* Sulu’s sultan raided for slaves to get products in exchange of teas

Gestart door Kano, zondag 2 mei 2010, 12:59:07

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Kano

Sulu's sultan raided for slaves to get products in exchange of teas



Manila Times , 02 May 2010

(Editor's Note: The Seventh Dr. Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence awarding ceremony will be held on June 19, 2010, 7 p.m. at the Kaisa-Angelo King Heritage Center on Anda corner Cabildo Streets, Intramuros, Manila.)

It is a little known fact: the raiding for slaves by Sulu in the 18th century and 19th century was because of the tea trade between China and England at the time. It seems that the British drank so much Chinese tea and needed a good product to sell back to the Chinese to balance the trade. British traders looked to the rich marine and forest products in Sulu for these goods, goods that took a lot of time and effort to get.

Wax, camphor, mother of pearl and tortoise shells and most especially sea cucumbers and bird's nests, were strong merchandise. Sea cucumbers, along with bird's nests, were favorite tonics of the Chinese.

They were essential items in banquets of the imperial court, and thus had a big market in China.

Hence, Sulu's sultan raided its neighboring communities aggressively to get the slave labor needed to get the products.

The Sulu sultan captured slaves from other areas, which covered almost the whole Philippine archipelago: from coastal areas in northern Mindanao to the Visayas islands and Luzon's coastal areas. The raids reached as far as northern and southern Borneo, the coastal areas of Celebes, northern Java, northeast Sumatra and both coasts of the Malay peninsula.

Between 1770 and 1870–100 years–the Sultan conscripted 200,000 to 300,000 slaves, according to estimates in The Global Economy and the Sulu Zone: Connection, Commodities and Culture, written by Australian historian James Francis Warren. As many as 68,000 laborers every year gathered sea cucumbers for the British merchants.

According to Warren, in the first half of the 19th century, the Tausugs of Sulu supplied 10,000 piculs (590 kilograms) of sea cucumbers every quarter through the slaves. That's a lot of sea cucumbers to make up for a lot of tea drinking.

Warren estimates that since the 18th century, each Briton consumed an average of 1kg of tea per year: the Chinese beverage had become one of the most popular beverages among Europeans. By 1801, British tea imports from China were worth up to two million sterling pounds, or at the present exchange rate, $1 billion.

Between 1785 and 1833, the East Indies Company of Britain sold cotton and textile from India worth 27 million pounds. This was far behind the value of tea imports and left a trade deficit.

This information highlights the fact that the Philippines already played an important role in world trade in the 18th century to 19th century and slaves were used to forage for trade goods.

Warren is a professor on Southeast Asian Modern History at the University of Murdoch in Australia. He has also published The Sulu Zone: 1768-1898 (1981) and Iranun and Balangiwi: Globalization, Maritime Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity which also touches on the topic. Both books are published by New Day Publishers.
Daar waar de regenboog eindigt daar zal ik nooit komen totdat ik daar ooit zal zijn