Draft:Baba Nyonya

Baba Nyonya is a specific subgroup of Chinese Peranakans found in the Straits of Malacca region.

History
The Peranakan are descendants of Han Chinese men and local native women of various ethnicities and religions, including Muslim and Hindu. The Peranakan Straits Chinese of Singapore and Malaysia have Han Chinese paternal ancestry and their Malay ancestry is maternal. The Chinese-mestizo community among the Moro Muslims in the southern Philippines are descended from non-Muslim Han Chinese men and Moro women, partially from Peranakan Straits Chinese men and partially from mainland Han Chinese who moved directly to Mindanao. The Chinese-mestizos among the Moros are not related to Hui Muslims, and follow distinctly Han customs.

Many Peranakan in Java, Indonesia are descendants of non-Muslim Chinese men who married abangan Javanese Muslim women. Most of the Chinese men did not convert to Islam since their Javanese wives did not ask them to, but a minority of Javanese women asked them to convert so a Chinese Muslim community made out of converts appeared among the Javanese. In the late half of the 19th century, Javanese Muslims became more adherent to Islamic rules due to going on hajj and more Arabs arriving in Java, ordering circumcision for converts. The Batavian Muslims in the 19th century completely absorbed the converted Chinese Muslims who originally had their own separate kapitan and community in the late 18th century. The remaining commoner non-Muslim Chinese Peranakans descended from Chinese men and Javanese Muslim women generally stopped marrying Javanese and the elite Peranakans stopped marrying Javanese completely and instead started only marrying fellow Chinese Peranakans in the 19th century, as they realized they might get absorbed by the Muslims. DNA tests done on Chinese Peranakan in Singapore showed that those Peranakan who are mixed with Malays are mostly of paternal Han Chinese descent and of maternal Malay descent. Peranakans in Malaysia and Singapore formed when non-Muslim Chinese men were able to marry Malay Muslim women a long time ago without converting to Islam. This is no longer the case in modern times where anyone who marries Malay women is required to convert to Islam.

Peranakan, Straits Chinese, Baba Nyonya are all names for the descendants of Han Chinese men and their Javanese, Sumatran and Malay wives. Han Chinese men did not allow their women to leave China, so they married local Muslim Javanese and other Southeast Asian women. Dayak women were married by Han Chinese men who settled in Borneo as noted in the 18th century. One Dayak man named Budi mentioned a Chinese man married Budi's sister and that he liked Chinese but he hated Madurese as he was talking about the massacres of Madurese settlers. Malay and Dayak ethnically cleansed Madurese settlers from their and in West Kalimantan starting in Sambas from December 1996 to February 2001 after the Sampit fights in December 2000.

The Chinese are perhaps the most important people in Borneo. They have been traders and settlers on the coast from beyond historic times, and, as has just been stated, have for an equally long period mixed with the natives; so that some Dyaks—the Dusuns especially might almost be classed with them. They are not only traders who amass wealth merely to return with it to their own empire, but miners, agriculturists, and producers, without whom it would be difficult to develop the country. The Philippines, Singapore, and Borneo receive, perhaps, a larger number of these immigrants than any other countries. In Borneo they are scattered over the whole seaboard, carrying on a good deal of the river trade, and supplanting in many ways the less energetic Malay. But they are chiefly to be found in West Borneo, especially in the mining districts, as in Sambas and Montrado (Menteradu) in Dutch territory. Numbers are settled around Bau and Bidi, in Sarawak, and in the capital, Kuching. In North Borneo an irruption of some thousands occurred on the opening up of the country, and great numbers are employed on the tobacco plantations lately established. In Labuan, and in Pengaron in South Borneo, the coal mines were worked by Chinese, and they still act as sago-washers in the former island. Bound together by societies with stringent laws, their system of co-operation enables them to prosper where others would fail. In West Borneo they thus became so powerful as to defy the Dutch Government, who had great difficulty in subduing them. In 1912, Chinese engaged in mass violent riots against Dutch colonial rule in Surayaba and Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.

Among the Straits Chinese (Peranakan) descendants in Sulu, the Philippines is Abdusakur Tan II, the governor.

Many Straits Chinese (Peranakans) migrated from Singapore to Jolo, Sulu and Mindanao to live and trade among the Moro Muslims like the Tausug people and Maguindanaons and sell weapons, rifles, cannon and opium to them in exchange for gutta-percha. Tausug and Chinese married each other and Chinese also converted to Islam. Moros carried out suicide juramentado attacks against the Japanese. Moro juramentados used opium in their attacks against US soldiers. American military officers Charles Wilkes saw Sulu Moro Sultan Mohammed Damaliel Kisand (spelling error of Jamalul Kiram) and his sons smoke opium and he had bloodshot eyes because of it. Datu Uto received Spencer and Enfield rifles from Straits Chinese (Peranakan) merchants. Lantaka swivel bronze cannon were sold by Chinese to the Moros who were fighting the Americans. A novel was written about this.

Peranakans in Malaysia and Singapore formed when non-Muslim Chinese men were able to marry Malay Muslim women a long time ago without converting to Islam. This is no longer the case in modern times where anyone who marries Malay women is required to convert to Islam.

The early "Hui" communities who fled the Ispah rebellion in Quanzhou may have become the Wali Songo in Java and some of them may have went to the Moro Sulu Sultanate and Mindanao. However, their communities disappeared or were assimilated and they have no relations with the Han descended Peranakan Chinese, including the Peranakan Chinese who converted to Islam, and the Hui have no relations to the Chinese mestizo Moro Muslims who are descended from Han men and practice Han cultural taboos like the taboo against patrilineal cousin marriage. Hui in China practice marriage of patrilineal cousins of the same surname to each other which the Han descended Chinese mestizo Moro Muslims do not.

Some non-Muslim Hui descended from Hui clans such as the Chendai Ding clan and Baiqi Guo clan who left Islam from the early Ming dynasty have recently immigrated to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Manila in the Philippines. They are not represented among Peranakans and not found among the Chinese Moro mestizos. Since Han Chinese identity is based on paternal descent these Hui who left Islam created false genealogies with Han paternal ancestors on them when they were trying to hide as Han and the non-Muslim Hui in Manila still maintain this practice. These non-Muslim Hui in Manila, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia do not like to talk about their Muslim ancestry even though they are fully aware of it and some express dislike towards Islam.

Balinese women, Bugis women and other native women in Indonesia who married Han Chinese men were buried according to Chinese custom with Chinese characters on their gravestones instead of being cremated.

Local Muslim women who dealt in the cloth trade willingly married Han Chinese men in Palembang and Jambi and also local Muslim women in Banten married Han Chinese men. The Han Chinese men converted to Islam to please their Muslim wives. The same Muslim women refused to deal or even meet with Dutch men especially in Palembang since the Dutch were infamous for sexually abusing indigenous Muslim women. Han Chinese merchants were a major rival of the Dutch in colonial Indonesia. Han Chinese interpreters advised the local Muslim king of Jambi to go to war against the Dutch, while the Dutch attacked Chinese ships and Thai ships to stop them from trading with the Muslims in Jambi and make them trade with the Dutch in Batavia. The Chinese continued to violate the Dutch ban on trade with Jambi. The Dutch East India Company was also angered by Thailand trading with the Jambi Sultanate and the Jambi Sultanate sending pepper and flowers as tribute to Thailand. leading to tensions between Thailand the Dutch in 1663-1664 and 1680-1685. The Dutch wanted Chinese banned from Thai junks and were angry when a Thai ambassador in Iran took out a loan from the Dutch in Surat but didn't pay it back after his ship got repaired. The 1682 Dutch invasion of Banten (Bantam) in Indonesia also raised alarms in Thailand, so the Thai King Narai courted the French to counter the Dutch. Dutch East India Company attacked Zheng Zhilong's junks which were trading pepper with Jambi, but while the Dutch transferred 32 Chinese prisoners into the Dutch ship, the remaining Chinese managed to slaughter the 13 Dutch sailors on board the Chinese junk and retake the vessel. Zheng Zhilong demanded the Dutch then release the 32 Chinese in 1636. Dutch East India Company blockaded Thai trade in 1664 and in 1661-1662 seized a Thai junk owned by a Persian official in Thailand. The Dutch tried to impede Thai and Chinese competition with the Dutch in the pepper trade at Jambi. The Jambi Sultan temporarily jailed English merchants during violence between the Dutch and English. The Thai and Jambi Sultanate angrily complained against the Dutch over Dutch attacks and attempts to impede Jambi's trade with Chinese and Thai. Chinese junks regularly traded with Jambi, Patani, Siam and Cambodia.

The title of Shahbandar was held by Han Chinese in Jambi and Japara as Chinese came to those cities and Bantam to trade in pepper. If the 15th century there were Chinese in Surabaya and in the late half of the 14th century there were Chinese in Grise and in the 14th century there were Chinese in Tumasik. Jambi was visited every year by Chinese for pepper that came from the Sumatra Minangkabau highlands. Palembang also exported pepper.

Commerce in Jambi was dominated by Chinese merchants and local Jambi people also benefited from renting out to rubber plantations.