The aim of this book is to explore ethnic, cultural, and material changes in the transformative history(s) of oceans and seas, commodities and populations, mariners and ships, and raiders and refugees in Southeast Asia, with particular reference to the Sulu-Mindanao region, or the "Sulu Zone." Examining the profound changes that were taking place in the Sulu-Mindanao region and elsewhere at the end of the eighteenth century, this book establishes an ethnohistorical framework for understanding the emerging inter-connected patterns of global commerce, long distance maritime trading, and the...

First published in 1981, The Sulu Zone deals with a fascinating geographical, cultural and historical "border zone" centered on the Sulu and Celebes Seas between 1768 an 1898, and its complex interactions with China and the West. The author examines the social and cultural forces generated within the Sulu Sultanate by the China trade, namely the advent of organized, long distance maritime slave raiding and the assimilation of captives on a hitherto unprecedented scale into a traditional Malayo-Muslim social system.
His work analyzes the dynamics of the last autonomous Malayo-Muslim...