So many allusions have been made to the pirate activities in Sulu that it seem necessary to devote a chapter to the organization of this not inconsiderable part of the Moro resistance to Spain. These small islands spawned the terrible freebooters who laid waste the coasts of the East Indian Archipelago.

In order to approach properly the subject of Piracy in Sulu it should be remembered that to the Moro, piracy was the profession of a gentleman. For centuries these Indonesian sailors pillaged the coasts in conducting a huge slave traffic which supplemented their legitimate trading voyages.

In the romantic literature of the sea, they are referred to as the "Malay pirates" and their exploits have been the basis for many stirring tales of fiction.

The pirates of Sulu are not, however, figures from a dim past. Their career extends down to the twentieth century. In 1868, the Governor-General of the Philippines issued the customary annual edict to the inhabitants of the coast towns, warning of the approach of the pirate season. As late as 1908, the International Instructions to Mariners carried warnings that the Straits of Basilan were infested with Sulu pirates. During this same year headlines in the newspapers carried advice of pirate outrages within twenty miles of the city of Zamboanga. Under the date of August 22, 1908, the Mindanao Herald of Zamboanga published a story of the pirating of a pearling lugger off Tonquil Island under the headline:

This after a decade of American occupation!

The Sulu pirates operated from well-fortified strongholds located at strategic points in the southern islands. The expeditions were organized to a degree comparable to modern warfare. The Moro pirates guarded their settlements with pretentious cottas constructed upon hill crests. The walls of these forts were of a double thickness of tree trunks solidly filled with earth or coral rock. The fortresses were nearly square, and upon the walls were solid posts mounting brass swivel cannon. Some of these walls were as much as thirty feet in height and many were more than twenty feet in thickness.

Sitanki Island, at the extreme southern tip of the Philippine group and only fourteen miles across the straits from Borneo, was one of the favorite posts of the pirates. For centuries a pirate garrison was maintained there to command this sailing route of Australian clippers. The shores of Sitanki are strewn with the wrecks of noble ships that fell victims to these pirates. Many towering clippers, listed in the annals of sea as missing, found their resting place on the white sands of Sitanki.

The big clippers were boarded far out on the rollers of the open sea by fleets of swift-sailing pirate ships. Not even the well-armed ships of exploration escaped the notice of the Sulu pirates.

As mentioned previously, another great pirate base of the Moros was on Sarangani Island near Mindanao, where extensive slave-trading operations were conducted. Another citadel was at Mambarao on Mindoro Island, eventually destroyed by a Spanish fleet from Cavite. Still another was on Burias Island, within striking distance of manila which is only ninety miles away.

The main seat of the pirate activity was in the Samales group of islands south of Basilan Island. Here, at Balanguingue and Tonquil Islands, the Moros constructed great forts which were ingeniously protected by shallow coral reefs and towering walls of earth. These strongholds were a source of constant annoyance until the year 1848, when an attack by a Spanish steam gun-boats under Claveria resulted in their complete destruction.

The story of the bloody assault on Balanguigue and Tonquil belongs properly in the section devoted to the later phases of the Spanish-Moro conflict, and it may be found there in the chapter called "The Later Wars."

To a casual inquirer, piracy might appear to have been a casual and disorganized profession, conducted upon purely individual lines. During the course of the seven years devoted to the collection of material for this book, the writer found much to alter such belief. In the course of conversations with the old men of many barrios and with other reformed pirate characters of the coast, it became apparent that piracy in Sulu waters was a well-organized business. It is true that we find evidences of many raids presided over by individual geniuses and conducted without the sanction of the Sultan, but in the main, piracy appears to have been well-developed along privateer lines.

The pirates in general (excluding the unauthorized raids of individuals), appear to have been separated into two classifications.

The first of these consisted of the Sultanic expeditionary forces, who plundered under the direction of the ruler and who held commissions as a part of the armed forces of the Sultan. Under the command of a Datu, these naval forays were conducted to enrich the strong-box and the harem of the Sultan. At the conclusion of the expedition, the booty was placed in a pile and the captured women were ranged in a line. After the royal inspection, the Sultan made a selection from the two treasures and the balance was distributed among the officers and crew.

The second and logical development of piracy occurred with the formation of the privateers. These expeditions, independently recruited by a nakura, or commander, conducted forays under the sanction of the Sultan, to whom was paid a retainer of fealty amounting to one quarter of the spoil.

The pirates used a specialized vessel which came down through the years almost unchanged in its detail. This craft, called a garay, was a long narrow boat propelled by sails and bay a bank of forty or fifty oarsmen. With the garay was employed the smaller vinta as an auxiliary vessel. The vinta was a small sailing vessel equipped with bamboo outriggers (as was the garay), and capable of sailing at a tremendous speed.

Father Combes, in his "Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago," tells us:
"Their boats were built with a view to piracy and are designed especially for speed. Many of these boats provide for a crew of sixty men although they are only twelve brazo's ¹ in length. I have seen one that was manned by three hundred hands. Outriggers of bamboo give them the steadiness and strength."

Captain Thomas Forrest, who sailed the small sapit, Tartary Galley, in the Philippines in 1774, also gives us a picture of the pirate vessel of the day. He mentions seeing in the harbor of Cagayan, a pirate ship belonging to the Rajah which was outfitting for a cruise of the Philippines. The ship was of four tons burden and was armed with four lantakas carrying a quarter-pound ball.

Forrest tells us:
"They build their vessels of various dimensions and employ them in trading from one port to another, often cruising the Philippines Islands for slaves and plunder. They cruise also as far as the island of Java and the islands of Celebes and Borneo, seizing whatever praos they can master. The vessels are always very long for the breadth."

The pirates were horrible in attack. They employed as weapons the kris, the wavy-edged sword with a double cutting surface, the blade of which was incised with blood channels. The wooden or ivory handle was often heavily ornamented with silver or gold. The kris is one of the most terrible offensive weapons to be developed by man. The frightful wounds inflicted by its wavy cutting edge are difficult to heal and the tremendous leverage engendered by the offset handle makes possible the cleaving in two of a man at a stroke, It has been stated that the remarkable temper of the kris furnished a cutting blade equal in every particular of the finest steel of Toledo and Damascus.

The kris was a boarding weapon for hand-to-hand conflict and was supplemented by the barong, a heavier, single-edged knife, and by the campilan, a tremendous two-handed sword.

For distant offensive work the Moro pirates made use of the simbilan, a small bamboo spear with an iron or fire-hardened point. The dexterity with which the Moros handled this weapon was amazing. Some of the pirates were able to hurl as many as five of the spears in one motion, causing them to spread in their flight. They were intended primarily to force the crews of attacked vessels to seek cover, during which interval the Moros could board for close work with the kris, barong and campilan.

For artillery, the Moros employed the lantaka, probably the oldest form of portable ordnance in the world. The lantaka was a brass swivel cannon, often as long as six feet and capable of propelling a half-pound ball. The lantaka was bored by hand. The long guns were sunk into a pit and carefully packed with dirt to maintain them in a vertical position. The barrel was then bored by a company of men walking around and around to turn the crude hand bits. Considering the conditions under which these cannon were manufactured, the workmanship was remarkable.

The Moros were not familiar with the compound swivel, permitting a movement in any direction, as used on the mounts of modern machine guns. In consequence, the range of the lantaka was limited, as the amount of vertical elevation was small.

All available evidence indicates that the use of the lantaka has been known to the Moros for a period of at least five centuries. It was probably introduced to the Philippines from Borneo. Jernigan's "History of the Philippines," notes that Goiti, at the capture of Manila in 1570, observed a clay and wax mold of a brass cannon more than fifteen feet in length.

Until recent years, the lantaka was valued very highly by the Moros. It was not until they had become thoroughly convinced of the superiority of the modern high-powered rifle, that the Moros could be prevailed upon to sell a lantaka for less than five hundred pesos. In recent years their value has declined greatly.

The Sulu pirates wore coats of mail, fashioned of plates of the horn of the carabao and fastened with lengths of brass wire. This armor was effective against edged weapons but provided no protection against the arquebus fire of the Spaniards.

No adequate defense against these pirates was developed until the advent of steam gun-boats in 1848. The old Spanish men-of-war were unable to cope with the swift-sailing pirate ships. A special force was raised in the Philippines in the later days of the struggle with the Moros. This anti-pirate force, called the Marina Sutil, or light navy, was a patrol system devised by Spain.

The men of the Marina Sutil operated from flat boats propelled by sails and oars. The boats were half-decked forward and carried a long brass cannon with smaller swivel guns at the quarters. The boats were coppered on the bottom to allow scraping on the coral reefs with a minimum of damage, and were fitted with an after cabin. They carried a crew of fifty to sixty men. Flotillas of the Marina Sutil patrolled the seas of Sulu for more than a decade in a vain attempt to curb piracy. They were succeeded by steam vessels in 1848.

As a part of the armed resistance against Spain, the pirates played a not inconsiderable part in the demoralization of the Spaniards. They were very valuable naval aids to the land forces of the Moros. We find Father Combes writing in 1860:
"The depredations live in the memories of the Visayans and especially in Leyte where there is scarcely a town which is not lamenting its ruin; who came against our people in strong force, having robbed us of Palo the capital and ruined all of the towns of the coast, carrying prisoner the Father Redentor who exercised office for the entire country, and obliged villagers to flee to the mountain towns for protection. The Moros supported themselves by their own valor, setting their courage against all and failing against none. It is a nation that is brave on land and sea."

When Wallace, the great English naturalist, visited the Malay Archipelago in the nineteenth century he was particularly impressed by the activity of the pirates. We find him writing:
"Opposite us and along the coast of Batchian, stretches a row of fine islands completely uninhabited. Whenever I asked the reason why no one goes there to live, the answer was always, "For fear of the Maguindanao pirates." The scourges of the archipelago wander every year in one direction or the other, making their rendezvous on some uninhabited island, and carrying desolation to all of the settlements around… their long well-manned praos escape from the pursuit of a sailing vessel by pulling away right into the wind's eye, and the warning smoke of a steamer generally enables them to hide in some shallow bay or narrow river or forest covered inlet until the danger is past."

An encounter with these pirates is related by Wallace in "The Malay Archipelago":
"A small prao arrived which had been attacked by pirates and had a man wounded… The natives were of course dreadfully alarmed as these marauders attack their villages, burn and murder and carry away their women and children as slaves. Several praos were sent out to search for them, sentinels were appointed and watch fires lighted on the beach to guard against the possibility of a night attack. The next day the praos returned and we had definite information that these scourges of the Eastern seas were really among us. One of the praos had been attacked as it was returning. The crew escaped in their small boat and hid in the jungle while the pirates came up and plundered the boat. They had four large war boats and fired a volley of musketry as they came up and sent of their small boats to attack. Two other praos were also plundered and the crews murdered to a man. They are said to be Sooloo pirates."

In defense of the pirates of Sulu, it must be said that the Moros fought Spain with the weapons at hand. Theirs was the invaded country and theirs was the imperiled religion; they had a choice of weapons in this duel with Spain. Not the least of the weapons employed were the pirates of Sulu. They were extremely formidable antagonists and the victories they won on the sea were an important aid in the thwarting of the Spanish conquest of Mindanao and Sulu.

This volume attempts in no way to make heroes of the Moro pirates. No more blood-thirsty crew of buccaneers has sailed the oceans of the world. But they were as legitimately a part of the organized resistance against Spain as were the privateer fleets of any nation in wartime.

They murdered and enslaved and looted, but war at its kindest is always cruel and the Moros held no monopoly in the execution of atrocities. The Spanish-Moro struggle was a religious war with two rival groups of intense fanatics in a struggle which sought the extermination of the loser.

The military history of a people must treat not with causes but with effects. Blood-thirsty as these pirates were, their methods were successful, and they must be given credit for their remarkable seamanship and extreme bravery under fire. Of such virtues is martial history constructed. Their Spanish antagonists conceded to them the virtues of superlative skill upon the sea and an unquenchable eagerness in attack.

Their method of attack was a simultaneous assault form all directions, approaching close under the sides of a vessel in order to hurl their spears with the greatest effect. The pirates were careless of the cost of victory, and frequently a quarry was not captured until every member of the pirate crew bore at least one honorable wound.

The pirates of Sulu were eliminated as an organized body in 1848. The destruction of the scattered survivors was accomplished by the American forces during the first decade of the twentieth century.

Piracy was replaced by the smuggling which still persists in the islands of Sulu in spite of the stabilizing effect of thirty years of American occupation.

The piracy of Sulu was a sea phase of the military history of the Moros. The superb seamanship of the Moros exhibited as pirates, when taken in conjunction with their military prowess against the land forces of Spain, gives deservedly to the Moros the proud title of amphibian warriors of the Pacific.