Anarchy of Maritime Spices: Sulu Sultanate and British East India Company

(part 1 of a series)

Voltaire Veneracion

While reading National Historical Commission of the Philippines’ Journal of Philippine Local History & Heritage (Vol. 2 No. 2 August 2016), I came across three articles that provide historical context to Business and Human Rights in the Philippines and wider Southeast Asia. They are:

• Malay Documents from Sulu and Mindanao in the British Library by Annabel Teh Gallop;
• Mangayaw and Banyaga: Moro Wars, China Trade, and the Shifting Hermeneutics of Piracy, Slavery, and Ethno-nationalism by Eric S. Casiño; and
• Mula Calilaya Tungong Tayabas: Pag-uugat sa Epekto ng Pagsalakay ng mga Moro (From Calilaya to Tayabas: Rooting the Impact of Moro Slave-raids) by Gilbert E. Macarandang.

Similar to William Dalrymple’s book The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire, the above articles (to borrow the words of Prof. Surya Deva) show “how corporations have been abusing power and exploiting people for centuries (raising) serious questions about the very form and purpose of corporations in society.”

In our contemporary world, we may not easily see nor easily question patterns of corporate abuse because we’re in the midst of seemingly isolated and “natural” incidents, either as consumers, producers or business owners ourselves. We’ve been socialized to see the sunny side of free trade, business and development.

History provides us with the distance to view the forest, instead of just individual trees. Moreover, we can trace the evolution of international standards and norms as different societies and cultures traded, interacted and came into violent conflict with each other, as in post-1500s Southeast Asia. We have the benefit of hindsight to see the impacts, both positive and negative, of business and the desire for profit in what we today recognize as the human rights of individuals, as well as entire communities and nations.

Sabah Island & British Business

Teh Gallop’s article reveals substantial differences in the Malay and English texts of agreements on Sabah (1761-1764) entered into by the Sultanate of Sulu and the British company. These differences foreshadow a later controversy on the rights and privileges of the two parties persisting till after Southeast Asia’s period of decolonization.

Teh Gallop is the head of the Southeast Asia Section of the British Library (London). The British Library possesses primary source materials on the Philippines in the 18th century. At that time, the British East India Company was eyeing the southern Philippine islands of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago as potential sites for a trading base along the route to Ming China.

As the Islamic Studies scholar explains,

British involvement in the Philippines in this period culminated in the capture and brief occupation of Manila from 1762 to 1764, until its return to Spain at the end of the Seven Years War. The archival materials, largely held in the India Office Records in British Library, are reasonably well-known and studied. But alongside the majority of papers in English and Spanish are a few documents in local languages such as Malay, Maguindanao, and Tausug, written in the modified form of the Arabic script known as Jawi.

From 1761 to 1764, Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808) negotiated and signed four major agreements with successive Sultans of Sulu. All of these were bilingual: the first one signed in 1761 was in Malay and English; the second of 1763 was also originally in Malay and English, though only the Spanish of the Malay is extant; and the third and fourth treaties of 1764 were in Tausug and English.

Dalrymple was employed by the East India Company and tasked by the private corporation to negotiate with the Sulu Sultan and “to acquire a trading base in the Sulu archipelago. When he arrived in Jolo, the capital of the Sulu Sultanate, in January 1961, the ruler then was Sultan Muhammed Muizzuddin (r. 1748-1763), who was also known as Bantilan.

The privateer Dalrymple even became involved in the geopolitics of the region when he became “instrumental in helping Sultan Azimuddin I… return from Manila to Sulu and re-accede to the throne in 1764.” Azimuddin I had previously been in exile in Manila because of “local opposition to his policy of friendship toward Spanish Jesuit missionaries.”

The first Sulu treaty, dated 28 January 1761, is written on two facing pages, with the Malay on the left and the English on the right. It bears the red ink seals of the Sultan and the Company. There is an addendum in Malay with English translation on the verso of the Malay treaty clarifying prohibited goods. On the last page is a descriptive title of the document, “Treaty of Friendship & Trade Between the English & Sooloogan nan or Sooloos – Concluded at Soo-oog 28th Jany 1961,” and the signatures of Dalrymple, Sultan Allamoodin, and his Sulu court’s Datus and Orangkays who ratified it.

The Malay and English texts of the agreement have a few substantial differences.

The Malay version arguably gives the Company only the right of usufruct or fruits of the land (sugarcane), following Sulu custom, whereas the corresponding clauses [1 and 5] in the English version gives the Company the right not just to cultivate plantations, but also to purchase land for it. Moreover, the Malay version, in clause 1, does not contain the adjective “perpetual,” included in the English text to describe the Company’s possession of the warehouse “factory” and land.

On the reverse of the Malay version are four lines of Malay that prohibit the sale of opium and tightly regulates the sale of arms,” with a succinct one-line English translation: “Opium is contraband & arms & ammunition to any but the Sultan.” Teh Gallop found that this unnumbered clause is not in the published text of the agreement.

Here’s the Malay text (translated into English by Teh Gallop: she indicates with numbers in square brackets the numbered clauses in the English version):

In the year of the hijrah 1174, in the year Zai, on 24 Jumadilakhir, on Thursday, at 10 o’clock, at that time His Highness the Sultan confirmed an agreement with the servant of the Company Alexander Dalrymple; the terms of the agreement of His Highness Sultan Muhammad Muizzuddin Ibn al-Sultan Muhammad Badruddin with the servant of the Company Alexander Dalrymple are as follows: [1] he has been given permission to construct a warehouse to store cloth and to conduct trade, in order that [the goods] are not stolen, and has been given land to cultivate sugarcane; [2] any dispute between the English will be settled by the English chief; in any dispute between an Englishman and a Suluk the appropriate punishment will be decided by both His Highness the Sultan and the English chief; [3] if a local person finds employment with the English, and he commits wrong he may be thrashed by the English but if he is killed the matter will come before His Highness the Sultan and the English chief for the appropriate settlement; [4] if any makers of cloth [i.e. the Chinese] come and settle with the English they will be under English jurisdiction, likewise any traders who settle with the English will be under English jurisdiction, but any traders who settle with the Sultan will be under the Sultan’s jurisdiction; [6] the English need not pay duty to the Sultan on any trade goods; if any trade goods prohibited by the Sultan are landed, and come to the attention of the authorities before entering the factory then they will be seized by the Sultan; if anyone on board the ship carries goods prohibited by the sultan, as long as they are on board they will be left alone but they are not allowed to be landed, if they are landed and apprehended they will be seized, if they have been carried into the factory then the chief will be demanded to answer to the state of Suluk; [7] the Sultan will not prohibit anyone who comes to trade with the English, while the English will not obstruct anyone who wishes to trade with the Sultan, if a trader comes to trade with anyone other than the sultan this is allowed with the permission of the English; [8] the English promise to the best of their ability to assist Suluk against enemies, and His Highness the Sultan likewise promises to the best of his ability to help the English against any attack; [9] no Europeans apart from the English will be allowed to trade; [12] these are the terms of our agreement, if the English Company agrees it will be permanent, if not then the agreement will last for three years whilst renegotiating; [10] any shipwreck large or small will fall a third to the Sultan and two-thirds to the owner of the ship; [11] if the English should kill any thieves the Sultan will not interfere.

The addendum to the above Malay text prohibits the sale of opium, arms and ammunition to anyone but the Sultan, except with his permission.

Here are some clauses in the English text that are substantially different in letter and meaning from their corresponding clauses in the above Malay text:

Articles of friendship and commerce agreed on and settled between the English and Sooloos by Alexander Dalrymple Esq. on the part of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies and Sultan Mohumud Mo-i-Iodin son of Sultan Mohamud Bodarodin for himself and his successor this 28 January 1761.

The English shall have leave to choose a proper spot of ground for a factory and garden and the Sultan engages to secure them in the perpetual and unmolested possession. (ital. mine)….
5. If the English are inclined to have plantations they shall have leave to purchase ground and cultivate on it what they please and be secured in the safe possession of their property. (ital. mine)….
12. These articles to remain in force forever if ratified by the Company but if not approved three years are allowed to settle others till when they continue in force.

According to Wikipedia, Dalrymple’s first attempt above to set up a trading post in northern Borneo failed. It was only following the British occupation of Manila in 1763 that the British freed Sultan Alimuddin from the Spaniards and allowed him to return to his throne. The Sulu people welcomed this and, by 1765, Dalrymple managed to set up a trading post, through a “Treaty of Alliance and Commerce” with Sultan Alimuddin. A small British factory was established in 1773 on Balambagan Island, an isle off the north coast of Borneo which the British saw as suitable for controlling the important trade route between West Philippine Sea and Sulu Sea.

We can see that early forms of private multinational corporations exercised powers that we associate today with nation-states, such as entering treaties and even intervening in the choice of nations’ or political formations’ rulers. While advocating the philosophy of free trade and the non-interference of governments with business, they themselves were actually enmeshed in the local and regional politics of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. When the patterns of corporate abuse continued to intensify and became clearer with globalization in the late 20th c., movements emerged to call them out and mitigate their negative impacts leading to the development of Business and Human Rights.

We can also see in the above agreement between British East India Company and the Sulu Sultanate some clauses that we recognize today as violative of labor and human rights, including the right to life. For example, both Malay and English texts provide that “if a local person finds employment with the English, and he commits wrong he may be thrashed by the English but if he is killed the matter will come before His Highness the Sultan and the English chief for the appropriate settlement.” And also, “if the English should kill any thieves the Sultan will not interfere.”

Without a framework for treating each individual with dignity, equally and without discrimination, both a business enterprise and a government are prone to commit abuses and violate human rights.

(To be continued)