Linking Seas and Oceans in and beyond Island Southeast Asia: Following Maritime Peoples across Geographical Scales and Boundaries

Situated at the interstices of the South China Sea and the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the eastern stretch of island Southeast Asia and the maritime peoples who inhabit those waters pose a unique challenge for historians interested in using seas and oceans as the spatial framework of their studies. There we find multiple overlapping local, regional, and international networks of interaction and exchange that flow across the imagined boundaries dividing the South China Sea, Sulu Sea, Celebes Sea, Banda Sea, Timor and Arafura Seas, as well as the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The commercial and cultural connections traversing these supposedly separate segments of maritime space are strong, with far reaching historical roots. Major port cities and entrepôts are linked to numerous coastal settlements, backwater trading posts, inland villages, and key resource zones across the length and breadth of this vast maritime space. Perhaps more than any other group, the semi-nomadic Sama Bajo have long played a key role in establishing and maintaining these connections. The highly mobile Sama Bajo are among the most knowledgeable and skilled seafarers, and they are the primary collectors of valuable marine resources. Sama Bajo peoples traveled widely throughout this seascape and their activities were central to some of the region’s most important commerce, namely the trade in slaves, spices, sea slugs, and tortoiseshell. More than simple fisherfolk or sailors, however, the Sama Bajo were also integral allies of the region’s powerful kingdoms. In this role they not only carried out important trade but they also served as navies, maritime raiders, and as territorial powers in their own right. The mobility and sea-centered culture of the Sama Bajo placed them at the forefront of maritime trade and political expansion throughout the early modern period, and linked the seas and oceans in ways that confound conventional geographies.