The ceramic trade across the South China Sea
Barbara Harrisson’s 2003 article traces the development and collapse of the Chinese ceramic trade across the South China Sea to Brunei and the Philippines between approximately 1350 and 1650, arguing that the trade was initially driven by native demand for imported porcelains in burial and status contexts, was shaped by shifting Chinese dynastic policies, and was ultimately destroyed by the collision of Spanish colonial expansion with established Muslim-Malay commercial networks. The article draws on Chinese, Arab, European, and archaeological sources to reconstruct a trade system in which Brunei occupied a pivotal position as the most prestigious internationally linked port on the eastern seaboard of the South China Sea by 1500.
Summary
Harrisson begins with the Chu-fan-chi of 1225, which documents the early barter economy along the Borneo and Philippine coasts, where Chinese merchants exchanged umbrellas, green porcelain, lacquered bowls, silks, and iron pots for wax, mats, and foodstuffs. She then moves through the Yuan Dynasty period (1279–1368), when maritime trade expanded dramatically under Mongol encouragement of private enterprise and foreign participation, and the potteries of Jingdezhen underwent technical innovation, including the adoption of cobalt blue underglaze painting in response to Islamic taste. The native peoples of the region, already sophisticated potters in their own right, were drawn to imported Chinese ceramics by their superior technical and aesthetic qualities, and their own pottery craft subsequently declined. Archaeological evidence from Luzon burial sites, where 10 to 50 imported pots have been found placed together in native graves, supports the interpretation that demand was driven by genuine aesthetic appreciation rather than mere imitation of merchant families.
The Ming Dynasty (from 1368) introduced government control over trade through the tribute system, initially prohibiting private foreign trade altogether. The Yongle emperor’s fleets, led by the Muslim admiral Zhenghe from 1405, established depots in Malacca and extended Chinese diplomatic reach to East Africa. By the Xuande reign, 58 kilns were operating at Jingdezhen, and blue-and-white porcelains decorated in Islamic taste were shipped through government channels. Emperor Chenghua (1465–87) eventually permitted privately marked porcelain to be sold to foreign customers, and the reign-mark system (nian hao) became a mark of prestige among overseas clients. Brunei’s sultans, linked to Ming China through tribute missions and to Muslim Malacca through marriage and commerce, leveraged these connections to build a regional trading empire extending into Sulu, Mindanao, and Luzon. The sultan’s administration was based on control of peoples rather than territory, with officials holding hereditary appanages, and the trade in Borneo camphor, aromatics, Sulu pearls, and wax flowed through Brunei Bay to Malacca and onward.
The Portuguese conquest of Malacca in 1511 and the Spanish arrival in 1521 fundamentally disrupted this system. Harrisson devotes considerable attention to the 1578 Spanish attack on Brunei by Captain General de Sande, which destroyed the sultan’s mosque, plundered noble houses, and was followed by a Spanish occupation of Sulu. The resulting decades of conflict between Spanish Christian forces and Muslim-Malay defenders transformed Islam into an ideological force rationalizing resistance as jihad. Muslim raiding fleets, protected by sea nomads and Bugis fighters, netted hundreds of captives, while Spanish policy aimed at the total eradication of Islam in the region. By the 1660s, Sulu had usurped the Brunei throne, and Brunei lost the territory that is now Sabah. The porcelain trade itself became irrelevant as Chinese ceramic exports increasingly oriented toward Europe, and the ‘Kraak’ wares of the Wanli period (1573–1619) became famous in the Dutch trade to Europe rather than in the local markets that had once absorbed them.
Key Findings
- The Chu-fan-chi (1225) records that Chinese merchants carried green porcelain dishes, lacquered bowls, umbrellas, silks, and iron pots for barter at Philippine and Borneo ports, and that a waiting period at anchorage was required before trade could commence (p. 99).
- By the Xuande reign (1426–36), 58 kilns were in operation at Jingdezhen, producing blue-and-white porcelains in Islamic taste for government-directed export (p. 103).
- A trade junk recovered off Brunei Bay was loaded with approximately 12,000 ceramic items, including blue-and-white porcelains from Jingdezhen, dating to the sixteenth century (p. 107).
- The 1578 Spanish attack on Brunei, led by Captain General de Sande, resulted in the burning of the sultan’s five-tiered mosque, the plundering of noble houses and war boats, and the seizure of arsenals; the Spanish garrison subsequently fell ill and withdrew (p. 109).
- In 1662, Sulu usurped the Brunei throne following internal succession disputes; the resulting ten-year crisis cost Brunei the territory now known as Sabah (p. 112).
- The San Diego, a Manila galleon wrecked in 1600 off the west coast of Luzon, carried 500 blue-and-white pieces and 750 utilitarian pieces originally destined for New Mexico, evidencing the volume of Chinese porcelain shipped via the Pacific galleon trade (p. 113, n. 16).
Conclusion
Harrisson’s definitive takeaway is that the collapse of the traditional Muslim trade of the South China Sea was not caused by any single event but by the cumulative effect of Spanish colonization, which locked Christian-European and Muslim-Malay forces in continuous conflict from the 1570s onward, destroying the institutional and social infrastructure that had sustained the ceramic trade for centuries. The region’s natural resources were diminished, its people displaced, and the porcelain trade itself became irrelevant as Chinese exports reoriented toward European markets.
Context
- The article draws on a wide range of primary sources including the Chu-fan-chi, Pigafetta’s account of Magellan’s 1521 visit to Brunei, de Sande’s 1578 dispatches, and the Locsin excavations in the Philippines, alongside archaeological evidence from shipwrecks and burial sites.
- Harrisson’s own earlier monograph Later Ceramics in South-East Asia: Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries (1995) provides the ceramic typological framework underpinning the attribution discussions in the final section of this article.