran had gathered his datus and told them to assemble at Dimapatoy for his proclamation. The crocodiles overheard this and ate him. They knew he had insufficient maratabat to rule as sultan, so they punished him for his brashness. Only one forearm was found. It was taken to his inged at Taviran [near Dinaig] and buried."[14]
Datu Sinsuat was born in 1864 and his political career spanned the entire American colonial period. His official biography states that as a boy he was adopted by Datu Piang and that as a young man he served as "a delegado of the Spanish Military Governor" (Millan 1952, 296). In 1916 he was appointed municipal district president of Dinaig, his home territory. Between 1923 and 1931 he served as special adviser to the governor of Cotabato Province.
Datu Sinsuat's ascent to power was due almost entirely to his close cooperation with colonial authorities. His prominence among Cotabato Muslims was achieved in part by strategic marriages designed to cement relationships with influential allies and elevate the status of his children.[15] He did not attain a preeminent position among Cotabato Muslims until the death of Datu Piang, a man in whose shadow he had long remained (Beckett 1977).
Sinsuat was also engaged in economic endeavors that included control of smuggling and gambling operations in his municipality and the acquisition of large tracts of land for cattle raising and coconut farming. Having secured his economic and political base in Dinaig, Sinsuat moved to Cotabato town, the seat of provincial government, during his tenure as assistant to the governor. As a colonial center since the late nineteenth century, the former capital of the Magindanao Sultanate had been without effective traditional rule for some time. The
current sultan and high nobility of Magindanao lived, most of them in much-reduced circumstances, either north of town across the river in Nuling or even farther away across Ilana Bay in Sibugay. Datu Sinsuat used his affinity with colonial authorities to expand his sphere of influence from the neighboring municipality of Dinaig and fill that void.[16]
While in Cotabato town, Sinsuat reportedly derived a considerable proportion of his income from the levying of traditional fines. Such practices had apparently become so widespread among datus who had been appointed as local officials in the colonial government that they were specifically prohibited in a 1935 directive from the Director of Non-Christian tribes: "It has come to our attention that in certain districts inhabited by Mohammedans, provincial and district officials and employees . . . taking advantage of their official positions, try and adjudicate the so-called religious cases. Such officials, it has been reported to us, when trying those cases impose fines upon the persons involved, collect those fines which they keep and appropriate for themselves and in those cases where the fines cannot be satisfied, the persons concerned are imprisoned and required to work for their personal benefit. This practice is not sanctioned by any of our laws."[17]
Datu Sinsuat was the first of the colonial datus to develop considerable political connections at the national level. In 1934 he was appointed to the Philippine Senate. That appointment was likely the result of his acquaintance with Senator Manuel Quezon, soon to be the first president of the Philippine Commonwealth. For some time, Quezon had cultivated the support of a few datus whom he could reasonably rely on to be supportive of Philippine independence, a position opposed by most Philippine Muslims, who feared (with good reason) the prospect of direct rule by Philippine Christians (Thomas 1971). Datu Sinsuat, in his political career, pursued a strategy that resembled that of his uncle Ayunan, who consolidated a strong traditional following and local base before moving on to expand his political power "within the framework of submission to the colonial master" (Ileto 1971, 92). However, Sinsuat far surpassed Ayunan in his success at advancing the myth of his own nobility and that of his descendants and antecedents. It was a myth directed at both Cotabato Muslims and Christians as well as at the colonial rulers. We find evidence for it in an excerpt, entitled "A Man of Royalty," from a ceremonial volume presented to Elpidio Quirino, the second president of the Philippine republic, shortly after Datu Sinsuat's death in 1949:
The name Sinsuat in Cotabato and for that matter the whole length and breadth of Mindanao is more than the mere inference of a family name . . . For the fact is that the brand Sinsuat is a family dynasty that conjures in the trained mind a nobility, a well-guarded family tradition encased in honor and fame, imbedded in illustrious and amazing achievements, silkened in the tender and luminous carpet of distinction and treasured by the glorious and exemplary exhilarating breeze and potency of fame and honor . . . And the history of this family name is as old as the history of Mindanao itself. To speak of a Sinsuat is almost a temptation to call it Mindanao in rabid generalization.
Beneath the breathless hyperbole may be found an unmistakable instance of nobility by assertion, a modern variant of what Beckett has described for the precolonial period as the "post hoc ennoblement of the powerful" (1982, 398).
Colonial-Era Datus and the Continuation of "Traditional" Rule
The careers of the "Cotabato triumvirate" provide the basis for assessing the effect of American colonialism on indigenous political and economic relations in the Cotabato Basin. The biographies indicate, first, that the colonial datus generally had only tenuous ties to the high nobility of the Cotabato sultanates, and some had none at all. While the old high nobility was permanently devitalized by the colonial order—surviving only as dignitaries—the "new datus . . . created their own maratabat [rank honor]," as well as purchased it for their children through intermarriages with noble families, often facilitated by extraordinarily high bridewealth payments (Beckett 1982, 408). This process is clearly evident in the dynasty-building careers of Piang and Sinsuat.
The new datus of the colonial period were able to enhance their traditional status because of the power and wealth they had obtained through collaboration with American colonial authorities.[18] With the early abandonment of the policy of indirect rule, their political positions were not predicated on any official American recognition of their traditional right to rule Cotabato Muslims. Instead, they were bestowed with new ceremonial offices—as municipal district president, assemblyman, or (occasionally) senator—as tokens of their political ability to mediate between ordinary Magindanaons and an alien colonial authority, and as rewards for their political willingness to ensure
Muslim compliance with colonial aims. In return for these services they received, besides the trappings and privileges of office, the opportunity to exploit new potential sources of wealth. They also retained control over the agrarian sector during the colonial period. They were none the less a dependent and sectional elite. Commerce was almost entirely controlled by the Chinese, and public administration remained exclusively in the hands of Christian Filipinos (Beckett 1982).
Despite their diminished political autonomy the new datus were able to amass significant wealth. We have seen that Datu Piang greatly increased his wealth under the Americans and that Datus Ortuoste and Sinsuat gained theirs. Some of this wealth, such as that derived from the imposition of fines and the drafting of corvée labor for colonial projects, resulted from the extension of traditional relations to new contexts. Other sources were novel, such as datus' advantaged opportunities to create or acquire private property. Another source, neither traditional nor entirely new, was the intensification of agriculture. In 1908, exports from Cotabato were reported at 21,246 pesos. In 1911 they were 311,043 pesos, and in 1919, 760,428 pesos (Forbes 1928, 28; Beckett 1982, 403). Rice was the most important item in this dramatic expansion of exports, followed by copra and corn. Between 1920 and 1935, the area under rice cultivation increased from 1,864 hectares to 24,630 hectares (Beckett 1982, 403).[19]
It seems unlikely that the expansion of rice production in colonial Cotabato followed the pattern that occurred either earlier in the mainland deltas of Southeast Asia or simultaneously on the Central Luzon Plain. In those cases expansion was accomplished by rural smallholders or tenants with capital advanced by landlords, mill owners, or middlemen (the latter two often Chinese) and involved the restructuring of traditional production relations. Because commercial rice production had existed for some time in Cotabato, and because private property in land was not well established until after 1930, it is more likely that the expansion of rice production in the early American period occurred within the traditional production relations established between datus and their subordinates. Despite the abolition of slavery, many datus of this period retained their existing banyaga slaves and continued to acquire debt-bondsmen (Beckett 1982). Datus also maintained control over the endatuan subordinates who comprised their ingeds. It seems reasonable to imagine that datus responded to the new commercial opportunities of the American period in the same way they reacted to the earlier demand for foodstuffs to supply Spanish garrisons—by intensi-
fying agricultural production to the extent of their capabilities.[20] Although the exact outlines of the intensification process are not known (Chinese merchants did own rice mills and may have made crop loans directly to producers), it is likely that datus were the major beneficiaries of the agricultural expansion of the early American period.
The wealth and political connections of the new datus were used to launch family dynasties. Generally, this was accomplished by their acquisition of a mix of old and new durable resources. They secured new resources such as tracts of land and other productive property, new commercial connections, new extralocal political patrons, and new colonial educations for at least some of their sons. They were also careful to secure more traditional sorts of resources: political allies and subordinates and, just as important, maratabat (rank honor) for their children and grandchildren by obtaining high-ranking wives for themselves and their sons.
One of Datu Piang's sons became the first Magindanaon attorney. Two others obtained college educations and became politicians. However, with the death of the most dynamic of these sons, Congressman Gumbay Piang, in 1949, the dynasty was irreversibly weakened, and the Piangs are no longer a powerful political force outside their home municipality. The Sinsuat family dynasty has exhibited the most political endurance. The sons of Datu Sinsuat have held positions as congressman, governor, and mayor (of Cotabato City and Dinaig), and continue to be powerful players in regional politics. The sons of the non-Magindanaon Datu Ortuoste were, predictably, an exception. They chose Philippine Christian culture (their mother was almost certainly a Christian), were educated in Manila, and became local civil servants. The family dynasty founded by Datu Ortuoste thus became a Christian one and the title of Datu sa Kutawatu lapsed with his death.
As the colonial-era datus established their names and consolidated their local political domains they invariably embraced the myth of sanctified inequality. They came to regard themselves as a traditional nobility, as the legitimate successors of the precolonial rulers of Cotabato. This accentuation of ancient roots and illustrious bloodlines was not only (or even primarily) for the benefit of Magindanaon subordinates. As illustrated colorfully in the portrayal of Datu Sinsuat as "A Man of Royalty," it was also intended to impress American colonial agents and Christian Filipino nationalists by confirming their preconceptions about the continued importance of a potent and exotic Muslim nobility.