Kinship, Islam, and Raiding in Maguindanao, c. 1760–1780the chiefs (raja) of north Sulawesi’s small polities (rijkjes). For the local
raja, it affirmed not only his legitimacy but also secured the continued
existence of his polity as an entity of its own.^31 It likewise assured the
ruling elite’s status difference from and dominance over their subjects
as well as their horizontal equivalence with neighboring ruling families.
Conversion to the religion of the Company might even provide the
impetus for the creation of a new polity as in the case of Bintauna in
north Sulawesi. In 1766, it was recognized by the Company as a separate
polity after its chief and his people converted and had escaped from the
supposed oppressive rule of their former overlord, Gorontalo’s Muslim
queen.^32 The sending of the Tombelo children to Maguindanao could
therefore ominously signal a repudiation of the political privileges and
obligations attached with being a Christian vassal of the Company.
Religion as a political marker seems to have intensified through the
course of the eighteenth century. In 1759 the Company had set a pro-
hibition on the sale of Christian slaves. By 1770 a more encompassing
regulation was introduced which among other things prescribed that no
Christian masters could buy or alienate Christian slaves.^33 An event in
1769 could illustrate this privileging according to religious affiliation.
In that year the Company functionaries redeemed Filipinos (with ap-
parently Spanish-derived names as “Kulas”, “Isko” and “Pedro”) from
their Sulu captors who brought them to Ternate. Aware of the 1762
bill (plakkaat) that no Spanish subjects should be purchased as slaves
- ANRI Manado inv. 65, no. 1, Contract between Marcus Manoppo and the VOC,
30 October 1773, ‘Fatsal yang kadalapan: Salagi oleh Panghoeloe tiada akan boleh
mengambel istrinya atauw dikawinkan kaffir, melainkan dengan orang sabagitoe
jang ada masaranij Christahon jang ada sasoengoe dan benar.’ The original Dutch
translation is as follows: ‘Wijders en zal de Regent niet vermogen een onchristen
tot zijn gemalinne te nemen of trouwen, maar alleen zodanig ene die van de
Christelijke gereformeerde religie zij’. The chief is prohibited to marry a non-
Christian woman, but only allowed to marry someone belonging to the Dutch
Reformed church. - See KITLV Archives (Leiden), KITLV H 91, Bundel contracten van de Residentie
Menado, no. 3: Korte Aantekeningen op de bestaande Kontracten in de Residentie
Menado; F.W. Stapel, Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, vol. 6 1753–1799
(’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955): 592–95. - Carla van Wamelen, Family life onder de VOC: Een handelscompagnie in huwelijks-
en gezinszaken (Hilversum: Verloren, 2014): 126–27.