Truly, Sulu is historic

The Tulay Central Mosque in Sulu province. (Image: Al Jacinto)

UNKNOWN TO many Filipinos, the historic province of Sulu has been a part of China’s colorful history, not only because Tausugs had traded barter goods with Chinese merchants in the past, the political relations of the province and cooperation with China dated back to the Yuan dynasty (1278-1368).

The Sulu missions convinced the Chinese to view Sulu as an equal of Malacca. With Chinese co-operation, Sulu subsequently became an international emporium. Sulu entered Philippine history as a place-man in the Tao-I-Chih-Lioh of 1349, a compilation of countries and islands that traded with China put together by the traveler and trader, Wang Ta-yuan (Wang Dayuan) toward the end of the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368 AD).

According to the book “The Philippines In The 6th To 16th Centuries” by E.P. Patanne, Sulu also featured prominently in the annals of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), being among the first country in the Nanhai (the Chinese term for the South China Sea) to send a tribute mission to China in 1370, two years after the founding of the Ming dynasty; then again in 1372. Sulu continued to send tribute missions to China in 1416, 1420, 1421, 1423 and 1424.

Since only foreign countries tributary to the Chinese court were allowed to enter Chinese ports, many countries or principalities in Malaysia sent tribute. Among these was Sulu.

Sulu appears in Chinese sources as early as the Yuan dynasty (1278-1368), and a lengthy account of a tributary mission in 1417 from Sulu to the celestial court is recorded in the Ming Annals. Book 325 of the “History of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) of China,” as abstracted by Groeneveldt, speaks of the Kings (Sultans) of Sulu attacking Puni (Borneo) in 1368.

Portrait of Paduka Batara (Image: National Commission on Culture and the Arts)

Sulu’s first tributary mission to China in AD 1417 may have been in response to the Ming court’s attention to these northern polities. Sulu’s lavishly equipped mission included three Sulu rulers with a retinue of more than three hundred. The rulers presented themselves at court in 1417, and one, Paduka Pahala, was given an imperial jade seal recognizing him as senior to the other two.

Book 325 of the “History of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) of China,” as abstracted by Groeneveldt, speaks of one of them (Batdra Paduka Pahala) died on September 13, 1417 in Te-chou (Dezhou, Shandong Province) on the Grand Canal (Shantung Province). The Emperor then recognized his eldest son, Tumohan, as Sultan of Sulu, in 1417. The brother of Pahala, who was named Suli, made a visit to China in 1421. Sulu rulers sent four trade missions (tributary missions" according to Chinese sources) to China from 1417 to 1424.

Pahala was most famous for being the first king from Sulu to be buried in China. Upon his death due to a mysterious disease on his way home and died, the emperor immediately commissioned artisans and sculptors to build a tomb for the deceased monarch, which still stands today.

The descendants of Pahala remained in China and were subsequently classified as members of the Hui nationality since they converted to Islam while in Shandong and were attended to by Hui people living there. The surnames of the descendants of the two sons Paduka left in Shandong are An and Wen. Pahala was immortalised in the Filipino film “Hari sa Hari, Lahi sa Lahi,” which recounts his voyage to China to give tribute to the Chinese Emperor.

After the last of the Sulus left in 1424, Chinese records indicate no further Sulu tributary missions until the 18th century. Through the 1733 embassy, the Sulu Sultan made it known that his ancestor was the Sulu ruler who had sent tribute to China in 1417 and died there in Shantung that year.

A brief description of Sulu from the brush of a Chinese author writing in 1349. He says: “This place has Shih-i Island as a defense. After three years’ cultivation the fields are lean; they can grow millet and other grains. The people eat sago, fish, shrimps and shellfish. The climate is half hot. The customs are simple. Men and women cut their hair and wear a black turban and a piece of chintz with a minute pattern tied around them. They boil sea-water to make salt, and ferment the juice of the sugar-cane to make spirits. They have a ruler.”

“The native products include laka wood of middling quality, beeswax, tortoise-shell and pearls. These Sulu pearls are whiter and rounder than those found in India and other places. Their prices are very high. The Chinese use them for head ornaments. When they are off color, they are classed as unassorted. There are some over an inch in diameter. The large pearls from this country fetch up to seven or eight hundred. All below this are little pearls. Pearls worth ten thousand taels and upwards, or worth from three or four hundred to a thousand taels, come from the countries of the western ocean and from Ceylon; there are none here in Sulu. The goods used in trading here are dark gold, trade-silver, Pa-tu-la cotton cloth, blue leads, Chu or Choufu chinaware, pieces of iron and such like things.”

In addition to the foregoing, there is the following other accounts of trade, etc., at the end of the fourteenth century: “Trade with Sulu is carried on in the following way: When a ship arrives there, natives take all the goods and carry them for sale into the interior, whilst they sell also to the neighboring countries, and when they come back, the native articles are delivered to our merchants as payment. When many pearls have been found during a year and our traders get large ones, they make a profit of many hundred per cent: but even if there are only a few pearls, still a profit of a hundred per cent is made.”

Governor Sakur Tan

Up to the present, Sulu remains a trading hub in Southeast Asia. The province, now part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, has improved a lot both in infrastructures and economy the past two decades largely due and during the terms of re-elected Governor Sakur Tan, who developed Sulu to what it is now. 

Governor Sakur Tan (Image: Al Jacinto)

The 71-year old Tan, a philanthropist, is being credited for his hardwork in bringing peace and development to the province, and is called the “Father of Modern Sulu.” (Mindanao Examiner)