Note 70 — Chapter III · Rise and Prosperity of Sulu

The Sulus have in their families many Bisayan, some Spanish slaves, whom they purchase from the Ilanun and Magindanao cruisers. Sometimes they purchase whole cargoes, which they carry to Passir, on Borneo, where, if the females are handsome, they are bought up for the Batavia market. The masters sometimes use their slaves cruelly, assuming the power of life and death over them. Many are put to death for trifling offenses, and their bodies left above the ground. An attempt of elopement is here seldom pardoned, or indeed at Magindanao. Yet, the distance being so small from either Sulu or Slangan,70 to the Spanish settlement, I have wondered how any stay, as they are not closely confined.