The History of Sulu

by Najeeb M. Saleeby

2. The sultan and members of the council of state should be appointed by the Governor-General and should have salaries.

3. A new treaty should be made in order to rectify those clauses of the treaty of 1878 pertaining to the maintenance of peace and the guarantee of safety of life and property.

4. Slavery should be abolished, radically and thoroughly.

5. Compulsory tribunals of justice or courts should be established to relieve datus and chiefs of the exercise of such functions.

6. Commerce should be encouraged and rendered free for all boats for a period of twenty-five years.

7. Roads should be constructed to facilitate communication and transportation from the central region of the island to its principal harbors.

8. Agriculture should be developed and colonies encouraged.

9. Necessities should be created for the Moros, providing them at the same time with means for satisfying them. Children of the sultan and datus should be educated in Manila, and schools for the Moro dialect should be established and made accessible to the public.

Purpose of Spain

A few closing remarks on the purpose and interests of Spain in Sulu and the resources she had available for carrying out this purpose may not be out of place in order to give the reader a clear idea of the final policy which Spain had for Sulu and to enable him to grasp the scope, complexity, and difficulties of this problem. However, in discussing these subjects and the changes they were intended to bring about it must be remembered that every project on the part of the sovereign nation or Spain calls for consideration from two points of view—the first is whether the agency employed was sufficient and adequate to impose the change and carry it through; the second is the amount of resistance such a project encountered on the part of the subject nation or Sulu, and in case the resistance could be overcome, whether or not a nation like that of the Sulus was developed sufficiently for the requirements of the change and for subsequent adaptation to the system it was proposed to inaugurate.