Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asiathe highly-differentiated island world bordering the Pacific Ocean, that
does not fit into the Asian military revolution paradigm. It will consider
these islands on their own terms to get a better view of why the sweep-
ing military changes were not occurring here as they did elsewhere. As
the discussion about “military revolutions” often revolves around ques-
tions of military technology and the ways it is sustained by state and
society, this chapter focuses particularly on the relationship between
military power, both at land and at sea, and state formation. It deals with
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the time when the Europeans
started to move into the region. The analysis begins by outlining the
pre-colonial state of affairs in Formosa, present day Taiwan; Luzon and
the Visayas, as well as Mindanao, which are now parts of the Philippines;
the Moluccas, the Amboina Islands, the Banda Islands, contemporary
Indonesia; and, finally, the Timor group, nowadays divided between
Indonesia and Timor Leste. It may come as a surprise that Taiwan is
portrayed as a part of Southeast Asia in this chapter. However, in terms
of culture and ethnicity, early modern Taiwan had much more in com-
mon with Southeast Asia than with East Asia, notwithstanding the
short distance to mainland China. The chapter will close with some
conclusions.
Formosa (Taiwan)In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, unlike today,
Formosa was hardly populated by people of Chinese origin. Insofar as
Chinese people were present, they consisted of Fujianese, occasionally
fishing along the coasts and exporting deer skin. In earlier centuries,
the southwest coast of Formosa had been a landmark for Chinese
traders heading for the Spice Islands in the eastern part of what is now
Indonesia. In the sixteenth century, it was also an incidental refuge for
pirates from China and Japan. But, if Formosa was not yet inhabited by
Chinese, who were living there? In the beginning of the early modern
period, Formosa was inhabited by some 20 cultural groups, nowadays
collectively labeled “aboriginal Formosans”. Linguistically, they were
the most northern branch of the Austronesians, the dominant language
family of Southeast Asia. Formosa had a surface area of about 36,000
km^2 , almost the same as the present-day Netherlands, from where the
island’s first colonizers would originate. In the middle of the seventeenth