Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asiadispossession of land. From the late seventeenth until the early eight-
eenth centuries, Manganitu and Siau struggled for supremacy over
the land of Tamako, “the most fertile of all of Sangir”.^112 Manganitu’s
claim over Tamako had more historical basis than that of Siau leading
a Company official to comment that the former had “equal if not more
rights over Tamako”.^113 Nonetheless, Siau succeeded in shifting the
political favor of the Company into its direction. The chiefs of Siau had
been allowed to settle in Tamako as early as 1695, while the chiefs of
Manganitu were ordered to be expelled in 1733.^114
The dissatisfaction of Manganitu with the Dutch-dominated state
of affairs in Sangir materialized during the Maguindanao raids of north
Sulawesi and Maluku in the 1770s. A fleet of twenty-four Maguindanao
raiding vessels on their way to Sulawesi in 1777, anchored, replenished
provisions and repaired vessels in Manganitu, within sight of its raja,
Salomon Katiandaho. Salomon convinced the Company-appointed in-
digenous church assistant (kerkmarinjo) that “Manganitu is unlike Siau
or Tagulandang which are continually at war with Maguindanao ... the
Maguindanao are our special friends” and thus deserved Manganitu’s
cooperation.^115 Manganitu provided the Maguindanaos with an extra
vessel as well as navigators who had knowledge of the region’s bays and
inlets.^116 The leaders of the fleet, the famed Tidorese prince Haji Umar,
himself married to a Maguindanao woman,^117 and the Maguindanao
anakhoda Udung supposedly uttered to the raja: “The fire of war
[against the Company] has now been lighted and ... we are glad that
- NA, VOC 8163, Memorie wegens den presenten staat van saaken in de Moluccos,
opgesteld door Jan Elias van Mijlendonk, afgaande Gouverneur en Directeur van
Ternaten, 20 July 1756, 10-17 - Ibid.
- Ibid.
- NA, VOC 8141, Ternate 3, Copia dagregister gehouden door den onderkoopman
Hemmekam gedurende zijne commissie naar de Sangirsche eilanden (ontvangen
anno 1780), see testimony of the schoolmaster of old Manganitu, Amos Christofel
Frans Kiriwenno on the presence of the Maguindanaos in 27 June 1777, fol. 71. - NA, VOC 8141, Ternate 2, Copia secreete resolutien beginnende met den 5
Februarij en eindigende den 1 September 1780, see report of Onderkoopman
Francois Bartholomeus Hemmekam on his visit to Sangir 26 May 1780, fol. 106. - NA, VOC 8141, Ternate 3, Copia dagregister gehouden door den onderkoopman
Hemmekam gedurende zijne commissie naar de Sangirsche eilanden (ontvangen
anno 1780), see examination of Sidano, a Manganitu-born kapitein, fol. 88.