Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asiatary, on the commercial relations between Banten and the peoples of
Maguindanao and Sulu. Banten alongside Makassar, Banjarmasin and
Jepara were some of the preferred destinations of Maguindanao trad-
ers.^26 The Bantenese noble Syarif Hassan was known to have visited Sulu
in the late eighteenth century to collect a debt on behalf of his uncle, the
“chief of the Moors” in Batavia.^27
The anxiety caused to the Company by the sending of a vassal’s child
to Maguindanao and the consequent reassurance of being Christian by
the vassal (Marapati) himself appear in the first instance not a question
of religion but of realpolitik. In the same year of the discovery of the
incident with Tombelo’s children, the Maguindanaos were rumored
to be planning the invasion of the Company-ruled Sangir and install a
captive Sangirese prince (Hendrik Paparang) as their own vassal on Siau
Island.^28 In the previous years, the Maguindanaos had launched daring
expeditions in the Company’s northernmost territories (the Sangir ar-
chipelago) underpinned by an increasing commercial traffic with China
and possibly propelled by the British presence in nearby Sulu.^29
But one could also argue that the Company’s own realpolitik had
assumed a parallel and perhaps even counteractive religious tone.
Although the Company was certainly more tolerant of religious differ-
ences than their Spanish neighbors to the north, it nevertheless strived to
embed religion in its dealings with native societies especially if it would
contribute to a better political and economic position.^30 Conversion
to Protestant Christianity had been a precondition to rule for most of
- NA, VOC 8075, Journal of Jacob Cloek and Nicolas Ploos van Amstel in their
commission to Maguindanao, 30 September 1705, fol. 284. - NA, VOC 8141, Ternate 4, Rapport bij wijse van dagverhaal opgesteld ende over-
gegeven aan den wel edele gestrenger heer Mr. Jacob Roeland Thomaszen gouver-
neur en directeur benevens den raad der Moluccos behelsende het voorgevallene
op de door de ondergeteekende commissianten [A. J. den Hartogh, G. F. Durr en
P. de Koning] gedane expeditie en commissie langs Celebes Noordwestkust tot
Dondo gedateerd 14 Januarij 1780 (ontvangen anno 1780), fo. 121. - NA, VOC 3277, Secret Missive from the Governor of Ternate to Batavia, 25 July
1769, fol. 8. - Fr y, Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808): 136-147.
- The Dutch missions in early modern eastern Indonesia were apparently and in-
terestingly an inspiration for the English missions in the Atlantic, especially with
respect to the use of native missionaries. Edward E. Andrews, Native Apostles: Black
and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2013): 19.