Kinship, Islam, and Raiding in Maguindanao, c. 1760–1780Scholars have pointed out that Maguindanao’s intricate web of elite
familial relations is a key to understanding its political dynamics.^77 These
relations, as recorded and reified in the royal tarsila (genealogical re-
cords), show not only the vertical continuity of rulers but also and more
important, the horizontal relationship between various elite families
that constituted the polity.^78 These interlocking familial ties underpin-
ning its elite “pluralism or oligarchy” are indeed Maguindanao’s “great-
est strength”.79 Thus it is perhaps no surprise that family relations also
served as a modality for political expansion. Maguindanao’s attempts to
expand by appointing its favored, likely blood-related chiefs among the
Maranao is known,^80 but it remains unknown whether such modality
also applied to its interaction with overseas neighbors in the period of
intensified sea-raiding.
A good launching point to understand Maguindanao’s relations with
its weaker overseas neighbors (thus likely raiding targets) is the story of
the murder of Salawo sometime in 1760. In various historical moments
this story surfaced as the cause for the Maguindanao raids in Sangir.
In the memory of both the Sangirese and the Maguindanao, Salawo’s
murder marked the beginning of the decades-long Maguindanao dep-
redations.
According to a Sangirese raja interrogated by Company officials
in Ternate in 1780,^81 the enmity between Maguindanao and Sangir
was rooted in the murder of Salawo, chief of the settlement (negeri) of
Malurang (present-day Sarangani, the Philippines). Salawo, an ally of
the Maguindanaos, was murdered by the Siau prince named Luli (also
known in the archival sources as Elias Jacobs) who in turn was allied
- Isaac Donoso, “Philippine Islamic Manuscripts and Western Historiography”, 3;
Majul, Muslims in the Philippines: 1–12. - See Elsa Clavé, “La malayisation du Sud philippin (XVe-XIXe siècles); recherches
historiques appuyées sur l’analyse des sources narratives et juridiques des sultan-
ats de Sulu (c. 1450-c. 1900) et de Mindanao (c. 1520-c. 1900)” (Paris: l’Ecole
Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2013): 161. - Anthony Reid, “Religion in Early Modern Southeast Asia: Synthesising Global
and Local”, in Judith Schlehe and Evamaria Sandkuhler (eds), Religion, Tradition
and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe (Bielefeld: transcript
Verlag, 2014): 57. - Ghislaine Loyré-de-Hautecloque, A la recherche de l’Islam philippin: la communauté
maranao (Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan, 1989): 127. - NA, VOC 8143, Meeting of the Political Council, 9 October 1780, fo. 4-11.