WHEN people talk about Mindanao and Sulu, for good and for bad, we think of wars and warrior-like people. Many mainly blame Islam for the conflicts, notwithstanding that for centuries before the coming of Islam in the 14th century, there were 13 groups of people who were violently feuding with one another often. Islam united them and brought them together in peace, eventually establishing centralized governments called the sultanates. From the Tausug people of the Sulu archipelago emerged the Sultanate of Sulu. This strengthened the status of Sulu as, in the description of Tausug historian Samuel K. Tan, "a prominent center of commerce in Southeast Asia" even as far back as the 8th to the 13th centuries.
It was Spanish colonialism from the 16th century which threatened the primacy of Sulu in Southeast Asian trade because even if they were never conquered, the Europeans seized the trade with essential China trade and constantly attacked them. So, the slave raiding of coastal towns in the Luzon and the Visayas by the Sulu people was more of a reaction and resistance to colonialism. This furthered the feeling of resentment among the rest of the islands against the Muslims.
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