1. Those sultanates most immediately affected by the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese include Patani, Aceh, Banten, Perak, Pahang, and Johor (Reid 1993). [BACK]

2. The paired positions of tribute-taker and tribute-provider correspond generally with two classes that may be identified as nonproducers and direct producers. However, not all tribute-providers were direct producers. In addition, while the two class positions were mutually exclusive, the social positions were not, some individuals being both tribute-takers and tribute-providers. [BACK]

3. As in the rest of the prehispanic Philippines and much of insular Southeast Asia, the division drawn between freemen and slaves often carried more social than economic significance (see, e.g., Warren 1981; W. H. Scott 1982, 1994). The economic positions of slaves and freemen were often indistinguishable, and, in the case of debt slavery, an individual might move from freeman to slave and back again more than once in his or her lifetime. [BACK]

4. Wang Ta-yuan's Tao I Chih Lueh ( Summary Notices of the Barbarians of the Isles ), written in 1349, is the earliest recorded account that specifically mentions the Cotabato Basin. According to William Henry Scott, Wang describes "Mintolang" (Mindanao) "at the mouth of the Pulangi River in Cotabato [as] a strategic location with good communications to the sea and an abundance of rice and grain" (Scott 1984, 73). Cotabato at this time was exporting forest products such as sandalwood, ebony, and animal hides; and absorbing, in addition to a wide range of cloth and metal goods, such luxury items as gold, silk, and porcelain. In the Ming annals, begun in 1368, the rulers met in Mindanao were designated by the Chinese term for monarch (Wang) while overlords in Luzon in the northern Philippines were referred to as chieftains (W. H. Scott 1984, 78). [BACK]

5. As noted in the previous chapter, the term "datu" refers both to hereditary members of a traditional nobility who claim the right to rule, and to actual leaders who command followers, and who are usually, but not always, members of the high nobility. Because of a system of cognatic kin reckoning, and various other sociopolitical factors, there are always more individuals able to claim membership in the traditional nobility than there are active leadership positions. Stewart (1977) distinguishes between these two meanings of "datu" by capitalizing the term when referring to positions of political leadership and using the lower case when speaking simply of the designation of rank. I have not systematized my references in that manner, and instead either modify "datu" with the term "ruling" when referring particularly to political leadership or assume the distinction is made clear from the context of the passage. [BACK]

6. Forrest notes in reference to slaves being used as units of valuation in Cotabato: "Talking of the value of things here, and at Sooloo, they say such a house or prow [ prahu , or ship], etc. is worth so many slaves; the old valuation being one slave for thirty kangans [or bolts of imported cloth]" (1969, 280). [BACK]

7. For detailed descriptions of the politics and economics of debt-bondage in the Malay states see Gullick (1958) and Sullivan (1982). Although Sullivan is pointedly critical of Gullick's functionalist approach to the indigenous

Malay political system, his depiction of debt-bondage in Perak is in essential agreement with Gullick's overview. [BACK]

9. For a detailed account of the preferential access of seventeenth-century Magindanao sultans to external trade opportunities, see Laarhoven (1989). [BACK]

10. It is tempting to view the two rival power centers on the Pulangi River as typifying van Leur's (1955) dichotomy between inland states and harbor principalities in the Malay world. The upriver sultanate was relatively inward-looking and drew resources from intensive rice cultivation, while the downriver sultanate was focused externally and founded on maritime trade. However, as Ileto (1971) notes, the downriver (Magindanao) sultanate also had an agricultural base in the delta and the upriver (Buayan) sultanate had other exits to the sea aside from the Pulangi River which allowed maritime trading and raiding. [BACK]

11. Forrest uses the term "Haraforas" to refer to the Tirurays he describes. Dampier, writing a century earlier, employs a similar term—"Alfoores"—in reference to a distinct population "under the subjection of the Sultan of Mindanao" (1906, 333). These designations are undoubtedly related to the Molukan term "alifuru." As described by Leonard Andaya (1993), the alifuru were the interior inhabitants of Halmahera, distinguished from the ngofagamu —the common people (literally, ''people of the land"). "Alifuru" was used generally to designate a number of distinct non-Muslim peoples of the interior highlands who were attached as client groups to various Muslim rulers. The reports of Dampier and Forrest suggest that the term was used in the same way in Cotabato. While the term "alifuru" apparently remains in use in Halmahera, I found no evidence for its continued use in Cotabato. For additional evidence for social and cultural linkages between Malukan and Mindanao in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Andaya (1993), Laarhoven (1989), and Majul (1973). [BACK]

12. Beeswax was an especially desired item for external trade, particularly with Europeans. Most of the beeswax from Cotabato was shipped by Chinese junks to Manila for the candle-making industry (Wickberg 1965). It was also the primary export item in the Cotabato-Dutch trade (Laarhoven 1989). Also important at various times were gutta-percha and almaciga, two tree saps used

in insulation and varnishes, respectively, and traded via Sulu and Singapore to European markets. [BACK]

13. Among the Chinese articles carried to Cotabato in the late eighteenth century, Forrest specifies "especially kangans [bolts of cloth], beads, gongs, china basons [ sic ] with red edges; deep brass plates, five in a set; deep saucers, three and four inches in diameter; brass wire, and iron" (1969, 281). Forrest also remarks on rates of exchange between the Tiruray and Magindanaons, most specifically in the following passage: "One day, near Tubuan, a Harafora [referring in this context to a Tiruray] brought down some paddy from the country: I wanted to purchase it; but the head man of the village, a Magindanoer, would not permit him to sell it to me. I did not dispute the point; but found afterwards, the poor Harafora had sold about three hundred pounds of paly [ palay , or unhusked rice] for a prong, or chopping knife" (1969, 282). [BACK]

14. Dampier also found goldsmiths, blacksmiths, and carpenters in the capital and a thriving shipbuilding industry (1906). When Forrest visited in 1775, he counted at least 370 buildings in the three settlements that made up the capital, as well as "many Magindanao mechanics, vessel builders, and merchants" (1969, 178-84). [BACK]

15. Little information exists on the activities of the Iranun prior to the mid-eighteenth century. Laarhoven relates reports from Dutch visitors to the Magindanao Sultanate in 1700 that the Iranun were portrayed to them as dangerous rogues and "one of the least trusted and wildest groups in the territory of the sultanate" (1989, 111). [BACK]

16. Some Iranun cruisers ( mangayaw prahus ) were as much as one hundred feet long, held three banks of oars, and carried close to two hundred men (Warren 1981, 179). [BACK]

17. Most Filipino captives were sold initially at slave markets in Cotabato or Sulu. Before 1800, they were usually purchased by Bugis or Brunei merchants for transshipment to the Dutch port cities of Batavia, Malacca, Makassar, Palembang, or Banjarmasin. There they were resold to Dutch or Chinese households as servants, boatmen, laborers, and concubines. By 1800, however, Jolo Island, the capital of the Sulu Sultanate, had become the most important slave center in the entire region, absorbing the majority of Filipino captives brought there (Warren 1981). [BACK]

18. Long-distance sea raiding carried out from Cotabato predated European penetration of the region and was probably very similar to that found elsewhere in the precontact Philippines. Raiding, or mangayaw , was a socially approved activity throughout the Philippines (and all of insular Southeast Asia) before the Spanish occupation. The primary objective of these (often reciprocal) raids was the acquisition of slaves for ransom, sale, or sacrifice (W. H. Scott 1982, 91). Seaborne raiding cannot be neatly separated from maritime trading. William Henry Scott, in fact, suggests the term "trade-raiding" (1982, 85) be applied to these activities because raiding victims were often former trading partners and captives were usually treated as commodities and sold as chattel slaves. [BACK]

19. Laarhoven cites Dutch reports (again from 1700) to the effect that the Magindanao sultan did not have jurisdiction over the Iranun, "for they were in

the hands of their own chiefs" (1989, 112). The Dutch visitors did witness certain Iranun datus apparently rendering tribute to the Magindanao sultan. Laarhoven notes, however, that "no mention was ever made of the Iranun datus submitting to the obeisance ceremony" (1989, 111). [BACK]

20. For a detailed account of the Chinese in seventeenth century Cotabato, see Laarhoven (1987). [BACK]

21. In his description of Magindanaon laws, Forrest notes that the "Chinese seem to be excluded from the benefit of law: those in power often forcing kangans [bundles of trade cloth used as currency] upon them, and making them yearly pay heavy interest" (1969, 277). [BACK]

22. Prior to the late nineteenth century, the Spaniards attempted only one additional full-scale military assault against Cotabato. Their 1639 campaign was thwarted by the downstream Sultan Kudarat (by every account an extraordinary military and political leader), with the assistance of the Iranun datus of the coast (Majul 1973; Laarhoven 1989). A principal tactic in Sultan Kudarat's anti-Spanish strategy was simply to withdraw his warriors and populace inland, thus forcing the Spaniards away from their coastal supply bases in order to pursue their attack (Laarhoven 1989). [BACK]

23. See, e.g., the instructions given to Captain Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa, who, in 1578, was commissioned to subdue the Moro sultanates of Sulu and Mindanao. They direct Rodriguez to promote trade with the Moros, explore their natural resources, Christianize them, and compel them to acknowledge Spanish sovereignty, in that order (Blair and Robertson 4: 174-81). [BACK]

24. The only evidence I have seen from Cotabato is found in occasional references in the letters sent by Jesuit missionaries from the mission at Tamontaka. A typical passage, from January 1894 reads: "Three Sharifs [Islamic teachers] arrived with the mail boat [presumably from Jolo]. The same as always! When will they [referring to the Spanish colonial government] be convinced that they are those who oppose not only our ministry but also our dominion?" (letter of Mariano Suarez to the Mission Superior quoted in Arcilla 1990, 378). [BACK]

25. In his impressive work, The Sulu Zone 1768-1898 , James Warren (1981) examines and rejects the argument that Muslim raiding and slaving in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries should be viewed within the framework of the "Moro Wars" as "retaliation against Spanish colonialism and religious incursion" (1985, xvi). [BACK]

26. Laarhoven cites a late-seventeenth-century Dutch source who reports that "the trade with Manila never stops" (1989, 147). Dampier, who visited Cotabato in the same period, remarks of the Magindanaons that "their trading vessels they send chiefly to Manila" (1906, 340). [BACK]

27. Cesar Majul's 1973 book, Muslims in the Philippines , is a Muslim nationalist history and is best evaluated in the context of the political environment in which it was written (see chapter 8). It compares favorably with Philippine nationalist histories, which virtually ignore the existence of Philippine Muslims (see Agoncillo 1969; Constantino 1975). Majul's corpus of work in general (see especially his 1985 work, The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines ) is an impressive collection of carefully researched historical and political writings on Philippine Muslims. [BACK]