Contesting Modes of Colonialism

Abstract

The Spanish entrance to Island Southeast Asia in the sixteenth century had profoundimpacts on native peoples and terrain, but followed a millennia of intrusion into the region by Indian (Hindu), Buddhist, Chinese, Muslim, and native traders who established entrepôts in the Indonesian Archipelago from Malaka to Java to the Moluccas Islands. This trading network extended from Venice to Guangzhou. The southern Philippines lay at the edge, but participated in the trade of cloves, nutmeg, pepper, and other spices and forest products, first through Majapahit and later through Chinese traders. A consulary visit to China from Butuan was recorded in the eleventh century in the Chinese Song Shih, and a Cham trade mission was reported in 1001. Nine plank-hulled boats dating from the eleventh century were found buried in flood deposits in the Agusan del Sur River in Butuan, Mindanao, and, along with Song Dynasty ceramic artifacts, demonstrate the trade’s global reach . A century before Spanish colonization, Muslim pilots and traders initiated the spread of Islam. This has made an imprint on the region. Islamic conversion contrasted with Christian colonial patterns of subjugation and led to persistent boundaries and enduring, localized, and cultural effects that continue to shape ethnic and political divisions.