A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908

Upon the death of the Sultana, a commissioner was sent to Baram by the Sultan to demand the customary aid towards the obsequies. A meeting of all the chiefs was summoned by the commissioner, a haji, and, as it happened, the late Mr. H. Brooke Low, who was then travelling in the Baram, was present. The Sultan's mandate, requiring so much from each man, was read and left with the chiefs, the haji not for a moment suspecting that any one present could read it. Mr. Low, however, was able to do so, and when it was shown to him he was shocked, though not surprised, to discover that the haji had read into the mandate a requirement for amounts more than double that demanded.

But the rebellion of the Kayans and the expulsion of the Brunis from Baram ensued in the middle of 1874; the river was freed of its oppressors, and the victorious Kayans menaced every settlement along the coast from the Baram to Bintulu. The villages were deserted and the Sultan was in despair, unable to reduce the Kayans, unable even to protect the Malays. Not only could he draw no revenue thence, but he dare not even ask for it. This prepared the way for the transfer of the whole stretch of coast to Sarawak. So far as the Sultan was concerned he was glad to commute the sovereignty of a district, from which little before the revolt, and nothing after, could be squeezed by himself out of the inhabitants, for a certain sum guaranteed to be paid to himself annually.

To escape Bruni oppression, people were constantly migrating to Sarawak, principally from the Semalajau, Niah, and Miri rivers, and in 1876 over 2000 came in. These poor people had to effect their escape by stealth, and consequently had to abandon all their property. Shortly after this upwards of 500 families of Kenyahs moved over into the Bintulu.

In accordance with the treaty with Great Britain of 1847 the Sultan was debarred from ceding any territory to any foreign power without the sanction of her Majesty's Government. This gave the British Government the right, or rather the power, to prevent Sarawak acquiring the Baram, and this it was prepared to do. As usual it proved obstructive, and refused to sanction the transfer; it went so far as to express its unwillingness to allow any territorial change to be made on the coast of Bruni. This was insisted on again in 1876, though the Rajah wrote to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs (March 20) "I may candidly state that a most pernicious system of robbery and oppression is pursued by the hirelings of the Bruni Government. It surely can scarcely be conceived by her Majesty's Government that upholding the authority of the Bruni Government is tantamount to supporting the cause of oppression and misrule."

Her Majesty's Government had refused to interfere in any way with that of Bruni for the amelioration of the condition of the people, and the maintenance of open ports and free trade; had stood aloof as not disposed to interfere in the internal affairs of the Sultanate, and yet now, most inconsistently, it stepped in to forbid the cession to Sarawak of a portion of that miserably misgoverned and depopulated State.

The fact seems to have been that the Foreign Office had been persistently misinformed as to the position and prospects of Sarawak, and as to the conduct of the Rajah towards the Sultan. The latter had agreed to the cession of Baram to Sarawak; he desired it for monetary reasons, the only reasons that appealed to or swayed him. But when Sir Edward Hertslet informed Mr. H. T. Ussher, C.M.G., who was Governor of Labuan from 1875 to 1879, and who appreciated the motives which guided the Rajah, that he "in common with others at the Foreign Office had fancied that the acquisition of the Baram by Sarawak would lead to the loss of its sago trade with Labuan," the cat was out of the bag. Incidently we may remark that Baram exported no sago, and that there could then have been little or no trade between that river and Labuan, for during the first six months of Sarawak rule the exports amounted in value to $9000 only. It was a dog-in-the-manger policy, what Labuan could not have, that it was resolved Sarawak should not have, and the interests of the people were left out of the question. It is possible enough that this was inspired by jealousy. No man likes to see his own field sterile and that of his neighbour producing luxurious crops. Conceive the feelings of a small mercer in the same street as a Whiteley or Harrod, who finds his own business dwindling, and is oppressed by the extension and success of the great firm a few doors off. Such may have been the feeling of a Governor of Labuan.

The Rajah visited England in 1874, and on July 16 handed in a memorandum to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, pointing out that the appropriation by foreign powers of north-west and north-east Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago312 should be guarded against, and recommended to ensure this, and for the benefit of trade and of the native communities, that Great Britain should assume the sovereign power over those territories that remained to the Sultanate of Bruni, that the Sultan and his heirs should be pensioned, as well as the five principal Bruni Rajahs; and that a town should be built at the mouth of the Bruni river, which should become the headquarters of her Majesty's Representative, in place of Labuan. All that the Rajah asked for Sarawak was that Baram should be incorporated with that State, owing to the fact that the inland population of that river and that of the Rejang were greatly intermixed, and should therefore be under one head and government.

A policy somewhat similar to that above indicated was, a year after, inaugurated with great success in the Malay Peninsula, and it would doubtless have met with equal success in Borneo had it found favour with her Majesty's Ministers then, though thirty years afterwards they saw reason to adopt it, but only after Bruni had become a bankrupt State, stripped of most of its territories, and with its small remaining revenue pawned. At the time when the Rajah made his proposal, the whole of what is now the British North Borneo Company's territory, together with Lawas, Trusan, Limbang, and Bruni, might have been acquired, and the Sultan would then have become as powerless to do harm as one of the native princes of the Federated Malay States, thus relieving the people of the intolerable oppression of a government which had reduced the population to a small remnant of what it had been formerly.

The policy adopted in regard to the native States of the Malay Peninsula in 1875, referred to above, is generally known as that of Sir Andrew Clarke, who was Governor of the Straits Settlements from 1873 to 1875. It was the policy, however, that the late Rajah, many years before, had advocated as one which should be introduced into all native States, and he then wrote: "The experiment of developing a country through the residence of a few Europeans and by the assistance of its own native rulers has never been fully tried, and it appears to me, in some respects more desirable than the actual possession of a foreign nation; for if successful, the native prince finds greater advantages, and if a failure, the European government is not committed. Above all it insures the independence of the native princes, and may advance the inhabitants further in the scale of civilisation by means of this very independence, than can be done when the government is a foreign one, and their freedom sacrificed."

Compare this with the remark made by Sir Andrew Clarke in his speech before the Legislative Council of Singapore on the government of the native States: "We should continue a policy not of aggression upon our neighbours, but of exercising our own influence, and by giving them officers to help them."

Had the late Rajah's policy been adopted, Sumatra, or that part of it which had not been relinquished to the Dutch in 1824, might now contain many States as flourishing as those of the Malay Peninsula. On March 3, 1844, the Rajah wrote: "I was glad of the opportunity I had of seeing the political state of Achin, as it fully confirmed my views, which I made known to Sir – , of the steps necessary to protect and enlarge our commerce. Achin, like Borneo, is now in such a state of distraction that no protection can be found for life or property. To protect our trade we must make a monarch, and uphold him; and he would be a British servant de facto. We could always raise the better and depress the worse, in other words support those who will benefit ourselves."

A policy that both the Rajahs had advocated should be adopted towards Bruni.

For many years, as we have seen, Sarawak had to contend with the opposing influence of Governors of Labuan adverse to her advancement, but in 1875 Mr. Ussher was appointed Governor, and he was not prepared to take for granted all the stories of Sarawak aggression and intimidation which were poured into his ears. He sought for independent testimony, inquired into matters himself, and was not disposed to gloss over the misdeeds of the Sultan and his pangirans, and to suppress all mention of these in his despatches home.

Towards the end of his term of office Mr. Ussher wrote to the Rajah, "I have had an important interview to-day with Mr. Meade at the Colonial Office. The object in view was to ascertain the advisability of permitting you to acquire Baram. I ascertained that the objections against this step were reduced, firstly, to an idea that undue pressure was put upon the Sultan; secondly, that resident (!) traders, British, in that river would be damaged thereby.

"I also ascertained that the Colonial Secretary here was not at all disposed to carry out the views obstructive of Sarawak advance, which have animated his predecessors; but that, on the contrary, he was disposed to allow you and the Sultan to arrive at your own terms, so long as the Sultan was a perfectly free agent in the matter.

"In the course of a rather lengthy, and, I trust, not ineffective address on my part, I successfully combated these trivial and groundless objections, and exposed the fallacy of Sir Henry Bulwer's313 and Mr. Pope Hennessy's views with regard to your dealings with the Sultan. I pointed out also the gross injustice and oppression of the Bruni rule in these territories, and expressed my firm conviction of the general desire on the part of the industrious and agricultural classes to pass under your settled and civilised rule. I demonstrated that there were no resident British traders, either in Baram or elsewhere in these parts, whose interests could be imperilled. Further, that so long as you impose no restrictive export duties on native produce from the river, there was nothing whatever to prevent the sago, etc., coming to Labuan or anywhere else.

"I admitted that I had at first been disposed to adopt the Sultan's view with regard to your relations with him generally, but that careful inquiry and matured experience had proved to me, not only the untruth of the accusations of intimidation brought against you, but also the advisability of permitting you to extend your rule by all legitimate means, instead of supporting from quixotic and mistaken motives the effete and immoral rule of Bruni. Mr. Meade finally suggested to me, that the question might be settled by allowing you to make your own terms with the Sultan, with the proviso, that any agreement or treaty made between the two should be subject to the ratification of her Majesty's Government, who would thus have it in their power to nullify any injustice either to Bruni or British interests.

"From Sir M. Beach's views, and from Mr. Meade's proposal, I argue that the matter lies now at last in your own hands, as Lord Salisbury is likely to accept the Colonial Office views in these comparatively small matters, on account of its necessarily more detailed and minute experience of the interests of Borneo generally.

"On the whole I think we may congratulate ourselves on the prospect of a satisfactory solution of this unpleasant affair. You may always, as you know, depend upon me never to allow an opportunity to pass of helping you and Sarawak generally. Apart from our personal friendship, I act on the conviction that Sarawak is the future regenerator of Borneo."

This was in January, 1879, but Government officials move slowly, and in a mysterious way, and it was not till late in 1882 that the Foreign Office sanctioned the annexation of Baram by Sarawak. Thus, at length, after negotiating a transfer with the Sultan in 1874, the obstruction of the British Government was overcome, but it took eight years to do this.

A new spirit had come over the Governors of Labuan, and the somewhat ignoble spite, bred partly of ignorance and partly of jealousy, which had characterised their conduct with regard to Sarawak, and the Rajah in particular, was exchanged at last for generous and honest recognition of the excellence of his rule, and of the injustice of forcing the natives against their will to remain under the cruel oppression of this Old Man of the Sea astride on their shoulders.

The subsequent administrators of Labuan were favourable to Sarawak, but in 1889 the Colony was handed over to the British North Borneo Company. Their officials had no authority outside of Labuan and did not correspond with the Foreign Office, and Consuls were appointed to Bruni.

In June, 1883, the Rajah visited Bruni, and was received by the aged Sultan with special marks of distinction. The Sultan waited at the entrance of the audience chamber, and taking the Rajah by the hand, led him to the throne where he seated him by his side. Negotiations for the cession of Baram and the rivers and districts lying between that river and Bintulu were at once entered upon, and speedily concluded, and on the 13th, the deed of cession was finally sealed and delivered.

The cession of this district gave great satisfaction to the inhabitants, and most of those who had migrated to Sarawak returned by degrees. A fort was erected at Claudetown314 (Merudi) about sixty miles up the Baram river, and here Chinese and Malay traders soon settled, and a brisk trade rapidly sprang up. Minor stations were also established at Miri and Niah. The turbulent Kayans and Kenyahs speedily became pacified, and existing feuds were settled. Now, this district is one of the most peaceful and prosperous in the State.315 The entrance to the river is, and has been, a great hindrance to trade, the bar being very shallow and exposed, so that it is unsafe for sailing vessels and screw steamers. The Government accordingly had a special steamer of 200 tons built in England to carry the trade. She is practically flat-bottomed, and is propelled by paddles. Another, larger, was added as the trade increased. In January, 1884, the Rajah was notified by Earl Granville that her Majesty's Government had no objection to the exercise of jurisdiction over British subjects by the judicial authorities of the Government of Sarawak in this newly-acquired territory.

Only one chief in Baram gave any trouble; and he was Aban Jau, chief of the Tinjar Kayans. He persistently interfered, and thwarted the policy of Government as much as he could without bringing himself into open conflict with the authorities. He maintained a position of semi-independence, and flew his own flag. But in May, 1884, he committed an intolerable act, and had to be humbled. As the affair is illustrative of the iniquities allowed at Bruni until quite recently, the particulars may be given. To appease the manes of his daughter-in-law, Aban Jau sent to Pangiran Nipa of Tutong, asking for a slave, so that he might immolate the unhappy wretch. His messengers went to Bruni, where two pangirans, Matusin and Tejudin, handed them a slave, an old and decrepit man, whom they sent as a present to Aban Jau. The Resident at Claudetown, hearing of this, had the party intercepted and arrested, but too late to save the slave. He had been killed and his head taken, as he was too old to walk, and the messengers did not care to trouble themselves to carry him. Aban Jau was severely punished; he submitted, and his power was broken. He was no better than an aged savage, and there was some excuse for him, as he was complying with ancestral customs; but there was none for the Muhammadan Bruni pangirans for despatching a miserable old slave to a death by torture.

In June, 1884, by the Sultan's orders, a Dusun village was attacked – the time for the attack being chosen when nearly all the able-bodied men were absent, and over twenty women and children were killed. Oppression became so rife that many refugees crossed the frontier into Sarawak territory, abandoning in so doing their property and plantations. In August of the same year, the people of Limbang broke out into open rebellion.

The Limbang river waters a wide district that is fertile and populous. The people possessed extensive sago plantations, and were comparatively prosperous. On this account they were all the more oppressed by the pangirans. There was no protection for person and property, and women and girls were carried off to fill the harems of Bruni. This was the people that suffered such cruel wrongs at the hands of the Pangiran Makota, and it was in this river that he met his death in 1860.

The trouble began with two of the agents of the Pangiran Temanggong, the then Regent and heir apparent, being killed whilst extorting taxes. The pangiran thereupon went up in his steam-launch with a large following, and proposed that the chiefs should meet him at a certain place and discuss matters. The proposal was made in guile, his real purpose being to seize the opportunity for slaughtering them. But these people had had many years' experience of pangirans and their little ways, and met guile with guile. The proposal was acceded to, but whilst the pangiran was on his way to the appointed rendezvous he himself fell into an ambuscade.

Fire was opened on his party, and he was forced to beat a retreat, his launch damaged, seventeen of his men killed, and more wounded. Bruni was thrown into panic, and stockades were erected to resist an expected invasion. The Limbang people followed up their advantage by raiding the suburbs of the town, and a house was attacked within half a mile of the Sultan's palace.

The Sultan, then in his dotage, was helpless, and appealed to the acting Consul-General, Mr. Treacher (now Sir William Treacher, K.C.M.G.), to help him out of his difficulties. Mr. Treacher knew that the Limbangs had been driven to rebellion by the intolerable exactions to which they had been subjected, and he declined to interfere, unless the Sultan and his wazirs should concede a charter releasing the Limbangs from all arbitrarily imposed taxes, and limiting taxation to a small poll tax, and a 5 per cent ad valorem duty on gutta percha, granting them at the same time immunity for their property and sago-plantations, and engaging that no more tax-collectors should be sent from Bruni to the river, and that a general amnesty should be accorded.

This charter, embodying so many radical reforms, was granted with ill-concealed reluctance, and without the slightest intent of performance.

Armed with this document, Mr. Treacher proceeded to the Limbang. But already the Sultan had sent word to the Muruts to fall on the Limbangs and kill and pillage as they liked.

Whilst Mr. Treacher was negotiating with the chiefs, news arrived that these savages had murdered four Kadayan women and two men, and they were consequently ill-disposed to accept the charter. They knew by experience that they could not rely upon the good faith of the Sultan and his wazirs. However, Mr. Treacher was urgent, and hesitatingly they appended their marks to the document; relying rather on the white man to see that its provisions were carried out, than feeling that any confidence could be placed in the word of the Sultan.

And in fact, no sooner was the agreement signed, than the Sultan sent his emissaries into the Baram district to invite the Kayans to raid the Limbang, but the Sarawak Government got wind of this, and at once took prompt and effective measures to prevent the tribes on the Baram from answering the appeal.

In December, 1884, Mr. Frank R. O. Maxwell,316 who was administering the Government in the absence of the Rajah, when at Bruni heard that sixteen Sarawak Dayaks and four Malays had been killed while collecting produce in the neighbouring river, Trusan. The Sultan in his impotence to act, suggested to Mr. Maxwell his willingness to cede the Trusan district to Sarawak. The feudal rights over this district were held by the Pangiran Temanggong, and he too consented. Bruni and Sarawak, he said, were the same country, and in transferring his rights to Sarawak he would be incorporating himself in the Sarawak Government. Subject to the approval of the Rajah, Mr. Maxwell accepted this offer of the Trusan.

The Sultan, the Pangiran Temanggong, and other wazirs and pangirans were then all in favour of the cession of the Limbang, as well as the Trusan, to Sarawak. The Chinese and Malay traders and the lower classes strongly advocated the transfer; and the Regent and the wazir next to him in rank gave Mr. Maxwell a written promise with their seals attached that, pending the return of the Rajah, Limbang should not be transferred to any foreign government. On the return of the Rajah early in 1885, Trusan was occupied, and a fort and station established some thirty miles from the mouth, to which English and native officers were appointed. The Muruts up the river were a quarrelsome people, and blood-feuds were common, and gave some trouble at first. The people generally had become miserably poor through a long course of oppression.

Trusan is a good example of what tact and discretion can do in dealing with natives, and the Muruts were the most savage of those in that part. In a very few years they became peaceful, well-to-do, and contented, enjoying the fruits of their labours in security. Trusan has now a fairly flourishing trade, and the rich plains through which the river winds, and which in days gone by had been extensively cultivated with rice, but which had been rendered desolate by extortion, now afford large grazing grounds for herds of water-buffaloes, which are bred for export, and also excellent land for the cultivation of the sago palm.

Barely a month had elapsed since the peace had been patched up with the Limbang people by the acting Consul-General, before the people were again in revolt, and many Bruni Malays, men and women, were killed, large numbers of buffaloes were mutilated, and again the capital, Bruni, was menaced. Nothing further was done by the British Government, and nothing could be done, except to establish a firm government in the disaffected region, and the Foreign Office was not prepared to do this. As for the authorities in Bruni, they were incapable of doing anything. Their only idea of keeping rebellious subjects under control was to invoke the aid of wild interior tribes, and invite them to butcher and plunder all who resisted their exactions, and this they could no longer do.

On May 30, 1885, the old Sultan Mumin departed this life, at the venerable age of over one hundred years, and the Pangiran Temanggong Hasim, reputed son of the late Sultan Omar Ali,317 the predecessor of Sultan Mumin, was elevated to the throne. Sultan Hasim, who was past middle age when he succeeded, was a shrewd man, though hard and vindictive. His antecedents had not been exemplary, but hopes were entertained that, being a man of strength of mind and of advanced ideas, an improvement would be effected in the administration of Bruni, which would lead to the establishment of good order and bring the place and State out of absolute decay into comparative prosperity, but these hopes, strong man as he was, he was powerless to fulfil.

In order to appreciate much that occurred during the reign of Sultan Hasim it is necessary to understand the conditions under which he became Sultan, and the effect that these conditions had upon his power and position.

His predecessor, Mumin, had an only son, the Pangiran Muda Muhammad Tejudin, a semi-imbecile, nicknamed Binjai, literally the son of misfortune, signifying an idiot. Much as Sultan Mumin would have liked to have proclaimed his son heir to the throne, it was quite impossible for him to do so in opposition to the natural objections of the nobles, upheld, as these were, by the laws of Bruni, which preclude the accession of any prince afflicted with mental or bodily infirmity. The succession would therefore fall upon either of the Sultan's nephews, the Pangiran Bandahara, or the Pangiran di Gadong, and both claimed it. These two powerful princes and wazirs, with their feudal and official territorial rights, and the many nobles and chiefs who owed them allegiance, represented the most powerful factions in the country, and the accession of either to the throne would have plunged the country into bloodshed. To avert this, the British Government persuaded Sultan Mumin, but not without bringing considerable pressure to bear upon him, to nominate the Pangiran Temanggong Hasim, the senior wazir, as his successor, and to appoint him Regent, the old Sultan being too feeble-minded to govern.