elements,
the Tagimaha and Baklaya tribes, who settled on the Western Coast and
on the stretch of land which is the present site of Jolo. These four
tribes then form the Moro nation.
"In
the fourteenth century the Samals also came. They were roving
seamen—nomads of the ocean. Their numbers were exceedingly large and
they settled in the island groups of Tawi-Tawi, Siasi, Pangutarang,
Basilan, Zamboanga and on Sulu proper, wherever none contested their
coming. But the newly arrived had not conquered nor were they absorbed.
The relations were those of master and slave or ruler and ruled, and to
this day the Samal is only a stranger in the land."
From
time immemorial the Sulus were pirates. Their expeditions were
extensive, and scarcely an island washed by the China Sea but knew
their strength and feared their coming. Even the great Raja of Manila
regularly sent hostages to Jolo. Piracy was in the people's blood, and
like all Malayans, they loved to rove the seas in their praus to attack
towns and villages, kill those who resisted, make slaves of the free,
and above all to pounce upon any well-freighted but ill-protected ship.
Piracy
being second nature to the Malayan, these islands seemed made for his
nefarious trade. The creeks, the shallows, headlands, rocks and reefs
facilitated lurking surprise attacks and easy escapes and gave shelter
in boisterous weather.
The
coming of Islam to the island, followed by the Spanish incursion and
then by the United States dominion, gradually wrought changes in this
respect as in other things, but to the very day of my arrival piracy
was rife in Jolo and persists there now.
The
Sulus never exceeded 60,000 in number, but before the coming to the
islands of Magellan their power was felt all over Luzon, the Visayan
Islands, the Celebes Sea, North Borneo and the China Sea, and their
trade extended from China to Japan at the one extreme and to Malacca,
Sumatra and Java at the other.
