The beginning of the end for the Philippine pirates known as the Balangingi and the Iranun came

at around 1845, when a naval expedition against the Balangingi was led by the ambitious Narciso Claveria, the governor-general of the Philippines at the time. However, this expedition was ultimately a failure. Prior to 1848, Spanish policy centered on regulation of piracy, sending periodic naval attacks to contain the pirates. However, due to fears that Dutch and British powers were expanding their colonial territories in the Philippine archipelago, more aggressive policies were adopted. Until then, the military conflict between the Spanish and the Balangingi, as well as the Iranun pirates, was at a seemingly endless stalemate. However, combined army and naval Spanish forces had finally brought it to an end, when Samal strongholds at Balangingi were decimated, scattering survivors who were left. This served as the turning point in the history of the century-long conflict between Spain and the slave raiders.1 This new policy and constant military operation by the Spanish as well as the English caused the loss of many Balangingi and Iranun communities, forcing many to relocate to different areas of operation. This Samal stronghold, known as the fort of Sipac, which was heavily fortified after the first unsuccessful Spanish attack, was eventually destroyed in 1848 by overwhelming Spanish forces. Governor- general Narciso Claveria had achieved one of the most important military feats in the nineteenth century history of colonial warfare in Southeast Asia2 in an unimaginably savage and violent devastation of the Samal people, as described by Emilio Bernaldez, who served under Claveria. Hundreds of Samal men, women and children were mercilessly bombarded and attacked by warship cannons, bayonets and blades. The lopsidedness of the battle can almost be called a massacre. Although hundreds of Balangingi were killed, a significant population had been away from the battle at Sipac, conducting trades all across Southeast Asia. Returning to their home was nothing short of a horror. Suffering such heavy losses forestalled the Balangingi from ever regaining their past
1 James Warren, Iranun and Balangingi: globalization, maritime raiding and the birth of ethnicity (University of Hawaii Press, 2003), 345. 2 Ibid., 348.

strength. One of those who were away, Julano Taupan, was considered one of the most remarkable figures of one of the most influential maritime ethnic groups of mid-nineteenth century Southeast Asia3 as the last great Muslim raiding chiefs. The few who had survived the onslaught at Sipac together with those who had been away were led by Taupan's new angle of leadership. In the fateful years between 1848 and 1851, Taupan was forced to pause ad reassess where he was in the world and what was truly important to him. It was because of the catastrophic event, the wholesale destruction and dispossession of his homeland, and the death of many friends that reflected on what was really important in the lives of the Balangingi as an ethnic group.4 The battle of Sipac served as a truly horrific climax to the story of the Balangingi people. From then on, only small Balangingi groups were left to operate at little-known areas. Spanish anti-piracy campaigns continued to drag on for over a decade more, preventing the pirates from ever recovering from their tragic fall. By the 1860s, a Spanish fleet of steamers were used to blockade key straits used for slave raiding.5 Thus marks the end of the Balangingi, as any historical or geographical records of their ethnic group after said events vanish from history.

3 James Warren, Iranun and Balangingi: globalization, maritime raiding and the birth of ethnicity (University of Hawaii Press, 2003), 361. 4 Ibid., 361. 5 Ibid., 344.