Raja Bongsu of Sulu
A Brunei Hero In His
Times
by
Robert Nicholl
Contents
1. The Sulu Scene
2. The Moro Wars
3. The Young King of Sulu
4. The Gathering Storm
5. The Tempest
6. The Flight for Survival
7. Peace by Exhaustion
8. Twilight
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Chapter 1
The Sulu Scene
The little archipelago of Sulu has always been famous
throughout South East Asia as a source of pearls. It pearls beds are extensive,
and have been estimated to spread over 15,000 square miles, and the pearls,
though sometimes slightly yellowish in colour, are often of outstanding size.
The economy of Sulu was based upon the exchange of pearls and tortoise-shell with
the Chinese for silk and luxury goods. Writing in 1617 Chang Hsieh noted that
in a good year the Chinese merchants made a profit of many hundred percent, and
even in a bad year they never made less than one hundred percent. Jolo, the capital island of the archipelago,
was an international mart, from which Chinese goods were retailed over the
whole region. For this reason, whichever power controlled the north east coast
of Borneo, would seek to control the Sulu archipelago.
The inhabitants of the archipelago were drawn from two
distinct racial groups. The ruling class was formed of the Tau Sug,
"People of the Current", who were a Bisayah stock and came originally
from further north. The historian Combés in the seventeenth century concluded
that they came from the region round
Butuan. On Jolo a branch of these, the Tau Guimba, or "People of the
Interior", lived in the mountains and were known as Guimbahanos, or
Guimbanos; they had a reputation for ferocity. The mass of the people were
Samals, or Bajaus, some nomadic, some settled and others hovering between the
two states. All of these were basically fishermen, or men of the sea -Orang Laut; the Spaniards generally
referred to the pure nomads as Camucones, and to the settled variety as Lutaos.
Possibly the earliest reference to Sulu in Chinese sources
is in the Nan-hai Chih, which
apparently dates from the late thirteenth century, and which refers to Sulu as
a Brunei dependency. The Brunei were far too few to colonise the areas that
they dominated, and presumably in the thirteenth century, as later, they
controlled the Sulu archipelago through an Adipati or Batara, a viceroy
stationed with a suitable following on Jolo. About 1350 Brunei's power collapsed completely
, and it, along with its dependencies, were absorbed by the Majapahit Empire.
In 1365 Prapanca in the Negarakertagama list
both Buruneng (Brunei) and Solot (Sulu) amongst its Borneon dependencies. Now
that the Brunei Adipati had gone, the Tau Sug Datus could resume control over
the archipelago.
In 1369 they put Brunei to sack, and had to be driven off by
the Majapahit fleet, which they then defied, for in 1372 they asserted their
independence and sovereignty by sending a tribute-bearing mission to China.
Only envoys from sovereign states were permitted access to the Dragon Thorne.
In 1405 an imperial envoy was sent to Sulu, and in 1406 both
Eastern and Western Kings sent missions to Nanking. Sulu now fragmentated into
three kingdoms, Jolo, Tawi-tawi and Pangutaran.
In 1417 all three kings went to China, and tribute-bearing
missions were sent in 1420, 1421, and 1424, when they ceased abruptly, and all
diplomatic contact between Sulu and China was lost.
The reason for this sudden severance of relationship would be accounted for by the
fact that Brunei had once again asserted its authority over the archipelago.
The Hikayat Hang Tuah refers to the
Adipati of Sulu as being the son of the ruler of Brunei, and it is probable
that Sulu had been ruled by members if the Brunei royal family from shortly
after 1424. Braz Bayao, the accountant of the Portuguese factory in Brunei,
recorded that in 1535 the Adipati of Sulu had married the Sultan of Brunei's
sister. Again in 1578 the Adipati was married to the sister of Sultan Saif
ul-Rijal. Sulu was an appanages of Brunei.
On the 4th March 1578 Doctor Francisco de Sande,
"Governor and Captain-General of His Majesty [Philip II] of the Western
Isles", weighed anchor at Manila and sailed for Brunei, "both to
teach the natives there the Christian Law, and to reduce them to the Dominion
of His Majesty." He reached Labuan on Sunday the 13th April, and on the
afternoon of Monday the 14th he entered the bay and gave battle to the Brunei
fleet. The two were approximately equal in strength, but the guns of the
Spaniards out-ranged those of the Bruneis and gave them the victory. On Sunday
the 20th April the Doctor formally took possessions of Brunei "in the name
of His Majesty King Don Felipe, our Sovereign".
The intent was that
Sultan Saif ul-Rijal, whom the Doctor always regarded as the legitimate ruler
of Brunei, should henceforth be a vassal of King Philip II. He planned to
return to Brunei in January 1579 to receive the Sultan's submission himself,
but he was unable to leave Manila, and sent instead Don Juan Arce de Sadornil.
In effect the Sultan offered friendship, but not submission, and Sadornil, beset
by bad weather, returned to Manila at the end of March 1579 having accomplished
nothing.
Whatever the Doctor's plans, his stay in Brunei was cut
short by a violent outbreak of sickness. "All the men in our camp
commenced to fall sick, so that there was almost no man in the camp who could
perform sentinel duty, and many died." Before leaving, however, he determined to annex Sulu, so that its tribute
should go to Manila instead if to Brunei. On the 23rd May he issued
instructions to Captain Don Estevan Rodriguez de Figueroa for the purpose. The
Captain was a gallant soldier: the night before the battle, he had taken a
small prau, and with two companions had reconnoitred the Brunei fleet by
paddling round it in the dark. In the battle the following day he had so
distinguished himself that he had been selected to bear the banner of Castile
and Leon in victory parade. He was now given seven captured Brunei galleys and
two Spanish one for the expedition.
With his customary thoroughness the Doctor gave Don Estevan
detailed instructions. "The King of Jolo" must make his submission to
King Philip, hand over one of his children as hostage , and himself appear
before the Doctor at Manila in February 1579. Provisionally he must pay to
Manila the same tribute of pearls that he had formerly paid to Brunei. All
propagation of Islam must cease forthwith, and Christian missionaries must be
allowed access to the country. Offensive arms and craft were to be surrendered
but vessels used only for fishing might be retained. As an afterthought two or
three trained elephants were to be surrendered. The doctor included the
provision:
And as I have said, this must be done, if possible, gently,
in order that no people may be killed. You shall tell them that it will be to
their advantage to be vassals of His Majesty and our allies. If they do not act
respectfully, and it shall be necessary to punish them in another manner, you
shall do so.
The Adipati of Sulu, to whom the Spaniards referred to the
"King" of Sulu, was a certain Raja Yro or Iro, a Spanish rendering of
the Tau Sug Ilo, meaning orphan, who was a Brunei, and was married to the
sister of Sultan Saif ul-Rijal, as previously mentioned. Saleeby identified him
with Pengiran Buddiman of the Sulu Genealogy, and this would fit the
chronological pattern admirably.
Forrest in 1775 was told by the retired Sultan Pakir Maulana
Kamsa of Magindanao that Buddiman was a grandson named Bongsu, who succeeded
him and who was related to the royal family of Brunei. This is another reason
for the identification, though there was interregnum of some thirty years
between the two.
Raja Ilo had fought beside his brother-in-law, Sultan Saif
ul-Rijal in the battle, but after the defeat had succeeded in eluding the
Spaniards, and had slipped away with two galleys and three smaller vessels.
When, therefore, Don Estevan arrived, he was met with fierce resistance, first
in town of Jolo itself, and later at the approaches to the hill fort, but in
both engagements the Joloans were overwhelmed.
Raja Ilo then surrendered. Judging by the appalling
after-effects, of which more later, the account which spoke of only two
decisive actions must conceal a singularly bloody engagements. The outcome in
any case was the total defeat of the Joloans and the submission of the Raja:
On the 14th June 1578 Rahayro, Panguilan of Borneo [Brunei],
who calls himself King of Xolo, surrendered himself as a vassal to His Majesty,
King Don Felipe, King of Castilla and Leon, for himself and his two
descendants. In token of recognition and vassalage, he gave twelve pearls and
thirty-five taes [tahils] of gold for himself and his vassals, which are the
islands of Xolo, Treguima [Basilan] Camboanga, Cavite [Cauit] and Tawi-Tawi.
Having discharged his duty at the Jolo, the Don then
proceeded to reduce Magnindanao, but he was unsuccessful, for he found the
current of the Pulangi at that time too strong for him, and he could make no
headway. As his supplies were nearing exhaustion, he was compelled to return
frustrated to Manila.
The Doctor had no intention of abandoning the conquest of
Magindanao. Sulu was an ancient principality, but it was only at this time that
the various settlements in the Pulangi basin were coalescing into the lordship
of Magindanao under Datu Dimansankay. It was, therefore, important for the
Spaniards to assert their authority without delay. On the 15th January 1579 Din
Gabriel de Ribera was commissioned to proceed the conquest of Magindanao. On
his return voyage he was to collect the tribute due from Sulu, including the
three trained elephants; he was authorized to conscript whatever shipping was
necessary for their transport. The Don was admonished to be friendly with the
Joloans.
You shall likewise show yourself very affable to the Lord of
Xolo. You shall urge him to persevere in the pearl industry. He was also ask to
what articles the Joloans purchased from the Chinese. The Doctor intended to divert
the pearl trade from China to Manila. He was a man of many parts.
Don Gabriel halted at Cauit on his ways to Magindanao, and
sent a message to Raja Ilo to be ready with the tribute on his return. This
expedition proved to be more successful than that of Don Estevan in that it was
able to go some distance up the Pulangi, but most of the inhabitants fled to
the hills, and the Don met only chiefs of slender consequences. By the 14th April he was back at Cauit, where a
deputation of some fifty Joloans was awaiting him. They told him that Raja Ilo
along with three hundred of his followers had left Jolo four months previously
in a galleot and four vireys.
They had gone to Brunei, where they intended to remain.
There remained on Jolo only 200 men, and all were suffering from famine, as a
result of the looting and devastation wrought by Don Estevan and his men. As
for the elephants, now that the Raja's followers had gone, there was nobody who
could capture them alive.
Don Gabriel thought this a tall story indeed, and left the
Joloans under guard, while he went out to enquire further from the people of
Cauit. They, however, confirmed that the Joloans were in fact starving, for
they had been begging food from the Spanish soldiers, and had even exchanged
weapons and clothes for food. The Don then went back to the Joloans and asked
for the tribute that they had brought. All that they produced was valueless
trash, for they said that they had no more.
Don Gabriel then said that he had heard that there was on
their island a large field-price from a wrecked galley. He said that, in a view
of devastation, he would accept this as their tribute if they would bring it to
him. They promised to do so, but Don Gabriel was still doubtful about their
story, and unknown to them he despatched Don Pedro Oseguera to Jolo in a fast
fragata, to examine the situation on the spot.
Two days later the people of Taguima [Basilan] arrived with
tribute and there was certainly no food shortage there. The same day Don
Gabriel sailed for Cebu, and at Dapitan was overtaken by Don Pedro, who had
returned from Jolo. He reported that his vessel had remained anchored off the
town for four days, and that as far as he could judge, conditions were
substantially as described by the Joloan deputation. There remained only 140
men, and they were suffering from famine. There remained nothing of value in
the place, so thoroughly had it been looted and devastated. The field-piece ,
however, had been brought to him and weighed 12 - 13 quintals, and with this he
had to be content.
There can be little doubt that, despite the Doctor's
exhortations to gentleness, the devastation wrought by Don Estevan in June 1568
must have been severe, if it was in any way comparable to the later Spanish
punitive expeditions. This was the Tau Sug's first experience of "Spanish
Fury", and with the memory of it fresh in their minds, it is unlikely that
they would have told Don Pedro a pack of lies. They may well have exaggerated,
but it is likely that after Don Estevan's attack many Joloans fled to other
islands, more especially as it was known that he had gone only to Magindanao,
and might well return. A Spanish account published in 1609 gives the population
of Jolo as 3,000 adult males, which would give a total population of at least 15,000.
The population of Jolo was highly mobile, part indeed was nomadic or nearly so,
so that it could easily scatter, as it may well have done after the departure
of Raja Ilo and his followers.
After the return to Manila of Don Gabriel the Doctor awarded
the island of Jolo as encomienda to Don Pedro de Oseguera for his own lifetime
and for that of his son after him. An encomienda was much more than a landed
estate: it entitled the encomendero, or holder, not merely to extract tribute
and labour from the inhabitants, but it also gave him civil and criminal
jurisdiction over them, in return for which he was to instruct them in the
Christian religion. As an institution the
encomienda could be, and was, grossly abused.
In 1582 Fray Domingo de Salazar O.P., the first Bishop of
Manila, wrote to Philip II giving a lurid and impassioned account of the
oppressions practised by the encomenderos on the unfortunate Filipinos.
Although the decree relating to the encomiendas says
"Provided that you instruct them in the matters of our Most Holy
Faith", the only care that they have for that is, that the encomendero
takes with him eight or ten soldiers with their arquebuses and weapons, orders
the chief to be called, and demands that they give him tribute for all the
Indians [Filipinos] of their village. Here my powers fail me, I lack the
courage , and can find no words to express to Your Majesty the misfortunes,
injuries and vexations, the torments and miseries, which the Indian are made to
suffer in the collection of the tributes. The tribute at which all are commonly
rated is the value of eight reals, paid but this rate is observed, like all the
other rules that are in favour of the Indians -that is, it is never observed at
all. But the evil is not here, but in the manner of collecting; for, if the
chief does not pay for as many Indians as
they say there are, they crucify the unfortunate chief, or put his head
in the stocks -for all the encomenderos, when they go to collect, have their
socks -and there they lash and torment the chiefs until they give the sum
demanded of them. Sometimes the wife or daughter of the chief is seized, when
he himself does not appear. Many are the chiefs who have died of torture in the
manner which I have stated.
The Bishop continues by giving a number of instances of
revolting brutality, which he had known personality. Compared with the horrors
described by Bishop Salazar, the treatment of the Joloans by the Osegueras,
father and son, seems to have been gentle. Doctor Antonio de Morga, Auditor [Judge]
of the Audiencia [High Court] of Manila, and in 1598 Lieutenant Governor of the
Philippines, wrote that, apart from the years 1597-1599, when the Spaniards
were militarily dominants in the area, the Osegueras got from Jolo only what
the inhabitants chose to give them, which was very little indeed.
Between the departure of Raja Ilo in 1579 and the
installation of Raja Bongsu c. 1610, all Brunei connection with Sulu seems to
have been severed. The population, which had scattered after Don Estevan's devastation,
would have returned, and administration would have been in the hands of the Tau
Sug Datus, who would have had chief of some sort. In 1588 Bishop Salazar noted
that Jolo was an encomienda, and that its "King" was related to the
"Kong" of Ternate. The Spaniards tended to refer to all native
rulers, great and small, as "Kings". In 1598 it was noted that the
King of Jolo had married an aunt of the King Magindanao.
In 1588 Bishop Salazar wrote to Philip II noting that for the
last three years and more Islam had been spreading in Magindanao. This was due
to the efforts of missionaries from Brunei and Ternate, though some were said
to have come for Mecca. This would seem to fix the definitive conversion to
Islam of Magindanao at about 1585, and it is confirmed by the historian Chirino
writing in 1602. It is interesting to note that, prior to 1578, Brunei was the
main centre from which Islam was spreading, but Ternate now comes to the fore.
In 1574 Sultan Ba'abdullah had driven the Portuguese out of that island, and he
now appears as the leading champion of Islam.
In halt to spread the of Ternate influence, Don Estevan in
1595 set out from Manila with armament designed to conquer Magindanao and
Buayan, the two lordships which had developed in the Pulangi basin. Generally
speaking, the former controlled the coast and the lower reaches, whereas the
latter dominated the headwaters, He was killed in the initial assault, but was
succeeded by Don Juan Ronquillo del Catillo, a very capable soldier.
The King
of Ternate came to the help of the Magindanaons with a fleet and a forced of
800 armed men. In a fierce engagement Ronquillo carried off a resounding
victory, and the Magindanaons lost courage and submitted, Meanwhile in Manila, anxiety was growing lest the Japanese
attack the city, and it was considered undesirable to have seasoned soldiers
stationed at such a distance from the capital. Don Juan was ordered to withdraw
from the Pulangi once its subjection had been completed, and to establish a
permanent garrison at Cauit, henceforth known as La Caldera, "The
Cauldron", six miles west of Zamboanga. A fortress was built here in 1597,
and its garrison of 200 men dominated the area. Before returning to Manila, the
Don went to Jolo and sternly lectured the King and the Datus on their duties
and obligations to the Spanish Crown. He concluded by pointing out that, with
the establishment of the new fort at La Caldera, a close eye would be kept upon
them, and any derelictions suitably punished. In view of this recent
overwhelming victory in Magindanao, he was no doubt heard with attention, and
at the end of his discourse the King renewed his fealty to King Philip of
Castile and Leon.
Don Christoval de Villagra was appointed Governor of La
Caldera, and Spanish supremacy seemed assured throughout the region. In 1598,
however, occurred an untoward event. At this time, the brother-in-law of the
King of Jolo was the uncle of the King of Magindanao, who for his turbulence
had been expelled from the latter kingdom. It happened that 30 Spanish soldiers
were sent from La Caldera to Jolo to procure supplies, and all were
treacherously murdered by his turbulent man. In view of the overwhelming Spanish
military strength at the time, it was an act of incredible folly. There was an
explosion of wrath in Manila, and Captain Juan Pacho, an experienced soldier,
was despatched to La Caldera with instructions to punish the Joloans with the
utmost severity. The Captain stormed into Jolo with 60 men, but the Joloans
took refuge in their hill fort. The combination of guides, who were agents of
the Joloans, and a tropical rainstorm resulted in the Spaniards being caught in
an ambush, in which the Captain and 19 of his men were slain. The remainder
fought their way back to their boats.
To the government in Manila this was so appalling to be
barely credible. Don Toribio de Miranda was now appointed to La Caldera, but
was given strict instructions to take no action until he had been heavily reinforced with men and supplies;
only then was he to set about the Joloans, and this time in good earnest. The
outlook for the Joloans, and this time in good earnest. The outlook for the
Joloans was black indeed, when suddenly at the end of August 1599 the situation
was wholly transformed. The Joloans learned with amazement that Don Toribio and
his me had departed for Cebu, and that the fort of La Caldera had been
abandoned. Though they little knew it, the balance of power had shifted
completely: the Dutch had arrived.
Chapter 2
The Moro Wars
When the Spaniards first arrived in the Philippines, they
were bitterly resisted by the Portuguese, who feared that their control over
the Moluccas with the profitable spice trade would be threatened. In fact the
interests of the two did not really clash, for the Portuguese were concerned
only with trade, whereas the Spaniards
were empire-builders and colonisers. By the time that Legazpi had established
his capital at Manila in 1571, Portuguese opposition had largely died away. But
there was oppositions from elsewhere. Luzon had been a Brunei dependency, and
the old Brunei aristocracy still remained in Manila and Tondo. 1574 proved to
be the year of destiny for the young Spanish colony. In that year Sultan Saif
ul-Rijal, then co-regnant with his father, Sultan Abdul Kahar, sailed from
Brunei with a fleet of 100 galleys and 100 smaller vessels. His objective was
Manila, and it had been arranged that, as the Spaniards rallied to the defend
it against the Bruneis, the old Brunei aristocrats within would raise the
Filipinos in revolt and fall upon their oppressors. It was well-contrived plan,
and should have succeeded, but 80 miles (129 km) out on the way to Manila, the
Sultan was told that the Spanish fleet was about to attack Brunei in his
absence. He therefore turned his fleet about and went back to base. The plan
was aborted, and the Bruneis in Manila were suppressed. Yet just at this point
the formidable Chinese corsair Lim Ah Hon surprised the city and wrought havoc.
Only after severe fighting was he driven off. That no affliction might be
lacking, a general epidemic of smallpox swept through the population that year.
Had Sultan Saif ul-Rijal not turned back, it is difficult to
see how the Spaniards could have survived his attack, combined with that of Lim Ah Hon. Had Manila fallen on this occasion,
it is possible that the Spaniards would have abandoned it entirely. In 1575 the
Spanish Government had to declare bankruptcy, and under these circumstances it
may be doubted whether Philip II, "The Prudent King", would have
financed yet another expedition to unprofitable "Isles of West", for
nowhere in the Philippines were to be found the great gold and silver mines,
which made Mexico and Peru the mainstays of the Spanish Empire.
The Spaniards survived the crisis of 157, indeed they
emerged from it much strengthened, and their hold over the archipelago was
firmer than before. In 1578 Doctor Francisco de Sande attacked Brunei and
annexed Jolo and Magindanao. Spanish supremacy was unchallenged. It is true
that there had been the intrusion of the two circumnavigators, Sir Francis
Drake in 1579 abd Sir Thomas Cavendish in 1586, but these had been more
isolated freebooters, who posed no
threat to Spanish power. Then like a bolt from the blue, the Dutch fleet
appeared in the Moluccas in 1599. The situation had been transformed.
It was the misfortune of the Portuguese that their partners
in the profitable spice trade had been the Dutch. They stood to one another as
a wholesaler to retailer. The Portuguese carracks brought the spices of the
Indies to Lisbon, where they were brought up by the Dutch, and retailed over
Europe. The Portuguese had the risk and expense of bringing the spices, but the
Dutch made fabulous profits from retailing them. These profits served to
finance their war effort, for even since 1568 they had been levying war upon
their lawful sovereign, who was none other than King Philip II of Spain, and
who in 1580 became King of Portugal also. On the 4th August 1578 there was
fought the Battle of the Three Kings at Alcazarquiver (el- Kasr el-Kebir) in
Marocco. Here the young King Sebastian of Portugal with the flower of his
nobility were slain. It was a catastrophic loss for a small country with a
great empire. Sebastian was succeeded by his great-uncle, Cardinal Henry, who
was necessarily childless and was seventy-six years of age. When he died two
years later, his heir was Philip II of Spain, who thus reunite the whole
Iberian Peninsula under the same crown for the first time since 711.
Philip was a slow-moving man, hence his surname "The
Prudent King", byt ge could not be expected to tolerate the Dutch
financing their attacks upon his armies from the Lisbon spice trade. In 1594,
fourteen years after becoming King of Portugal, he finally banned the Dutch
from trading in Lisbon. This threatened the Hollanders with the destruction of their company, unless
they were to procure the spices themselves at first hand. Therefore in 1596 the
first Dutch ships reached Bantam, and more followed in the subsequent years. In
1599 Admiral Van Waewijck reached Ternate, and it was this event which caused
the withdrawal of Don Toribio from La Caldera. In 1601 65 ships left Holland
from the Indies, and in 1602 all Dutch merchants trading in Asia combined to
form the United East Indian Company (V.O.C), which thus possessed the largest
fleet in eastern waters. In 1605 it swept the Portuguese out of the Moluccas
and secured controlled of the spice trade.
The amazing ascendancy of the Dutch in the course if a few
years completely altered thebalance of power in South East Asia, All the
enemies if the Spaniards rejoiced and foresaw their early expulsion, But the
high hopes aroused by the Dutch gradually faded for two reasons; first, when it
came to fighting, the Spaniards were generally victorious, and second, the
Hollanders were hard-headed businessmen, whose sole interest was in making
money. They had no intention of becoming involved in petty wars, which could
prove costly and unprofitable. Those who had welcomed them as liberators were
doomed to disappointment.
Among these who held high hopes of the Dutch were the
Filipino Muslims, who had been the principal targets for Spanish repression.
The Spaniards were distinguished from other Europeans by their almost
pathological hatred of Islam, which derived from their own history. In 711 a
Muslim army from Marocco had utterly defeated Roderick, the last Christian King
of Spain. In the course of the next few years the whole peninsula was
conquered, save for a few small pockets in the mountains of the north and
north-west, where minute Christian kingdoms maintained a precarious
independence. Under the benevolent rule of the Ummayads the Spanish Christians
prospered, but in 1031 the Ummayad Caliphate collapsed, and was succeeded by
anarchy. This gave the Christian states of the north their opportunity, and
they began to push southwards; the Reconquest had begun. This continued with a
varying fortunes until Muslim military power was finally broken at the battle
of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, but the process was protracted and the last
Spanish Muslim state, the Nassarid Sultanate of Granada, did not surrender
until 1492. The centuries spent in reconquering their country from the Muslims
left their mark on the Spanish character in this peculiar antipathy to Islam.
In the Philippines the Spaniards had an additional reason
for suppressing Islam: it was the only force capable of uniting against them an
otherwise atomized society. The ease with which they had subdued the
archipelago was due to the fact that
there was no political unit larger than the barangay, or village, and these
habitually practised mutual raiding. But in the Muslim areas a new feudal
society was emerging , which could have ominous implications for the Spaniards.
Don Juan Ronquillo noticed it in Magindanao, for he wrote:
These Indians are not like those of Luzon, but are
accustomed to power and sovereignty. Some collect five or six thousand
tributes.
A "tribute" would represent one adult male. In a
review of encomiendas made in 1591 the following is recorded:
The encomienda of Leyte belongs to Don Pedro de Oseguera. He
collect there six hundred and twenty-six tributes, which means one thousand
five hundred and four persons. In their number of dependants, therefore, the
Magindanao Datus could hold their own with the Spanish aristocracy in Manila.
As soon as it was known in July 1599 that the Spaniards were
abandoning La Caldera, Datu Salikula of Magindanao and Datu Sirungan of Buyan
organized an expedition of 50 caracoas bearing 3,000 heavily armed men, and
even artillery. The fleet swept past the abandoned fort and descended upon
Panay, putting to sack towns and villages in the very heart of the archipelago.
It returned loaded to the gunwales with loot and bearing 800 captives. Back in
the Pulangi, these were shared out, and plans were made for another expedition
the following year. For the Filipinos it was a climacteric event: thirty years
of unchallenged Spanish hegemony had ended abruptly.
This was the first operation of the Moro Wars which were to
drag on sporadically till modern times. "Moro" is the Spanish and
Portuguese for Muslim, and though these wars were primarily struggles to throw
off the Spanish yoke, Islam was undoubtedly the dynamic and unifying force,
which kept together the various races that fought under its banner. Some
Spanish writers referred to these operations as pirate raids, but they were in
fact part of regular war fought according to the rules. At the end of each
campaign all Spanish prisoners, including missionaries, and the more important
Filipinos, were ransomed or exchanged. Each side paid tribute to the gallantry
of the other, indeed it was something of "gentlemen's war", but none
of this mitigated the horrors inflicted upon the ordinary inhabitants of the
barangays, for those who were not killed were sold into slavery. Slave-raiding
expeditions had been an integral part of Filipino life prior to the advent of
Spaniards. A ver percipient observer wrote in 1574 that the Bisayahs were
incurably addicted to raiding each other's villages. He thought them even more
quarrelsome than the Morros.
The Moro Wars, however, differed from these village forays
in one important respect: the Moros were armed, and well armed, whereas the
Christian Filipinos were defenceless. The Spaniards were far too few to be able
to protect their subjects, yet they dare not let them have arms, lest these be
turned against themselves. The history of the Philippines throughout the
Spanish period contains an endless catalogue of futile and bloody revolts.
In1621 Hernando de los Rios Coronel, Procurator-General of the Philippines,
declared that the constant cry of the unhappy people was:
Let us be free, and let us have arms, and we shall defend
ourselves as we did before the advent of the Spaniards. But the cry went
unheeded, and the miseries continued.
Doctor Antonio de Morga had no illusions as to the effect of
the great raid of 1599 on the Filipinos. It had demonstrated to the terrified
Bisayahs that the Spaniards had power to oppress, but not to protect them. Some
fled to the mountains, and there was widespread murmuring if revolt. In Manila
the government did nothing, for it was short of both ships and soldiers, but
the Doctor saw many of these troubles as stemming from the feckless abandonment
of La Caldera. In the raid of 1599 and the advent of the Dutch to the Moluccas
the same year, he saw portents of trouble to come.
He was right for in 1600 the Datus organized another great
raid, and this time the Joloans joined. Now there were more than 70 vessels and
upwards of 4,000 fighting men. The first objective was the important town of
Arévalo [Iloilo] on Panay. Here the Datus made a mistake, for the Alcalde Mayor
[Resident] there was Don Juan García de Sierra, an experienced soldier. He had
heard rumours of the raid, and prepared for it. When the Moros arrived, the Don
had his 70 Spaniards concealed and ready. Half the attackers were deceptively
allowed to land without opposition, when suddenly Don Juan opened up with the
full blast of his arquebuses and then charged at the head of his men. The
attackers fell back on their boats, and there became entangled with those now
landing in a miling mob.
The Spaniards fell upon them in their confusion and
did great execution, pursuing them into the water. Don Juan rode out to attack
their boats, but his horse's legs were cut, and he was brought down and slain.
Nonetheless, the attack had proved an unmitigated disaster, and the losses
appalling. Without more ado the Moros made their way sorrowfully home.
This was a resounding victory for the Spaniards, but an even
greater one occurred a few months later, and in it the Doctor himself was the
central figure. In December 1600 the redoubtable Dutch Admiral, Olivier van
Noort, in the course of his circumnavigation dropped anchor in Manila Bay. He
had his flagship the Maurice and a
consort, and though he little knew it, Manila lay helpless before him. All the
warships had been sent to meet and escort the Acapulco galleon Santo Tomás, which was due with cargo of
bullion. All available soldiers had been sent to the Bisayah Islands to ward
off a possible Magindanao attack. Finally, the annual fleet of Chinese merchant
ships was expected any day.
In this crisis the Governor, Don Francisco Tello de Guzman
put Doctor Antonio in charge of defense. Hurriedly equipping two ships, and
assembling what soldiers he could find, he sailed out to meet the enemy. There
was a fight of six hours, in the course of which the Doctor, sword in hand,
boarded the Maurice and drove the
crew below decks. Then unhappily the bessel caught fire, and the Doctor had to
recall his men to his own ship, but this had been so badly battered by Dutch
shot that it sank. He was the last to leave and there was no place in the
boats, therefore he had to swim for four hours in Manila Bay, always towing the
captured Dutch ensign, until he was picked up. Spanish Auditors could be tough!
Meanwhile Van Noort managed to extinguish the fire on his ship, and sailed
away to Brunei, where he met with adventure related elsewhere.
Despite these success the problem of the Moros remained, and
became more pressing, indeed it was feared that Manila itself might be their
next target. The Governor, therefore, decided to take the offensive, and sent
Don Juan Xuarez de Gallinato with a considerable force to Jolo, for it was
thought that if this were captured, it would prove a good base from which to
attack Magindanao. The Joloans had received warning of the attack, and had
appealed for help to Magindanao, Ternate and Brunei, which would hardly have
been necessary had Jolo been a Brunei dependency at this time. Meanwhile they
had sent away their women and children, while barricading themselves in the
hill fort.
Don Juan landed his mean and constructed a heavily fortified
camp. He then summoned the Joloans to surrender, but they embarked upon
negotiations, which they spun out as long as possible in the hope that some at
least of their allies might arrive. None did. They then launched a surprise
attack upon the Spanish camp with a thousand men. This was just what Don Juan
had been waiting for; as the Joloans surged into the fortified area, the
Spaniards open up with withering fire from artillery and arquebuses. The
slaughter was great, and more were cut down as they fled to the hill fort.
There was now a stalemate, with the survivors secure in the fort, which could
be reached only by precipitous paths, and which Don Juan realized he could not
carry by assault. He therefore settled down to starve them out by siege. He
built two forts, one to prevent their coming out, the other to prevent any
allies from landing to relieve them.
As 1601 went out, however, the rains came, and the Spaniards
fell victims to dysentery on an alarming scale. In may 1602 Don Juan sent Don
Pedro Cotelo de Morales to Manila with the disturbing news that a Magindanao
attack was expected and that reinforcements were urgently needed. Most
fortunately for Don Juan his request arrived in Manila just as the new
Governor, Don Pedro Bravo de Acuna took office. Don Pedro was a soldier and
moved quickly. He sent such men as he could muster together with supplies, but
when they reached Jolo they found Don Juan and his men so completely prostrate,
that all they could do was to evacuate them.
Don Juan’s campaign was inconclusive, but it was by no means
a victory for the Joloans. De Morga estimated the population of the island at
3,000 adult males. If in fact about one thousand took part in the disastrous
attack on the Spanish camp, then the proportion of casualties must have been
fearful, and this would account for the fact that the Joloans made no attempt
to attack Don Juan’s troops even when they were crippled by disease.
Meanwhile the Dutch continued their advances, and in 1605
drove the Portuguese out of the Moluccas, thus securing command of the spice
trade for themselves. But the new Governor of the Philippines, Don Pedro Bravo
de Acuna was a soldier of outstanding ability. In 1606 he lead a force of 3,000
half of whom were Spaniards and half Filipinos, in a fleet of 36 vessels
against the Dutch. In a brilliant campaign he reconquered Ternate and Tidore.
It was a tragedy for the Spanish Government that he died shortly after his
return to Manila. Nonetheless in 1606 and the years immediately following the
Spaniards were once again dominant in the southern Philippines. It is on this
account that the curious story of Pengiran Tindig must belong to these years.
The historian Combés noted that the aristocracy of Jolo and
Basilan originated from Butuan. The people of Butuan had been converted to
Christianity in 1590’s by Fr. Valerio de Ledesma S.J. They were distinctive
amongst the Filipinos. De Antonio O.F.M. recorded in his Crónica that they had always been fervent Catholics and loyal to
Spain. Pengiran Tindig was a prince of Butuan, who was driven out by his
brother. Along with a cousin, Adasaolan, he went first to Basilan and then to
Jolo, both of which he easily conquered, and reduced to Spanish obedience. The
fact that Tindig was able to conquer the natives easily might have been due to
the fact that he already had relatives and a party amongst the Tau Sug Datus,
but there eas also the fact that he was a loyal Spanish vassal, and after
Acuna’s campaign of 1606 even the hardiest would have hesitated to challenge
Spanish power.
Adasaolan left Sulu and moved to Magindanao, where he
married a daughter of Datu Dimansankay, so becoming a Muslim. He then plotted
to supplant Tindig at Jolo, and one night surounded his house with 400 men. But
the attempted assassination was foiled by the inhabitants of the house pouring
oil down the tiangs. Nonetheless
Tindig was realized how precarious was his position and decided to seek help
from Manila. He was well received by the Governor and offered whatever aid he
needed, even a fleet if he so desired. However, he settled for two caracoas of
heavily armed Spaniards. Once in sight of Jolo he sped ahead on his own, and
Adasaolan’s eight joangas waiting in ambush swept down upon him. The Spaniards
were too far off to intervene, and Tindig fighting desperately was killed. The
Spaniards seeing their cause lost, returned to Manila. Adasaolan seized power
in Jolo and sought alliances with Magindanao and Brunei. Thereafter he
dissapears from history. Tau Sug patriotism, however, assured a distinguished
memory for Pengiran Tindig. He was raised to the Tarsilas as Sultan Batara Shah
Tengah, while Khutbahs and Kitabs attributed to him many virtues and
accomplishments, including a knowledge of the Shari’ah.
Combés gives no date in his account of Pengiran Tindig, but
his career must belong to the brief period of Spanish ascendency after 1606. In
1608 it was noted in Manila that the ruler of Sulu had offspring of
marriageable age, and this could have been Tindig. He must, therefore, have
been killed sometime after 1608 and before 1614, perhaps 1610 is as good as
any. When he was fighting for his life on the joanga, there fought at his side
a lad, who was a relative. The boy was severely wounded, but survived. Half a
century later he showed Combes the scars of the wounds that he had received on
that memorable day. He was Raja Bongsu.
Chapter 3
The Young King of Sulu
In 1614 the Dutch Admiral Laurens Reaal was cruising in
Philippines waters, when he was visited by the new ruler of Sulu:
Soon also the King of Sulu, still being a young man, came
for the same purpose [of making a pact against the Spaniards]. Our admiral was
very kind to be young sovereign and those who were with him. “Those of Sulu”,
says Reaal, “are civilized people. All speak good Malay, the same as the Malays
and Bruneis.” …In the meantime he seems to have made a pact with the
above-mentioned sovereign, or at least to have agreed to some kind of help
against the Spaniards, which does not agree very well with the principles of
the Twelve Year Truce.
Here is a complete transformation: instead of Pengiran
Tindig, a loyal Spanish vassal, there is the Young King, who tries to get the
support of the Dutch Admiral for a joint attack upon the Spaniards. Whereas
Pengiran Tindig was a Bisayah from Butuan, the Young King and his entourage are
“civilized people”, who speak in the Brunei fashion. At some stage before 1614,
then, Brunei authority over Sulu must have been asserted after a lapse of more
than thirty years.
Both the published texts of the Brunei Silsilah record that Sultan Hassan re-asserted Brunei authority
over Sulu. The regnal years of this Sultan are uncertain. When Admiral Olivier
van Noort visited Brunei in December 1600, he was told that the Sultan was
under the guardianship of his uncle, who was the real ruler of the country.
This suggest that Sultan Shah Brunei must have left an infant son, under the
guardianship of his brother, Raja Hassan, but that the infant shortly died, and
so was not included in the Silsilah.
Sultan Hassan would, then , have probably commenced his reign in 1601.
According to W. Linehan, he died in 1317, but no
authority is cited for this statement. Nonetheless, it would appear that some
time about 1612 Sultan Hassan did assert his authority over Sulu, and installed
one of his sons as Adipati or Batara.
In the Silsilah of
Pengiran Kasuma, which Sir Hugh Low was shown in the 1870's, there was an
appendix which recorded that the son, whom Sultan Hassan appointed as ruler of
Sulu, was the grandson of a former Batara Raja, but that by reason of his
mother, he did not rank with the Sultan's other sons. His name was not given.
In the 1760's Alexander Dalrymple as told in Sulu that the order of succession
had been:
Pengiran Boddiman.
Mahrom Tanga, son to Boddiman,
Mahrom Bongso, son to Tanga.
Pengiran Boddiman was, as has been noted, Raja Iro or Ilo.
But this list over-simplifies matters, for there is no evidence that Pengiran
Tindig was his son, albeit he had ruled in Sulu, and Combés, who knew Bongsu,
says that he was a relative of Tindig, which would preclude his being a son. In
1775 Thomas Forrest was told by Sultan Pakir Maulana Kamsa of Magindanao:
A person named Budiman was Pangeran of Sooloo. Budiman had a
grandson, who became his successor, his name was Bonsoo, and he was related to
the family which governed in Borney [Brunei].
All these traditions fit into a clear pattern, if it is
accepted that Raja Ilo, who in 1578 was married to Sultan Saif ul-Rijal's
sister, at some time also married a relative of the Bisayah ruler of the
Butuan. It would have been the daughter of this Bisayah wife that Sultan Hassan
married, so that Raja Bongsu did not rank with the sons of his father's royal
wives. This would explain how Bongsu came to have been relative of Tindig; it
would also account for the curious fact that he was born on the island of
Bagahac.
The date of Bongsu's birth can only be conjectured from
Admiral Reaal's description of him in 1614: "still being a young
man", "the young sovereign". If it be accepted on the grounds
that he was about eighteen is 1614, the he would have been born about 1596,
before his father had become Sultan. He would have been fourteen when fighting
beside Pengiran Tindig, if this event took place in 1610. Tindig was,
apparently, a Christian, and certainly a Spanish vassal, whereas Bongsu became
an outstanding Muslim leader against the
Spaniards. However, boys of fourteen have seldom clearly defined religious and
political ideas, and no significance can be attached to his association with
Tindig.
Sometime probably about 1612 Sultan Hassan installed young
Bongsu as ruler of Sulu, but he gave him as mentor and guide an experienced
Brunei fighting man, Datu Aceh, and the two soon attained celebrity. The
meeting with Admiral Reaal raised Bongsu's hopes for a co-ordinated attack on
the Spaniards by Moros and Dutch. This remained his ideal for thirty years,
until he was finally disillusioned by the events of 1645. Like the other Moros
he caame to realize the difference between the Spaniards and Dutch: the former
were empire-builders, who did not reckon the cost of their projects, the latter
were hard-headed businessmen, who wanted to see a profit for their outlay.
While always ready to egg on the Moros to attack the Spaniards, they had no intention
of themselves becoming entangled in the profitless and interminable Moro Wars.
For the moment, however, the signs were propitious. On the 1st November 1616 a
fleet of 10 Dutch galleons sailed into Manila Bay, and remained in the region
until it was defeated and destroyed by the Spanish fleet under Don Juan
Ronquillo in April 1617. Meanwhile, however, the Spaniards were preoccupied
with the Dutch, and this gave the Moros a wonderful opportunity, which they
utilized to the full.
A tribute to the transformation of Jolo comes from the pen of
an anonymous Jesuit in Manila:
Although that island is very small, and there cannot be more
than three thousand men able to bear arms, yet they are very valiant, and they
have plainly proved it to us, when they have sailed forth to scour the high
seas, especially one chief Datu Aceh, who can be compared with the most
destructive of African [Algerian] pirates.
Datu Aceh's spectacular achievement in the early months of
1617 was the raid on the Pantao shipyard in Camarines, where several large
vessels were being built. Thirty Spaniards were killed and others were captured
trying to defend the place, the vessels on the stocks were destroyed and the
arsenal there stripped of weapons. This was no ordinary operation, for the Datu
command a fleet of 80 caracoas. On his way back he over-ran several of the
Bisayah islands, and by the time he reached home he had confirmed the Spaniards
in their opinion that "The Joloans are our most dangerous enemies."
As part of his homeward-bound forays, the Datu sacked
Cabalian in Leyte. Here he captured Fr. Juan Domingo Vilancia S.J., who was
widely reputed by both Muslims and Christians to be a holy man. He was taken to
Jolo, where he was well treated. The Jesuits put in train the normal negotiations
for ransoming him, but before these had been completed he died, for he was
already aged and frail. An anonymous Jesuit then wrote:
The Moros buried him in on their island of Jolo. Although we
have asked for the body, they will not give it up, saying that they would
rather keep it because it is holy (for sanctity and virtue are pleasing even to
Moros and infidels). This throws an interesting sidelight upon the
"gentlemanly" fashion in which the war was fought, even despite its
ferocity.
From this time onwards most of the information about Muslims
in the Sulu area comes from the letters written by the Jesuit missionaries. Of all the religious orders in
the Philippines, they alone undertook the unrewarding task of trying to convert
Muslims to Christianity. As a body they were the best educated and most
carefully selected of the orders. Their letters are those of intelligent men,
and contain a great deal of information about Muslim affairs in their
neighbourhood; allowing for their inevitable religious bias, these accounts are
generally fair and factual.
Repeated attacks on the Spaniards by the Dutch fleet in
1616, 1617 & 1618 kept the Spanish fleet occupied, and allowed the Moros
more scope for their attacks. Writing in 1620, Hernando de los Rios Coronel,
the State Procurator-General, said that the fleets of Magindanao, Jolo and
Brunei were so over-running the islands that none, be he Spaniards or native,
durst venture forth. The natives were in the state of insurrection, saying
that, as the Spaniards could not defend them, they would pay no tribute, and
many had taken to the mountains. Even the better affected sort clamoured to be
given arms, so that they might defend themselves and their country. Thus in
1620 the balance of power had shifted in favour of the Moros.
In 1617 a new element had entered into the war between the
Moros and the Spaniard: the Camucones had suddenly emerged from obscurity:
But although we have been free from these enemies [Joloans
and Magindanoans] this year [1617], we had to deal with others, the Camucones,
a people who owe allegiance to the King of Burney. They are thieves who scour
the sea, plundering everything within reach. They are so cruel that they never imprison, but kill all upon whom they
can lay their hands.
The Camucones were the Samal-Laut or Bajau-Laut, who for
centuries had been wandering through the swamps and estuaries of Borneo. About
1600 Fr. Pedro Chirino S.J. describes them as harmless eccentrics:
They are people on their own. They live always on water, having
for their houe a boat, in which they live with wife, children and family, dogs,
cats and fowls, in the Galician manner.
The characteristics of these people were shyness and
timidity. They shunned intercourse with landsmen, and were despised by the latter,
even after they had become Muslims. In 1617 they would have been predominantly
pagan, for even at the end of the seventeenth century they were still part
Muslim and part Pagan.
Something must have happened about 1616 to transform these
timid nomads into ferocious predators, for over the next half century they were
the terror of the archipelago. The letter of 1617 quoted above is the first in
a long catalogue of atrocities. In 1626 they attacked Catbalongan in Samar,
which was in the throes of a smallpox epidemic. All save the sick fled, and all
these were beheaded. The characteristics of the Camucones' atrocities was their
utter pointlessness. All Spaniards who fell into their hands were beheaded, and
their skulls used as drinking vessels. Yet for all their barbarity the
Camucones lacked courage.
These Camucones are very cowardly, and very different from
the Joloans and Mindanaoans, who are valiant, and much more so the latter
named.
Before the slightest resistance, the Camucones fled. A party
had attacked Batan, but the people there had arms, and falling upon the
intruders massacred them. Unfortunately the Spaniards kept the Filipinos
disarmed and so helpless, while the Camucones' reputation for frightfulness
paralysed resistance.
The sudden emergence and the disappearance of the Camucones
become comprehensible in the light of Dr. J. F. Warren study The Sulu Zone, in which he treats of
their descendants the Balangingi, who prior to 1790 were known only as harmless
fishermen, yet half a century later were the terror of the Indonesian
archipelago, only to sink back into obscurity once more. Some as yet as
unascertained forces must have combined to produce a similar effect upon the
Camucones. Yet one baffling problem is still posed by them in the seventeenth
century -their close links with the Brunei Sultanate. Even the account of 1617
notes that they were "a people who owed allegiance to the King of
Borney". An account of 1626 says of them:
Their country lies near Borneo, to whose King they are
subject. But in as much as they have no fixed house or dwelling, as they
generally live in their boats, today here, tomorrow there..
The direct dependence of the Camucones on the Sultan of
Brunei is repeatedly emphasized by Spanish authors, most notably by Combés, who
says:
The Lutoas of Jolo [he is speaking of the Samal-Laut or
Camucones] have all their communication with the Borneans [Bruneis], raising
the trident of their King in the villages of the enormous island.
Careful historian though he was, Combés at times affect an
ornate and convoluted style, which can obscure his meaning. Is this a classical
allusion, as Blair & Robertson suppose, or is it an allusion to the
distinctive Royal Weapon, or Changkah, which is carried before the Sultans of
Brunei on state occasions. There is, however, the difference that the Changkah is a bident, not at trident .
Nonetheless it is quite possible that the reference is to it, for the Camucones
were directly dependent upon the Sultan. As late as 1685 the Sultan's
brother-in-law, the Pengiran Paduka Tuan, who was the third person in
precedence in the state, bore the title of "Lord of the Camucones",
though by that time their importance had much declined. Nonetheless, the direct
link between Brunei and Sulu, when the Camucones attacked Raja Bongsu, although
he was the son of Sultan Hassan and the Batara or Adipati.
The Camucones flitted about the archipelago inflicting
horrible atrocities on defenceless villagers. The fact that they had no home or
base, and moved very swiftly, made it difficult for the Spaniards to take any effective action
against them. In 1626 Governor Fernando de Silva heard that they were
concentrating along the coast of Palawan. With all speed he despatched a force
under an experienced seaman to attack them, but when it arrived at Palawan it
found that Camucones had gone to Caraga on the east coast of Mindanao. Their
very mobility increased the element of terror that they inspired.
Since Dato Aceh's raid on the Pantao shipyard Joloan
prestige had soared, and they could attack the Spaniards at will throughout the
islands. Nobody could accuse Fray Juan de Mdenia O.E.S.A. of partiality for the
Moros, yet when recalling these years in his História he pays a generous compliment to the Joloans, whom he
accounts superior to the Spanish solders. Spanish guns still outranged those of
the Joloans, but in speed the vessels of the latter had the advantage. Governor
Alonso Fajardo de Tenca told the King baldly that, if they were to defeat the
Joloans, they must build ships like theirs.
But the Joloans were not
merely fighters, they were also traders. They had built their city as a
centre of international trade, and when in 1628 the Spaniards captured it, they
were amazed at its wealth and luxury. In intervals of fighting there were
periods of truce, when trade was plied vigorously. In 1624 Raja Bongsu sent
Datu Aceh to Manila to negotiate such a truce. He could have chosen no better
ambassador, for even the Spaniards had a high regard for him. "that most
valorous and gallant captain that we have been amongst the Moros," as Fr.
Marcello Mastrili S.J. described him. The Datu, as usual, purposed to combine
trade with diplomacy, for he travelled on small galleon richly laden. On his return
journey to Sulu the following year his ship was seized by a Spanish patrol,
which had been pursuing Camucones. He was brought back to Manila, cast into
prison and his goods confiscated. When, however, this came to the ears of the
authorities, the much-ruffled Datu was released with profuse apologies and his
goods were restored. But he claimed that three large pearls of great value had
been withheld, and as he could get no satisfaction on this, he left in high
dudgeon. He returned again in an effort to secure his pearls, but again was
unsuccessful.
The Datu was not alone in being the victim of the sharp
practise in Manila. Fray Medina felt srongly on the subject: And truly I think
that injustice has been done to the Joloans, and injustice should be done to no
one, even one's army.
He cites the example of a group of Joloans merchants, who
were returning home from a successful visit to Manila with a cargo worth over
4,000 pesos. Like the Datu they were seized by a Spanish patrol, brought back
to Manila and thrown into prison, but later released as nothing could be proved
against them. Their cargo, however, was not restrored, though they petitioned
Governor Alonso Fajardo. They returned home in 1624, but the following year
again went to Manila to appeal to the new Governor, Don Fernando de Silva, for
the restoration of their property, but all to none effect. In 1626 they made
yet a third journey to Manila to lay their case before Governor Nino de Tabora,
only to meet with frustration. Now at the end of their resources they returned
home, but on the way sought to recompense themselves for their losses by
pillage. Fray Medina was a fair-minded man, and attributed the Joloan raids, or
many of them, to the injustice with which their merchants had been treated. Datu
Aceh's case was no isolated one, but in view of
his position as the right-hand Raja Bongsu, the consequences for the
Spaniards were serious.
The new Governor, Don Niṅo de Tabora (1626-1632), embarked
upon a programme of naval construction with a view to undertaking various
expeditions. He established a large shipyard in Camarines, where a number of
vessels were put in hand. A large labour force was assembled and ample supplies
were provided. With the memory of Datu Ache's raid on the Pantao shipyard ten
years before, four large guns were provided for its defence. To attack this,
Raja Bongsu assembled 2,000 men in 30 caracoas and led them in person. He was
fortunate in intercepting a ship bound for the yard, which was laden with
munitions. He launched his attack in the Jolo tradition just before dawn, and
took the Spaniards completely by surprise.
There was only 14 Spanish guards; two were killed
immediately, and the remaining 12 barricaded themselves in a store on the river
bank. They held out until mid-day, by which time 5 had been wounded and their ammunition was running out.
In the river behind the store was a large boat. Into this the Spaniards loaded
their wounded, the women and children and the shipyard's supply of money. They
then slipped away up river, which was no mean feat. The Joloans were probably
too busy loading the enormous amount of booty to care what happened to them.
Several days were spent in this task, which were also diversified by
merrymaking and celebrations. Before departing Raja Bongsu left a letter to be
forwarded to the Governor; in this he pointed out in the most refined and
diplomatic manner, that his present operation had been the just retribution for
the treatment meted out to his ambassador, Datu Aceh in Manila. This letter was
probably written by the Raja's new Private Secretary, for amongst the booty
captured at the shipyard was charming Spanish lady, Dona Lucia, who henceforth
performed this office. She appears to have been none other than a bastard
daughter of the Governor.
On the return voyage the Raja halted at Ogonuc on Bantayan,
which he sacked and took 300 prisoners. The place was noted for its long thorny
creepers, which provided a natural defense against barefoot invaders. The
Joloans arrived with wooden sandals to overcome this difficulty. This suggests
that there must have been some special reason for the attack, if previous
preparations had been made, but it is not apparent. Nonetheless the delay at
Ogonuc put the return voyage at hazard, for unknown to the Raja, a messenger
had fled from the shipyard to warn the Commandant at Cebu, Don Christobal de
Lugo. He lost no time in assembling a fleet of caracoas, and put to sea to
intercept the over-laden Joloans on their return voyage. He caught sight of
them at mid-day and a chase ensued, but the Joloans caracoas were swifter than
the Spanish, albeit heavily laden, and at nightfall all contact was lost. The
Raja returned home safely.
Apart altogether from the havoc wrought, Raja Bongsu's
attack on the shipyard was an intolerable affront to the Spaniards. Don Christobal
was commissioned to organize and expedition against Jolo. With great secrecy he
assembled a force of 200 Spaniards and 1,600 Filipinos, and this like a
thunderbolt out of the blue descended upon Jolo at 1 p.m. on the afternoon of
the 22nd April 1628. The Joloans were taken completely by surprise, and as it
was the height of the harvest, they were scattered throughout the island. The
Raja and some followers succeeded in reaching the hill fort, which was practically
impregnable, but the town fell to the Spaniards with little opposition. They
were amazed at its wealth and luxury, and the booty was such as had never been
taken before. Everything of value that could be carried away was taken, and the
rest, including the town itself, burned. Great quantities of food, and warlike
stores were destroyed, and, most significant of all, the entire Joloan fleet
went up in smoke. Rarely, if ever, in the Moro Wars had the Spaniards achieved
such an astonishing success at no cost to themselves. This had been due to the
element of surprise, for which credit must go to Don Christobal.
But apart from the destruction of the town and fleet of
Jolo, the Governor, Don Nino de Tabora, had given Don Cristobal a mission of
very special character. He was to destroy utterly the tomb of Sultan Sharif
Ali, which was the greatest Muslim shrine in the whole region. The Brunei Silsilah relate that, although Sultan
Muhammad was the first ruler to embrace Islam, the new religion was finally
established by Sharif Ali. He was an Arab from Ta'if who came to Brunei,
married the daughter of Sultan Ahmad, the second sultan, and succeeded him as
the third. Because of his championship of Islam, he was accorded the title of
Sultan Berkat, the Blessed. At this time (the 1520's) Sulu was a dependency of
Brunei, and here also the Sharif established Islam. He died on Jolo and was
buried in a magnificent tomb on Tumantangis.
Combes, writing in 1663, compared
the tomb to Mecca, for thither flocked Muslims from over the whole region to
venerate the memory of the founder of Islam, in these parts. Because it was a
major focus of Islam, the Spaniards determined to destroy it.
The Joloans must have had some previous intimation of the
Spanish intentions, for they spirited away the remains of Sultan Sharif. Don
Cristobal found the royal tombs without difficulty, but there was one singular
magnificence, which was housed in fine building. The Joloans told him that this
had been built recently by their present ruler as his own tomb. But the Don was
not deceived: young men in their twenties do not build themselves magnificent
tombs, this could only be the tomb of Sultan Sharif. He burned it to the
foundations, and then had his men thoroughly dig up the ground, but they found
no trace of human body. No act of devastation could have been more thorough.
The tomb was subsequently restored, though not on the magnificent scale of the
former one, yet it remains to this day an object of veneration for Muslims.
Before leaving Jolo, Don Cristobal had a letter from the
Governor delivered to Raja Bonsu. In it he was offered ransomed of 600 pesos
for Dona Lucia. This Raja Bongsu refused, but said that he would consider the
matter if all the arms, which the Spaniards had captured, were restored to him.
As this was unthinkable, there the matter ended. The anonymous Jesuit concludes
his account:
Thus did she remain in their power, but was made half a
queen. Dona Lucia's fate was similar to that of many other private secretaries
in history: she became her master's mistress, for Raja Bongsu was very fond of
her. It would be interesting to know what were her relations with the Raja's
wife Tuambaloca, who was a very formidable lady. Combés new them both, and recorded
that the Raja loved Tuambaloca "as though she were his mistress".
Their domestic life appear to be harmonious.
On his return voyage Don Cristobal halted at Basilan, which
was a dependency of Jolo, and whose people normally fought alongside the Joloans.
Seeing the Spaniards coming, they fled to the mountains and so suffered no
casualties, but their villages and crops were destroyed. Meanwhile a most
submissive embassy arrived from Magindanao, which was evidence of the new
Spanish ascendency. The Jolo expedition had succeeded beyond expectations: the
fleet, the town and the tomb of Sultan Sharif had been destroyed and the troops
returned laden with booty worth 30,000 pesos without having suffered a single
casualty. It remained to see how long this ascendency could be maintained.
Chapter 4
The Gathering Storm
In October 1628 the Dutch sent their Accountant, David
Ottens, to negotiate withe the Moros of the Philippines, with a view to
concerting an attack on the Spaniards, and on the 5th of the month he dropped
anchor off Toubock in Illana Bay. He was cooly received, for the Spanish
victory at Jolo six months before was too fresh in people's memories for them
to wish entanglement with the Dutch, more especially as assistance promised by
the latter had never materialised; even Sultan Qudarat of Magindanao was
trading briskly with the enemy. Ottens were deterred from sailing to Jolo, as
it was doubted if there would be sufficient draught there for his vessel, the Orange.
However, Raja Bongsu favoured paying him a visit, but was restrained by
the more prudent Datus. Nonetheless he sent him a most gracious letter in Spanish,
no doubt written by Doṅa Lucia. With this Ottens had to be content, and sailed
away having accomplished nothing.
It was no wonder that prudent spirits on Jolo sought to damp
the Raja's enthusiasm for the Dutch alliance, as the work of reconstruction
after the Spanish attack was proceeding feverishly, and any intervention by
Manila at the present juncture would be disastrous. By the middle of the
following year (1629), however, the new fleet had been completed, and Datu Aceh
swept up on Samar, Leyte, the central Bisayah islands and across the
Calamianes, spreading panic everywhere. To the authorities in Manila this was
intolerable. Governor Juan de Niṅo de Tabora decided that the Joloans must be
crushed once and for all.
A great armada was assembled Dapitan in Mindanado under Don
Lorenco de Olaso, a gallant and experienced soldier. He had under his command
400 Spaniards and 1,500 Filipinos with ample vessels and supplies. He hoisted
sail on the 17th March 1630 and made for Jolo.This time the Joloans were well
prepared: all goods and valuables, together with their wives and families, had
been taken to the hill fort, and the fleet was safely out of the way . They
fiercely resisted the landing of the Spaniards, but being outnumbered they fell
back gradually and in good order upon the hill fort. This was heavily defended
by artillery, including the four great guns, which the Raja had captured at the
Camarines shipyard. Further it could be approached only by narrow paths up a precipitous
cliff-face. None of this daunted Don Lorenco, however, and he led his men in
all-out assault on the defences, but at the top of escarpment he was knocked
out, and when his men saw his body rolling down the hill, they broke and fled
for their ships, hotly pursued by the Joloans. Don Lorenco was not dead,
however, only badly wounded, but without him the men could not be persuaded to
attack again. It was therefore decided that the fleet would skirt the island,
sending ashore landing parties to sack and destroy any villages within reach.
Hardly had it set about this task, however, then it was scattered by a violent
storm, and the battered remnants limped disconsolately back to Manila. The
Joloans prestige rose to new heights, and all over the archipelago there were
stirrings of revolt against the Spaniards.
In 1634 the Joloans ubder Datu Aceh and the Magindanaoans under
Datu Tagal joined forces in a great sweep up through the Bisayah insland,
culminating in the sacking of the provincial centre of Tayabas. As the
operation was marred by a number of atrocities, it is probable that the
Camucones had joined in and were responsible for these. These nomads tended to
follow the Joloans like jackals, profiting by their successes, but defiling
their victories. The whole of the central portion of the archipelago had been
thrown into a panic by the impunity with which the Moros could now raid where
they would without let or hindrance. Writing later of these years, an anonymous
Jesuit said that one could hardly sail outside Manila Bay without manifest
danger.
Matters had now come to such a pass that the whole Spanish
dominance of the archipelago had been threatened, and Governor Cerezo de
Salamanca was persuaded that a fortress must be built, which would replace that
formerly at La Caldera, which had effectively dominated the Moros from 1597 to
1599. He therefore despatched Captain Juan de Chaves with 300 Spaniards and
1,000 Filipinos, and in June 1635 they set about constructing a fortress at
Zamboanga, 6 miles (9.5 km) east of the site of the old fort at La Caldera. To
meet the considerable expenses involved, a levy was made of one gantang of rice
on every Filipino tributary, which was known euphemistically as "the
Zamboanga donation".
The value of the new fort to the Spaniards was manifested in
spectacular manner the following year. In April 1636 Datu Tagal, Capitan Laut
of Sultan Qudarat of Magindanao, assembled a fleet and invited the Joloans to
join them in a razzia around the islands. They, however, declined, for they had
just made a truce with Don Juan at Zamboanga, probably because of the outbreak
of the war with Brunei. The Datu, therefore, went on his way alone, and spent
eight months marauding in the archipelago, during the course of which he
collected large quantities of loot, mostly church plate, and great sums in
ransoms of prisoners -6,000 pesos were later found in his cabin -while he still
had 650 captives with him. In December 1636 his four large and three small
heavily laden vessels slipped past Zamboanga fort in the darkness unobserved.
But they were spotted further down the coast, and word was brought to the
governor of the fort, Don Bartolome Diaz Barrera, who together with his
assistant, Don Nicolas Gonzalez, sprang into action. In the course of two hours
they loaded six ships, assembled 100 Spaniards and 150 Filipinos, who set off
under Don Nicolas in hot pursuit of the Datu. A running battle was joined at
sundown off the Punta de Flechas (Panaoan) and continued throughout the night.
At one point an earthquake occurred with loud rumblings, which momentarily
terrified both parties, but once it had passed, they fell to again. There was a
ferocious fight in the course of which Datu Tagal was killed, and it ended in
complete victory for the Spaniards. Only one of the Datu's ships, having
jettisoned its cargo succeeded in escaping.
The establishment of the fort at Zamboanga had tipped the
balance of power in favour of the Spaniards, and this was further accentuated
by the arrival the same year (1635) of the greatest soldier even to govern the
Philippines, Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera y Mendoca. He was resolved
finally , once and for all, to break the power of the Moros.
At this critical juncture war broke out between Brunei and
Sulu. There is no clear indication of the cause, but it is reasonable to
surmise that it was linked with events in Brunei. When Sultan Abdul Jalil ul-Akbar died there was
a civil war between two of his sons, Raja Besar Abdul and the younger Pengiran
Tingah. The latter ultimately prevailed and his rival was killed, but if Raja
Bongsu had backed his elder nephew , the it is easy to see how hostilities
arose. If this was so, then Sultan Abdul Jalilul-Akbar would have died about
1635. It is interesting to note that the truce with Don Juan at Zamboanga was
negotiated by Raja Bongsu's wife, Tuambaloka, who from now on played an even
greater part in the affairs of Jolo.
In the war with Brunei
Raja Bongsu first struck at the Camucones. In 1637, 15 of their caracoas
were coasting along Palawan on their way back to Brunei, when they were
intercepted by 30 Joloans ones. The Camucones were completely defeated and were captured alive, along with
150 of their Christian captives. The latter were taken to Zamboanga and there
ransomed at a moderate price, the former were sold into slavery. But the menace
of the arrival of the Brunei fleet hung
like a thunder cloud over Jolo throughout 1637. In April of that year the
Governor, Don Sebastian, halted at Zamboanga on his return from his amazing
victory over Sultan Qudarat, and Raja Bongsu despatched to him Raja Aceh to
treat for peace. It was on this occasion that Jesuit Fr. Mastrilli, who was
present , referred to Datu Aceh as "that most gallant and valorous captain
we have seen amongst the Moros". The Raja alongside for being unable to
meet the Governor in person by saying that:
He was expecting a fleet, with which the King of Burney was
coming to make war on him, being an ally of his enemies the Camucones.
But the Datu got no satisfaction from Don Sebastián. The
terms of peace were total submission and the surrender to the Spaniards of
Basilian (which dominated Zamboanga), and neither the Datu nor his master would
consider such things. Don Sebastián, therefore, went on his way to a triumphal
reception in Manila, while the Datu sought to organized resistance amongst the
chiefs of Basilian, and even contacted the defeated Sultan Qudarat. In fact the
Brunei fleet never appeared, but he prospect of its arrival prevented Raja
Bongsu from going to the assistance of his son-in-law, Sultan Qudarat, who was
thus completely crushed by Don Sebastián, so crippling the Moro cause.
The conquest of Magindanao shows Don Sebastián's outstanding
talent as a soldier as well as his personal bravery. In the course of a
fortnight, 11th to 25th March 1637, by a series of brilliant surprise attacks,
he completely defeated Sultan Qudarat's forces, captured his capital Lamitan
and his fortresses, and forced the Sultan, who had been shot through the arm,
to flee to the interior. It was an extraordinary feat of arms, which left the
Spaniards supreme. The sequel, however, was ominous:
[Before leaving] Don Sebastián ordered Juan Nicolas with 80
Spaniards and 1,000 volunteer Indians to return to La Mitan, and to sail round
the island as far as Caragan, commiting all posibilities hostilities upon the people
tributary to Corralat [Qudarat]. He did this admirably, pillaging and burning
many villages, beheading may people because they defended themselves, and
burning a great number of ships.
Don Nicolas cut off more than 70 heads, apart from burning
villages and crops, even cutting down fruit trees. All this was an ominous
warning to Raja Bongsu and Datu Aceh of what might be expected, when Don
Sebastián took Jolo in hand. Though they did not know it, he had already
written to Philip IV on the 20th August 1637:
I hope in God to carry out the enterprise [the exploration
of lake Malanao] as promptly as this one [the defeat of Qudarat], and even to
bring dwon from his lofty stronghold the King of Jolo, and reduce him to
obedience to Your Majesty. And I shall try to send an expedition -if not this
year, then the year after -against the King of Burney, who shelters and favours
the Camucones, who by themselves alone are of no account.
The Raja and the Datu knew that Don Sebastián would next
attack them. They had no illusions of getting help from elsewhere: Brunei would
not, Sultan Qudarat could not, assist them; they must stand alone. They
therefore lost no time in preparing their defence: the gold and silver looted
from the mission churches over the last ten years was sent to Macassar, where
it had been sold to buy arms and munitions and to hire mercenaries.
Apart from the great guns, which the Raja had captured at
the Camarines shipyard. there were now 7 large and 10 smaller bronze cannon, 7
cast iron ones of English, Dutch and Macaonese make, 21 camaras, or spare
breech chambers, and arquebuses innumerable, of which the Spaniards secured 50
when fort fell. All this armament, combined with the steep escarpment upon
which the sort stood, rendered it all but impregnable. But the Datu was taking
no chances, he had even fixed torches of tow around the ramparts, which could
be lighted in a moment, if there were any provisions which would last several
months, and had excavated underground chambers where the women and children
could take refuge during bombardments. All in all the defences were so
masterfully contrived that, when they finally entered it, the Spaniards freely
admitted that they could never have carried the place by assault. The Datu
combined bravery with science to an outstanding degree. Both he and the Raja,
therefore, faced the coming storm with some confidence; they little suspected
what in store for them.
Chapter 5
The Tempest
The four months siege of Jolo is one of the great epics of
the Moro Wars, for here two great warriors confronted one another. Don
Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera y Mendoca had shown not onlu bravery, but real
genius in his campaign against Sultan Qudarat of Magindanao the previous year.
Datu Aceh's bravery and ingenuity were already a by-word amongst the Spaniards,
but his preparation of the hill fort at Jolo, and his conduct during the siege,
set him apart as a master of the defensive. By all normal reckoning, victory
should have gone to him, but he was defeated by the intervention of a wholly unforeseeable
force.
Don Sebastián landed at Jolo on the 4th January 1638 with
600 Spaniards, 1,000 Filipinos and a large supply of stores and munitions borne
in 80 vessels. He despatched the Jesuit Fr. Gregorio Belin as an envoy to
demand the Raja's submission. But he was refused admission to the fort, and the
Raja sent word that he must first consult the Datus.
Brave men though he was, Don Sebastián had no intention of
launching his men against an obviously impregnable position. However, he
learned from one who had escaped from the fort if a precipitous, but lightly
guarded, path at the back. As a specialist in surprise attacks, he caused a
noisy diversion to made in another quarter, before launching his attack on the
20th February. Yet even so the Datu's men were awaiting him, and it failed.
The difficulties of the Spaniards were compounded by the
fact that they could not cover their assault with artillery, for none of their
guns had the elevation to reach the fort. Don Sebastián decided upon a new
approach to the problem: he would mine the hillside, and hope that by blowing
it up he would bring down part of the fortification above. While these works
were in progress, with an eye to the future, he started to build a stone fort in the town, which would command the
landing place, and which would be the seat of a Spanish garrison in the future.
This lull in operations was not to Datu Aceh's taste. The
Joloans tried to goad the Spaniards into attacking again by reviling them for
being as timid as chickens and as foul as swine, but Don Sebastián prudently
held his fire, to sit safely behind his defences doing nothing. Parties allied
forth unobserved and wrought havoc upon the enemy. When on the 24th February
Captain Rafael Ome took a party of 50 Spaniards and 200 Filipinos out on an
expedition to reduce the countryside, they were ambushed by the Joloans, who
killed 26 Spaniards and an unrecorded number of Filipinos. The Captain had the
greatest difficulty in fighting his way back. After this Don Sebastián decided
to isolate the fort by surrounding it with a ring fence 6 miles (9.5 km) long.
This consisted of ditch set with sharp spikes, with watch towers at frequent
intervals, so that none could slip out unobserved. There were also 6 barracks
containing troops, who were held in reserve to meet any attempt to break out in
force. This enabled the Spaniards to send out parties to devastate the
countryside; while at the same time the fleet circled the island, sending
landing parties ashore to destroy anything within reach.
The lull ended on the 24th March when Don Sebastián exploded
his mines. One of the five failed to ignite, but the others went up with a
tremendous roar, which caused part of the defences to collapse. The Joloans
were taken completely by surprise, but the Spaniards had withdrawn back to
avoid the blast and falling debris, and by the time that they reached the
breach the Joloans were waiting for them, and thrust them back. Nonetheless 50
Joloans had been killed, but there was a more august victim. for the Datu had
been blown up and then buried in debris. Fortunately he managed to thrust out a
hand, and his men recognising the gold bangle on his wrist, hastened to dig him
out. He was badly injured, but very much alive. One Spanish observer wrote:
I hear that Datu Aceh
is dead. If that is so, then the end has come. But it had not. The Datu's
injuries were indeed severe, but he was no easily killed, as his many escapes
showed, and he was agile enough a month later to slip through the Spanish lines
unobserved, though the whole force had been alerted t o seized him.
On the 28th March Don Sebastián detonated his fifth mine. It
had been greatly reinforced and caused tremendous explosion. This time he kept
his men close at hand, yet when they reached the breach the Joloans were
awaiting them, and again thrust them back. This disappointment, however, was compensated for by a success. Don Pedro
de Almonte had succeeded in raising upon a piece of high ground a gun emplacement, from which his guns could
for the first time play upon the fort. Now the women and children crowded into
the Datu's underground shelters. Don Pedro had one gun which could fire balls
weighing 80lbs. (36.8 kilos) and four which would fire balls weighing 45 lbs.
(20.3 kilos). In the course of his bombardment he fired into the fort 80 of the
first sort and 200 of the second. The Datu's underground shelters were much in
demand.
Losses amongst the Spaniards and Filipinos in battle
casualties had been high, but far higher had been their losses from dysentery,
which was now ravaging their camp on a scale which suggested that Don
Sebastián's expedition would go the way of Don Juan Xuarez on the 5th April the
whole picture was transformed. Two Basilans appeared under a flag of truce, and
requested permission to surrender their arms and return home. Having had some
experience of the Datu's wiles, the Spaniards took this for a ruse and sent
them back. But it was now evident that Don Sebastián had two powerful allies
within the confined fort, for smallpox and dysentery were raging within that
confined space. Now the Datu's underground refuges were proving to be death
traps.
On the 6th April a letter was brought down from the fort
from Tuambaloka addressed to the Jesuit, Fr. Pedro Guttierez, who, she had
known, and who was then in the Spanish camp. In this she asked him to procure
for her an interview with Don Sebastián. The latter, however, replied saying
that, despite the high regard which he held her, he would negotiate with none
but the Raja. Further, before any negotiations could commence, three conditions
must be fulfilled:
- The four great guns captured at the Camarines shipyard in 1627 must be returned.
- All Christian slaves held within the fort must be released,
- Church ornaments and plate, which had been looted in recent years must be handed over.
The following day, the 7th April, Raja Bongsu himself wrote
to Don Sebastián requesting an interview, but the Don replied restating his
preliminary conditions.
For two days nothing happened. Within the fort surrounded by
rampant death, a dispute rage between the Raja and Datu. The position of the
Raja was exceedingly difficult. Only the previous years the Jesuit Fr. Marcello
Mastrili had noted that the Datu was the Raja's especial favourite, and no
wonder, for it was the Datu who had established young Bongsu in power in Sulu,
and had made the Joloans the most feared enemies of Spanish rule. The two had
engaged on countless adventures together, and their friendship had been knit by
bad times as by good. It was a terrible thing for the Raja, now in the major
crisis of his life, to go against the old Datu and reject his counsel. Yet the
Datu was absolutely adamant that there must be no surrender to the Spaniards,
while he and Tuambaloka must have wondered what would be left of Joloans if
they stayed cooped up in the fort, while smallpox and dysentery reaped their
harvest of death. It was certainly true that the Spaniards and Filipinos were
also being carried off, but thee could always be replaced, whereas the Joloans
could not, In the end the Raja's view prevailed and the two parted in acrimony,
yet the breach lasted only a year, when they were again reconciled and embarked upon new
adventure.
On the 10th April the Raja surrendered the guns. He
regretted that one of the four had exploded and therefore he substituted a
bronze one instead. He released all his Christian slaves to the number of 11,
men, women, and children, and was trying to persuade the Datus to do the same.
He told the Don that nothing could be done about the church plate, as it had
all been sent to Macassar and sold. Finally he requested an interview. The Don
acquiesced and appointed the following day for the meeting.
It was arranged tha Captain Marguez and Ome should go to the
fort and reman there as hostages, while the Raja and his suite descended. Don
Sebastián received them seated upon a chair of state under canopy, as befitted
the representative of a King. As the Raja entered he arose and took two steps
forwards to greet him, for the Spaniards were the great exponents of ceremony
and protocol. He led him to a cushion beside
his chair; they sat down as did the Datus on carpets beside the Raja.
The Don set forth his terms in stark clarity: the fort must be surrendered to
his soldiers. First of all the Basilians must be allowed to descend and
surrender their arms. They also would be shipped home. Finally the Joloans
themselves must descend, and as they left the fort the Spaniards would enter it.
They must descend to the Spanish camp and there surrender in their arms, the
Raja and Tuambaloka would come to accommodation in his own quarters, the rest
must remain the camp. Only then would the terms of a final settlement be drawn
up. There must have been great bitterness in the hearts of the Joloans: for
hard on thirty years they had successfully fought the Spaniards, and now by the
mere accident of the epidemic they were faced with total and abject submission.
But they knew that there was no alternative. The Raja, however, prayed Don Sebastián to give him a delay of a day and a
half, in which to persuade the Datus still in the fort to accept the terms.
This was granted and the party withdrew.
Two days later, on the 13th April, the Basilians descended
and surrendered their arms.There were 147 of them all told including their
families. But between 50 and 60 did not come down because they were unable,
presumably these were the sick. If this were so, then the ravages of the
epidemic must have accounted for a quarter of all those in the fort at that
time. The Macassarese refused to descend without a written passport from Don
Sebastián, and their leader came down to tell him so. The Don duly gave the
document and the captain handed over his keris as a pledge that he would bring
down his men. They were apparently professionals soldiers, for the Spaniards
accounted them the best shots of all their opponents. They duly came down
bringing not only their own possessions, but also the strong-boxes of
Tuambaloka, which they placed in Don Sebastián's quarters: they were then
embarked on a ship bound for Ternate.
But the day and a half's grace allowed to the Raja had now
expired, and no word had been received from him. The Don therefore announced
that he was about to renew the bombardmentof the fort, and that any Joloans
captured thereafter would be sold into slavery. It was clear that the Datus in
the fort were still deeply divided on the question of surrender, but now
Tuambaloka took matters into her own hands. She summoned her litter and had
herself borne down the Spanish camp accompanied by her ladies and two secretaries.
She was, as Combés said, "ever more of
man than her husband in time of crisis." She requested Don Pedro de
Almonte, Commandant of the camp, to arrange for her an interview with Don
Sebastián. This was duly granted, and the Don received her in state as he had
done for Raja, in her case, however she was provided with a purple cushion, for
purple is the royal colour in Europe. She used every possible argument to
dissuade him from occupying the fort, but though he listened respectfully, he
was adamant, saying that he had orders from his King to occupy the fort, and
that did he fail to do so, he would certainly lose his head. "I do not
wish," said Tuambaloka, "that the favour which I ask be at so great a
price and danger to Your Lordship. Consequently, will you grant me three days,
and in that time I, the King and our people will descend without fail. Don
Sebastián was greatly impressed by her and readily agreed. As it was known that
famine conditions were now prevailing in the fort he ordered that refreshments
be served to her and her ladies, during which he withdrew to avoid
embarrassment. As she left his quarters, he had cannon fire a salute in her
honour.
Back in the fort the debate continued, but there now seemed
little choice. Tuambaloka knew that one of the great obstacles to bringing down
the Joloans was that they both feared and distrusted the Spaniards. To remove
doubts as far as possible, on the evening on the 16th April she aggained
summoned her litter, and along with her ladies went down to Don Sebastián's
headquarters, there to spend the night. On the morning of the 17th they all
returned safe and sound, and she and the Raja then proceeded to lead the
descent through the west gate of the of the fort while Don Pedro and his men
entered by the east gate. As the column descended the Spaniards were astonished
to see only 400 fighting men, though there were 1,500 old men, women and
children, presumably as wit the Basilans, the sick were still up in the fort.
All were carrying their belongings, indeed it was amazing to see how much they
succeeded in bringing down. Once arrived at the level ground outside the
Spanish camp, Don Pedro de Francia demanded that they surrendered their arms,
but the Raja declared that they would surrender their arms to none but to
Don Sebastián himself. There was thus a
delay while he was sought, and in that short time the heavens opened and a
blinding equatorial rain storm descended blotting out everything. As the
Spaniards ran for cover, the Joloans dropped all and disappeared into the
deluge. When the Spaniards finally moved out, they were far too busy picking up
the incredible booty that the Joloans had dropped to care what had become of
the original owners. Thus those who had come down from the fort disappeared
into the countryside and safety. Datu Aceh had already slipped away and was
gone, despite all the Spanish efforts to entrap him. The Raja and Tuambaloka
remained in hiding with the Joloans, but the latter that evening sent a letter
by her nephew, Tankun, to Don Sebastián, regretting that neither she nor her
husband could avail themselves of his hospitality for the present, as they must
stay with their people. She hoped, however, in due course to accept his
invitation. As she had left her strong-boxed at his quarters, the Don felt sure
that she would.
With the banner of Castile and Leon floating above the
ramparts of the hill fort, the Joloans scattered, Raja Bongsu and Tuambaloka
fugitives and the whole island now given over to famine and pestilence, there
was nothing to detain Don Sebastián further, the more so as his men continued
to be carried off by disease, he therefore appointed Don Gines de Ros y Aviles
to command in Jolo, wih 100 men in the stone fort and 80 in the hill fort; Don
Pedro de Almonte was appointed Governor of Zamboanga. Before leaving, however,
Don Sebastián had to pay off his men, at least the Spaniards, for the Filipinos
normally served unpaid as part of their duty to their encomenderos, and the
most that they could hope for was loot. Since the surrender of the fort 192
Joloans had been captured and these were
sold as slaves by public auction, though some of them "were forced on the
soldiers as part of their pay at rates higher than those of the market."
Having thus ordered all things to his satisfaction, Don Sebastián left Jolo and
returned to Manila for a triumphant reception.
The Spanish victory on Jolo was due, as were so many
victories in world history, to the intervention of a totally unforeseen factor,
namely the impact of smallpox and dysentery
upon the garrison. The Jesuits had the distressing habit of seeing divide
intervention in everything, as indeed did people of most religions at the time.
An anonymous Jesuit writing from Zamboanga on the 23rd April declared of the
victory that "it was wholly the work of God." This was a somewhat
one-sided view, but later writers tended to play down the epidemic, or even to
omit it altogether, ascribing the victory wholly to the valour of Spanish arms.
This the anonymous Jesuit would, no doubt, have regarded as blasphemous, and
most historians would consider travesty of the facts.
When the Joloans stampeded away in the blinding rain, they abandoned everything portable. Fr. Juan
de Barrios S.J., who was an eyewitness, records in a letter written two days
later:
Many mothers even abandoned their little children. One
abandoned to us a little girl, who had received a dagger stroke, who received
the waters of baptism and immediately die. This perfect;y factual account by an
eyewitness has become the basis of the ghoulish Black Legend of Jolo. According
to this, when the parents stampeded for safety, they abandoned their children,
but first they stabbed them to death to ensure that they should not fall alive
into the hands of the Christians. In its more developed form the legend
declares that even the old people were also stabbed to death.
Fr, Juan mentions that only one child who had, what he took
to be, a dagger wound, but was it? When there is a panic-stricken stampede of
2,000 people in blinding rain anything can happen; it could perfectly well have
been an accident. However, the basic fact that is that there was only such
case, which the Black Legend multiplied by hundreds to create a massacre on the
Innocents. Don Sebastián was also an eyewitness, and on the 26th July 1638 he
wrote a long account on the Jolo campaign for King Philip IV, in the course of
which he describes the stampede:
.....they fled so panic-stricken that they dropped all their
possessions and belongings, which they had been carrying, even newly-born
infants from one month to two years old, all of whom were collected by soldiers
after the storm had passed , and the small children were baptized before they
died, including one, whom the father and mother had stabbed.
Once again, there was one, and only one, child who was
thought to have been stabbed. An unstated number of children died shortly
afterwards, and were baptized before they expired. That some died is not
surprising, for they had been lying out in the deluge for half an hour or more,
and some may have already contracted smallpox or dysentery. Further, under the
circumstances it would not have been surprising had some been trampled
underfoot in the course of the stampede, and so badly injured. As Don Sebastián says, the distraught parents were
panic-stricken, and no wonder, for according to the anonymous Jesuit writing
from Zamboanga on the 23rd April:
The cause of the Moros fleeing was their great fear that
they were to be killed. Under these appalling circumstances it is surprising
that there were not more casualties.
There is no clue as to how many children were abandoned, nor
as to how many of these died shortly afterwards, nor as to what happened to the
survivors. Did the parents return and recover them, or were they absorbed into
local families? There are no answers to these questions, but one thing is
absolutely certain: there was no massacre of infants by their parents. The
Black Legend is a baseless myth.
When the Spaniards had occupied the hill fort, they
discovered, as they had expected, a large amount of treasure, which the Joloans
had providently buried within its walls. They also found a great accumulation
of documents written in Arabic scripts. It was axiomatic with Spaniards that
anything written in Arabic script mist be a Koranic text, and must therefore be
consigned to the flames. The whole of this collection was burned, and with it
the history of Sulu went up in smoke. It is possible that there may have been
or two copies of the Holy Koran in the collection, but the mass of the
documents would have been commercial or administrative. The Joloans, like the
Bruneis, were basically merchants. Even so doughty a warrior as Datu Aceh from
time to time unbuckled his corslet, and reached for his abacus. For centuries
the wealth of Sulu had been derived from trading pearls and tortoise shell for
Chinese silk and luxury goods, which were retailed to the people thereabouts.
Throughout the centuries merchants have kept records, and Jolo, must have had
them in plenty. The sacking and burning of the town by Don Christobal de Lugo
in 1628 must have destroyed great quantities of records, but the most
important, no doubt, would have been kept in the hill fort, and now they were
all destroyed. The way was thus left open for the eighteenth century Tau Sugs
to invent their own history without fear of contradiction.
Thus ended the heroic, and tragic, siege of Jolo. Yet, as so
often happens, there was a postscript by way of anticlimax. On the evening of
the memorable 17th April 1638 Tuambaloka had written to Don Sebastián
regretting that neither she nor her husband would be able to enjoy his
hospitality for the moment, as they must stay with their people. The Don knew,
however, that her strong-boxes were in his quarters, on which account she would
certainly return. Further he had in his power her nephew Tankun, the bearer of
her letter. Now young Tankun must have been a man of parts, for her persuaded
the Don to allow him to go in search of his uncle and aunt's strong-boxes were
not, for, as was later discovered, he transferred to himself her gold and
jewels. He then persuaded Don Sebastián to allow him to seek further
clarification of the peace proposals, and this was agreed. Tankun departed and
was seen no more, nor were Tuambaloka's gold and jewels.
Chapter 6
The Fight For Survival
Datu Aceh had slipped away before the surrender at Jolo,
despite all the efforts made by the Spaniards to capture him, and despite his
injuries, he had suceeded in makin way to Tawi-tawi; he also went to Macassar
in an effort to get help from there. On Tawi-tawi he put in hand the building
of a fort, and was shortly joined by a number of young fighting men from Jolo,
and also by the Raja's eldest son, Pengiran Kacil. The Spaniards reported that
the latter wasplanning to make himself Raja of Sulu, but this was quite out of
character; in his father's absence, he was the obvious person to head the Sulu
"government in exile" at Tawi-tawi; he also set about assembling a
fleet.
When Don Pedro de Almonte at Zamboanga heard of these
developments, he decided to send his fleet to Tawi-tawi and finally finish off
Sulu resistance. But word was brought to him of stirrings of trouble to
Magindanao, and the fleet under Don Christoval de la Eras was sentthere
instead. It took supplies to the Spanish garriosn at Buayan and sailed
unmolested up the Pulangi for five days before returning to Zamboanga . Even
Sultan Qudarat was most subdued. But the respite for Tawi-tawi was only
temporary.
The terrible twelve moths which followed the surrender at
Jolo showed the really heroic character of Raja Bongsu. Although a fugitive
hunted from place to place by the Spaniards, he refused to leave his people,
until it became apparent that his very presence was aggravating their
sufferings. Meanwhile, however, he laid plans for the seizure of the Spanish
fort at Jolo, which would certainly have succeeded, had not a trifling accident
caused them to go awry.
Don Gines de Ros y Aviles, the Governor of Jolo, differed
from most Spanish soldiers, who regarded commerce with contempt, as a pursuit
dishonourable and unworthy of a man of quality. Not so Don Gines, who was avid
of gain, and found excellent opportunities for it in Jolo. As his commercial
agent and man of confidence, he employed a certain Kahapitan, who was so astute
a man of affairs, that in short time Don Gines had gained a large amount. But
Kahapitan was a secret agent of Raja Bongsu, and through him the Raja sent word
to Don Gines that he intended to surrender , and that hewould send his people
to the Spanish fort in parties to submit and to be registered as tributaries of
the Spanish Crown. The parties duly came and were registered; Don Gines was
delighted; but the Jesuits, who knew the Joloans better than most Spaniards,
warned him that something was afoot, and that he should be careful. When the
Don dismissed these warnings with contempt, the Jesuits sent a message to Don
Pero de Almonte at Zamboanga warning him trouble was brewing.
Meanwhile the parties
for registration came in increasing numbers, and were admitted into the
interior of the fort for the purpose. Came the day that Kahapitan had fixed for
the seizure of the fort. He would bring into it a large party of Joloans, but
outside a very much larger number would lie concealed hard by. Upon a given
signal those within would seize the gates, while those without would then pour
in and overpower the garrison. It was an excellently contrived plan, and seemed
certain of success, but it was aborted by a trifling accident. The previous night
Don Gines had been seized with a violent fever, and could not leave his bed. He
therefore ordered that there be no registrations the following day. The party
duly arrived, but found the gates closed against them; they therefore clamoured
noisily to be admitted and registered. This was a capital error, for enthusiasm
for submission was wholly alien to the character of the Joloans, and the
suspicions of the Spaniards were aroused. The gates remained closed, and a
messenger was despatched in a swift boat to Don Pedro at Zamboanga, to warn him
that trouble had developed and that reinforcements were needed.
The Joloans then compounded their folly by attacking a gang
of galleys slaves working in a quarry. Two of the five Spanish guards were
killed, and the others fled to the fort. The Joloans shared the slaves out
amongst themselves, and of these Kahapitan got five, whom he put in a secure
place. Meanwhile the messenger to Zamboanga had encountered Don Pedro with his
fleet, which was approaching Jolo in response to the Jesuit warnings.
Kahapitan, with great presence of mind, greeted Don Pedro on landing, and
assured him that he was wholly innocent of any involvement in the recent disturbances. The Don was
suspicious, and invited him to prove his innocence by accompanying him into the
fort, where he would be completely in the Spaniard's power. This Kahapitan
readily did with a few companions, and Don Gines persuaded Don Pedro of his
complete innocence, he was even entrusted with a message to be transmitted to
Raja Bongsu. Kahapitan departed, but stopped on his way to kill his galley
slaves, lest they give him away. In the process one of them, a Chinese, sprang
at him and killed him with his own keris, then, streaming with blood, ran to
the fort, and revealed that Kahapitan had in fact been the leader of the whole
enterprise.
The retribution that followed was severe. Don Pedro sent out
Don Gaspar de Morales and the fleet, with instructions to sail around the
island and to destroy everything within reach of his landing parties, and to
take as many captives as possible. The destruction wrought was appalling, ut as
soon as the people saw the Spanish vessels approaching, they fled into the
interior, so that only 50 were captured. Don Gines was compelled to make a
public apology to the Jesuits, for having treated their warnings with contempt,
and shortly after was replaced as Governor of Jolo by Don Luis de Guzman. He
departed in a vessel richly laden with the fruits of his commercial ventures,
but once out as sea, he was set upon by his crew adn done to death.
In March 1639 there was a preliminary devastation of the
coasts of Jolo and the neighbouring islands by the fleet under Don Cristoval de
las Heras, which wrought much havoc and carried away a large number of
captives. In May Don Pedro arrived from Zamboanga with a considerable force to
effect the final subjugation of Jolo. His first task was to capture Raja
Bongsu, who for the past twelve months had remained amongst his people, though
continually hunted by the Spaniards. Don Pedro discovered his latest hiding
place, and organized an expedition under Don Augustin de Cepada and Don Gaspar
de Morales. It was excellently planned: a cordon was thrown around the whole
area, and vessels were stationed off the coast, lest the Raja try to escape by
sea; the column would march by night, and surprise him in his refuge at dawn.
The plan miscarried; during the last stages of the march in silence, one of the
soldiers accidentally fired his arquebus. The shot alerted the inhabitants of a
neighbouring hamlet, who sent to warn the Raja, meanwhile they fought the
Spaniards to the last man to give him time to escape.
It was now evident that the Raja could achieve nothing by
remaining in Jolo, and that his mere presence brought troubles upon his people.
Pengiran Kacil set out from Tawi-tawi with a fleet to rescue his father, but he
was completely defeated by a fleet under Don Pedro de la Mata Vergara. The
Pengiran, however escaped, and Raja Bongsu finally succeeded in making his way
to Tawi-tawi. But the respite was brief, for with the destruction of Pengiran
Kacil's fleet, Tawi-tawi was now defenceless. Don Pedro's fleet now bore down
upon it and devastated everything within reach of the coast. Once again the
Raja had a narrow escape, as he slipped away by night in small prau to a
neighbouring island. Meanwhile Datu Aceh had gone to Brunei to try and end the
fratricidal strife between the two Muslim powers in this dreadful hour. He must
have succeeded, for in the following year, 1640, the Spaniards referred to the
Bruneis and Joloans as being allies, and raiding the Calamianes, Butuan and Cagayan.
After the escape of the Raja conditions on Jolo and the
surrounding islands became appalling. Don Pedro de Almonte ordered the Joloans
be given the choice between total submission and instant death, and columns of
troops combed the countryside for the purpose. Those who offered resistance
were to be beheaded, and their heads hung upon trees in the neighbourhood as a
warning to others, their dwelling, property, stores and crops were to be
destroyed, even their coconut palms were to be cut down. It was a fearsome
programme, and seemed a sure recipe for success, but the Jesuits knew the
Joloans and had no illusions. As one of them wrote:
It is added that since these things are so, all the Joloans
are perishing of gamine. They will never humble themselves, nor give signs of
surrendering.
In the islands round about the same measures were put into execution
by the fleet of Don Diego Saria de Lazcano, who was so successful that on the
12th July he returned to Jolo having enrolled 7,000 tributaries, and having left
500 heads hanging on trees.
By July 1639 the people of the coast and the lowlands had
been cowed, but there remained one centre of opposition amongst the Guimbanos,
or Men of the Mountain. They were Tau Sugs like their relatives in the towns,
but eschewed commerce for the hardy life of the mountaineer, and had acquired a
reputation for turbulence and ferocity. Raja Bongsu's eldest son, Pengiran
Kacil, had borne the title of Prince of the Guimbanos, so they would appear to
have enjoyed a special status in the community. Combes relates that they were ferocious
fighters, who wore armour of elephant hide, their helmets completely covering
head and shoulders, with only two slits for the eyes. Further to stimulate
their natural ferocity, they consumed opium. In July 1639 the Governor, Don
Luis de Guzman with his assistant Don
Augustin de Cepada led a formidable force against them. Fighting was fierce,
but the Guimbanos proved too strong . Don Luis was mortally wounded by a
poisoned lance, but Don Augustin withdrew his men in good order, bearing the
wounded Governor with him. A week later, having gathered together a sronger
force, he made a surprise attack upon them and was completely victorious; his
trophies were 300 captives and 400 heads.
Even the Guimbanos were now quelled, but four years later, in
1643, those Parang in the west of the island again gave trouble, and Don Gaspar
de Morales was sent to punish them. His attack was ill-planned, for he launched
his men in assault after a long route march. The result was an overwhelming victory
for the Guimbanos, whose small band destroyed a much larger Spanish forec. It
was an appaling Spanish disaster. In December Don Augustin himself led a force
against Parang. This attack was well planned: he struck at dawn at was
completely successful. Parang and its inhabitants were completely destroyed. In
February 1644 he led another cleaning-up operation against the remaining
Guimbanos, which extinguished them with great loss of life and property . As a
fighting force they were eliminated.
Meanwhile the inhabitants of the coastal region and the
islands round about had been reduced to subjection by the punitive fleets whose
landing parties destroyed everything within reach, and carried off all upon
whom they could lay hands. One of these in 1640 wrought fearful havoc, and
claimed to have carried off 3,000 captives. By 1643, after four years of
systematic devastation, Jolo and its islands lay exhausted, depopulated and
crushed under the Spanish heel. The silence of death had descended upon the
archipelago.
Chapter 7
Peace by Exhaustion
To the Raja and the Datu isolated on Tawi-tawi, it was
evident that their only hope of recovering Jolo lay in securing help from
outside. In 1639 the Datu had gone to Brunei, and had succeeded in ending the
fratricidal war between the two, but the joint raid on the Calamianes in 1640
was a small affair, abd help on a far larger scale was needed were Jolo to be
recovered. The Dato had also tried the Sultan of Macassar, but here again there
were good wishes but no help. In 1642 the Raja himself had gone to Brunei, but
no help was forthcoming.
For thirty years, since his first meeting with Admiral
Laurens Reaal in 1614, the Raja had believed that the Dutch alone could finally
defeat the Spaniards, and that Jolo's future lay in a close alliance with them.
But his hopes had been consistently frustrated; when it came to the point the
Dutch showed little taste for becoming seriously involved in the interminable
Moro Wars. Now in 1644, when all others appeals for aid he had failed, he sent
his second son, Pengiran Sarikula, to Batavia to try and persuade the Dutch to
assist in the reconquest of Jolo. The Pengiran was cooly received by the
Governor General, who made vague promises of help. But these were not enough;
the Pengiran pressed the point, and declared that if the Dutch would send ships
to bombard the Spanish fort at Jolo, he and his men would stand by to carry it
by assault. The Dutch remained no-committal, and the exasperated Pengiran left
Batavia for Brunei, there to try once more for help, before returning to
Tawi-Tawi.
Yet surprisingly enough Pengiran Sarikula's visit to Batavia
bore fruit. The Dutch had second thoughts, and the following year, 1645,
Captain Lucas Albertsen with two vessels, the Venlo and the Haring,
were sent to bombard the Spanish fort at Jolo, while Pengiran Sarikula and his
men stood ready for the assault. Captain Albertsen dropped anchor on the 27th
June and disembarked the artillery. This consisted of three guns each throwing
balls of 8 lbs (3.7 kilos). They were duly ranged upon the fort, and the
Captain issued a summons to the Governor, Don Esteban de Orella y Ugalde, to
surrender, warning him that should the place be carried by assault, the entire
garrison would be put to the sword. The Don replied that it was not the usage
of Spanish commanders to surrender, and the awful process commenced as the guns
opened up full blast against the fort.
The Pengiran and his men recalled how they had withstood
bombardment by Don Pedro de Almonte's 80 pounder, and viewed the present
display by pop-guns with contempt. By the third day Captain Albertsen sensed
the local opinion was against him, and proceeded to re-embark his guns. But the
Joloans though that they could put the pieces to much better use, and tried to
seize them. There was a fight, but the Dutch finally got all their guns aboard
again. The Captain sailed away to Tawi-tawi, where he bitterly complained to
the Raja, who gave him the necessary supplies and speeded him on his way to
Batavia. But the dream of 30 years had dissipated; it was the Raja's last and
final disillusionment with the Dutch.
When prospects for the recovery of Jolo seemed darker,
distant events began to produce important effects in the Sulu Sea. In 1640
Portugal had revolted against Spain, ended the Union of the Crowns, and set up
a King of its own, John IV of Braganza. War thus broke out between Spain and
Portugal. In 1641 Malacca felt to the Dutch after a heroic Portuguese defence,
but Portugal still retained Macau, which was the principal channel for the
vital trade between Manila and China. Further the Dutch were now preparing
another large-scale assault upon the Philippines. All these distressing
development brought hime to the new Governor, Don Diego de Fajardo y Chacon,
who assumed office in 1644, how parlous was his position. He was desperately
short of soldiers, and to him seemed sheer folly. Hence his policy of
withdrawal.
When dealing with Muslim rulers, the government in Manila
almost invariably used Jesuits as envoys, for they, being committed to the
conversion of Muslins to Christianity, were fluent speakers of their languages
such as Tau Sug, Samal, and so forth. They also knew personally most of the
Muslims leaders, and were generally allowed to travel freely in Muslim areas to
arrange exchange or ransom of captives. Although there are isolated examples of
Jesuits being killed, they were in general well received, and enjoyed something
of the status of officials of the International Red Cross in modern times. Don
Diego, therefore, sent Fr, Alejandro Lopez S.J. to Sultan Qudarat to discuss
terms of peace, and these were soon agreed upon. On the 24th June 1645 a treaty
was signed by Don Francisco de Atiena y Baṅez, Governor of Zamboanga, and Fr.
Alejandro in behalf of the Governor at Manila and Sultan Qudarat. By its terms
the Sultan's independent dominions were recognized as extending from the
Sibugay river to Tagalok Bay, now the Gulf of Davao, captives were to be
released and commerce to be resumed. The Jesuits were to be permitted a house
at Simuay.
The conclusion of the peace between the Spaniards and Sultan
Qudarat, Raja Bongsu's son-in-law, coincided with Captain Albertsens's
unfortunate visit to Jolo, and helped to confirm the Raja's own determination
to make peace. Already in 1644 he had thrown out feelers to the Jesuits at Zamboanga
as to the possibility of negotiations. One of them had written:
[He states] that the people [of Jolo] can hardly secure
food, since their grain fields were laid waste, and most of their men were
slain in their many battles, and so they desire peace.
After seven years of unmitigated horror, the one thing that
the surviving Joloans needed was peace, and non realized it better than the Raja.
Sultan Qudarat urged him to follow his example, and in 1646 even sent Datu
Kacil Patiokan and Orang Kaya Datan along with Fr. Alejandro to Tawi-tawi to
promote negotiations.
The Raja's hand in negotiating was strengthened by the fact
that a strong Dutch fleet under Admiral Martin Gerritsz Fries was cruising in
Filipino waters at the time. On the other hand his negotiations were hampered
by the old division amongst his supporters. Datu Aceh would not hear of signing
a peace with the Spaniards, truces for
commercial purpose he would always accept, but a permanent peace -never! So
also thought the Raja's two sons, Pengirans Kacil and Sarilula. It was a sad
division in the family, yet the Raja had more experience than any of them of
the horrors that had been inflicted upon the Joloans. Indeed accounts suggest
that his health had been permanently impaired by the sufferings that he had
endured during the terrible twelve months in 1638-1639, when he had been a
fugitive in the island.
Nonetheless the Raja went forward with the negotiations, and
on the 14th April 1646 peace was signed on board a joanga of Sultan Qudarat
anchored off the town of Jolo. Don
Francisco and Fr. Alejandro again signed on behalf of the Governor, while Raja
Bongsu's signature was witnessed by Datu Kacil Patiokan and Orang Kaya Datan on
behalf of Sultan Qudarat. By the terms of the treaty the Spaniards kept the
Zamboangan peninsula and the islands of Basilan, Pangutaran, Tapul, Siassi and
Balanguisan, otherwise the former viceroyalty of Sulu, including Jolo and
Tawi-tawi with their dependent islands, and Tuptup in Borneo were restored to
the Raja. The islands of Bagahac, which he would not otherwise have received,
was also included, because it was his birthplace. It was a sadly reduced
jurisdiction compared to that with which he had been invested thirty years
before. Nonetheless, what was left was recognized as an independent state, and
Jolo was once again free after seven terrible years of subjection and torment.
By the terms of the treaty each year the Joloans would send
to Zamboanga three joangas 8 brazas in length of padi, and these would not be a
tribute, but a token of goodwill. Joloans and Spaniards would render one
another mutual assistance, in particular they would join in an annual hunt down
of Camucones. All captives taken during and since the recent Dutch intervention
would be released immediately, all others would be ransomed according to a
fixed schedule, presumably based on their working capacity:
Very good 40pesos
Good 30 pesos
Youths 20 pesos
Children 10 pesos
Further the Jesuits would be allowed to send missionaries to
minister to Christians in Jolo and the islands. In fact there were found to be
500 families of them after the peace, probably Samals from Basilan.
The succession presented a formidable problem for the now
ailing Raja, as neither Pengirans Kacil nor Sarikula would accept the peace.
The Raja was given six months in which to persuade them to do so, otherwise in
event of his death he would be succeeded by Pengiran Bakhtiar, a bastard, who
would be supported by the Spaniards. The text of the treaty is of the greatest importance
in one respect. It was drawn up by Spanish bureaucrats, who prided themselves
upon their precision exactitude, especially in what concerned titles. The text
refers to "Sultan Corrolat [Qudarat], King of Mindanao", and to
"Rataia [Raja] Bongsu, King of Jolo". Here, then, is proof conclusive
that Raja Bongsu was not, nor ever claimed to be, Sultan of Sulu. He was, and
always remained, a Raja, the Adipati, Batara or Viceroy of the Sultan of
Brunei. The title "Sultan Muwallid Wasit" accorded to him in the Sulu
Tarsilas and Khutbahs is a pure figment of Tau Sug patriotism, without any
historical validity, as are the other titles accorded to his predecessors, save
only Sultan Sharif, who was a Sultan of Brunei.
With the signing of the peace, the Spaniards withdrew from
Jolo, and the exhausted island was allowed a space within which to recover. Yet
before long storm clouds again gathered.
Chapter 8
Twilight
The peace of 1646 brought about the final breach between
Datu Aceh and Raja Bongsu. The Datu had spent his whole life fighting the Spaniards,
and now in his old age he could not stomach the idea of peace with them. He
left Jolo and returned home to Brunei the same year, and there he shortly died.
He ranks as the greatest Brunei warrior of whom history bears record. His
bravery and brilliance commanded the resort of his bitterest enemies: "the
most valorous and gallant captain that we have seen amongst the Moros."
But he was also a man of science: the panning of the hill fort at Jolo puts him
ahead of most men of his time, when even his enemies pronounced it impregnable.
By any reckoning he was a most remarkable man.
The Raja still had to face the problem of his two sons,
Pengirans Kacil and Srikula, both of whom refused to accept the peace, and
continued to levy war upon the Spaniards. They were much assisted by the fact
that in 1646 the Dutch had launched a formidable naval offensive under Admiral
Fries, which in 1647 attacked Manila. As with all such attacks, it was in the
end defeated, but meanwhile it preoccupied the Spaniards, and allowed the
Pengirans to carry out widespread depredations. In 1648, however, Pengiran
Kacil was awaiting his brother at a rendezvous off Burias, when a fleet closed
in upon him. Too late he realized that it was not that of his brother's but a
Spanish fleet under Don Juan de Isastegui. Thought caught off his guard, the Pengiran
attacked furiously, and thrusting his way to the Don's vessel, boarded it; the
two commanders fought hand-to-hand on the deck, and the Pengiran fell mortally
wounded; he shortly died. The Spaniards had a high regard for him as a fighting
man: "the most valiant man of that notion," and with his death his
fleet was destroyed. Pengiran Sarikula heard of the disaster when at Luca in
Leyte, and made for Jolo with all speed. There the Raja tried again to persuade
him to accept the peace, but he was reluctant, because of his suspicions of the
Spaniards. However the Raja summoned Fr. Alejandro from Zamboanga, and he was
finally reassured. He swore to the peace, and the Raja, whose health was
falling, handed over authority to him.
The Pengiran had made his peace with the Spaniards just in
time, for the same year, 1648, saw the end of the eighty years' war between
Holland and Spain in the peace of Westphalia. Henceforth the Muslims could
expect no help from the Dutch against the Spaniards, little though they had
received before, for the two great opponents were reconciled. Pengiran Sarikula
did the following year, 1649. Unlike his brother, he was not highly regarded by
the Spaniards. Combés thought him thoroughly trustworthy, and blamed him for
many troubles that he had brought upon "his poor old father".
Now once again the Raja had to assume the reins of power,
but with declining health he fell increasingly under the influence of
Tuambaloka. They had always been a devoted couple, as Combés remarked "he
loved her as though she were his mistress". But Tuambaloka was though, and
age seems to have hardened the old lady, for she became exceedingly grasping.
Finally there was an explosion, and a party of the Datus proclaimed the Raja's
bastard Bakhtiar, a boy of sixteen, as ruler of Sulu. But Tuambaloka also had
her party, and wanted to fight out the matter, she even threatened to call in
the Spaniards to support her. In this crisis the Raja again summoned Fr.
Alejandro, and with him came Don Joseph de la Vega, Governor of Zamboanga, for
the last thing that the Spaniards wanted at this juncture was renewed fighting.
A settlement was reached, whereby the Raja and young
Bakhtiar were reconciled, and Tuambaloka agreed to return to her native Basilan,
of which she had been ruler prior to the Spanish occupation in 1638. Her
declining years were distinguished by the prestige that she enjoyed under the
Spaniards, who used her authority to maintain the peace, in return for which she
despatched a fleet of Samals to assist them in putting down the Palapag Revolt
on Samar. She had for many years known some of the most distinguished Jesuits
personally, and they entertained high hopes of converting her to Christianity,
but in this they were disappointed. The place and the date of her death are
unrecorded, but she remains one of the more colourful figures in the annals of
Jolo.
Raja Bongsu would appear to have retired finally in favour
of young Bakhtiar about 1650, but as the latter was as yet but 17, it is
possible that Sultan Qudarat, the Raja's son-in-law, played the part of Datu
Aceh for the young ruler. Professor Majul conjectures that his rule extended
from approximately 1650 to 1680, in which case he would have been the Sultan of
Sulu who intervened c. 1655 in the civil war between Sultans Abdul Mubin and
Muhyiddin in Brunei. Bakhtiar was the first authentic Sultan of Sulu, and the
question arises as to when he assumed the title of Sultan Salah ud-Din
Bakhtiar. It was certainly after 1663, for in that year Combés refers to him as
"Pengiran Bakhtiar, King of Jolo", but it is difficult to determine
and exact date. The ruler of Sulu who intervened in the Brunei civil war c.
1655 is referred to in the Silsilah as
"the Batara of Sulu", but this does not preclude the fact that he may already have assumed the
title of Sultan, which would certainly not have been recognized in Brunei.
Of Raja Bongsu himself nothing further is recorded. He was
certainly living when Combés was writing his great Historia,
1662-1664, and the two seem to have been acquainted, for the Raja showed
the historian the scars of the wounds that he had received as a boy, when
trying to defend Pengiran Tindig. Combes had been frequently employed by the
government at Manila as an envoy to Muslim rulers, and it was probably in this
capacity that he met both Raja Bongsu and Tuambaloka; they must have made a
favourable impression upon him, for his references to both are sympathetic. But
Combés text provides no clue as to what happened to the Raja after his
retirement in favour of young Bakhtiar c. 1650. Did he like Datu Aceh return to
Brunei, or did he join Tuambaloka to Basilan? Both seem improbable in view of
his attachment to Jolo and its people. The fact that in his lifetime in 1663
his successor was still referred to only as Pengiran Bakhtiar, suggests that
the Tau Sug Datus insisted that he keep the title of Raja, even though his infirmities
prevented him from ruling, if this were the case, then it is reasonable to
suppose that his bones rest on Jolo. Later, after the creation of Bakhtiar as
Sultan of Sulu, the Datus posthumously raised Raja to the Sultanate as Sultan
Muwallit Wasit, and as such he achieved honourable mention in the Khutbahs and
Kitabs.
In many ways Datu Aceh is a much more glamorous figure than
the Raja Bongsu. The Datu was the greatest native warrior of his day in the
whole region, at once admired and feared. The Raja was second to none in
courage, but he was also a ruler, and it is as a ruler that he must be judged.
The measure of a ruler's greatness is his subjects' affection for him, and here
Raja Bongsu stands high. For twelve months after the surrender in April 1638 he was able to remain in Jolo, a
fugitive hunted by the Spaniards, yet always concealed by his people. When in
June 1639 Don Pedro de Almonte had finally cornered him, the inhabitants of a
small kampong fought to the last man to give him time to escape: "Many
Muslims paid with their lives for this signal demonstration of their love for
their King." This simple testimony writ in blood says all: to his people
Raja Bongsu was a hero.
Postscript
By the terms of the treaty of 1646 between Raja Bongsu and
the Spaniards, "Tuptup in Borneo" was restored to the Raja, and
"the islands of Bagahac," which would not otherwise have fallen to
him, was granted "because it was his birthplace".
"Tuptup in Borneo" would have been the modern
Tanjong Tutup between Tawau and Semporna. However no "Island of
Bagahac" is to be found on the map, but there is Gunong Bahagak due west
of Tungku further up the coast. Spaniards and Portuguese followed the Arabs in
frequently reffering to any remote place reached by sea as an
"island", c.f. G. R. Tibbetts, A
Study of Arabic Texts Containing Material on South-East Asia, London 1979,
p. 18. It is reasonable to suppose that "the island of Bagahac" was
the region between Gunong Bagahak and the sea. Perhaps it was the original name
of Tungku.
Source : Published by Council of the Malaysian Branch of Royal
Asiatic Society, 1991
Source : thefreelibrary, hireadesigner, uyfbkjoggu.firebaseapp.com,
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