An American Describes Sarawak History
The article was written by an American Robert Pringle who also wrote Rajahs and Rebels at the same time. One must be cautious of the bias.
The early years of the Brooke State (James) were endlessly tumultuous. The White Rajah succeeded in obtaining Crown Appointments and the occasional assistance of the British men-of-war and together these enabled him to survive against an array of local enemies whom he inevitably called pirates. He always hoped to involve London… but his bloody campaigns against local pirates, his inability to tolerate other Englishmen and his continuing disinterest of British authorities in acquiring further territory in the area thwarted his ambition. After the Royal Commission on Enquiry exonerated him against committing atrocities against the Iban and Malays he received no further naval support. Downcast and embittered, he bequeathed an impoverished, independent Sarawak to his nephew, Charles Brooke in 1868.”
Charles ruled for nearly half a century until 1917. It was he who saved the state from a series of rebellions following the termination of British support, largely by the discovery that head hunting Ibans could be used as an unpaid armed force against domestic enemies. He was engrossed in the affairs of his wild and beautiful Borneo domain without any desire to act as an agent of British imperial expansion.
Vyner became Rajah after his father’s death in 1917. He became more conservative than his father yet communications and new economic influences (rubber) exposed the State to change. The British Colonial Office began to influence over the state. Many of the more modern social and economic policies were underway when the Japanese occupied Kuching.
The Malay role was political, for the Moslem river mouth chiefs traditionally regarded themselves as the rightful rulers of the entire river system. In practice, their writ extended only a few kilometres beyond their own settlements. However, because of their Islamic ideology , built on a shadowy Hindu heritage, they were willing to act as agents of Brooke rule on all classes of the population
The Iban role was military. For many years the Brookes used the truculent Dyaks, as an undisciplined and unsalaried army. They were instrumental in preserving the Brooke state during the 1857 Chinese Rebellion and the Malay Uprising of 1859-1860. The continuing existence of a reservoir of Iban fighting power at the disposal of the Brookes was a widely recognized political face which acted as a deterrent to other dissidents of all ethnic types.
The Chinese were the main beneficiaries of the European legal system which allowed the Chinese to collect their debts with some degree of certainty. They profited from the opening of new markets and the spread of better communications. This meant the Chinese could live and do business in most areas of Sarawak. They followed in the wake of the inevitable Sarawak government fort and built their shop houses in its very shadow.
Sub groups of these groups also flourished. The Malays of the Sarawak River at Kuching assumed a position of special trust. These Kuching Malays were descendents of the local chiefs who supported the Brunei local governor. Instead of executing them, he replaced their local powers but took away their abusive powers over the Land Dyaks (Bidayuh). Later he appointed them as a majority on the Supreme Council a symbol of his pledge to rule with the advise and consent of the people.
The leading Chinese merchants of Kuching, mostly Hokkien constituted an individual unit, ready to mobilize economic resources to support the Rajah. An example is when the government grew small trees for rubber planting, they used the local Chinese to distribute them through there far flung contacts.
Iban sub groups, notable the Balaus, Undups and Sebuyaus, provided dependable volunteers for government expeditions and were the major source of the Sarawak Rangers, which was the Rajahs only source of a trained military force.
As Iban migrations continued, the Rajahs tried to keep them out of Balleh. For forty years, the Ibans penetrated the area only to be thrown back by the Iban army of the Rajah, twice in 1874-1880 and again in 1905. Finally, in 1922 the Rajah allowed some settlement in the Balleh area. In 1925 he settled a group Roman Catholic Iban on the Pila Branch of the Rejang just above Balleh River. He hoped the relatively law abiding Ibans would hold in check the warlike Balleh from migrating further upstream.
In the fourth and fifth divisions, the Rajah encouraged Ibans to settle. The war like problems between the Rajah, the Brunei Sultan and the North Borneo Company caused the Rajah not to trust the local Malays because of possible loyalty to the Brunei Sultan. The White Rajah enjoyed the security of a war like Iban force loyal to him and allowed them to settle. It wasn’t until the appointments of a British Resident to Brunei in 1906 that stabilized the situation.
From “The Brookes of Sarawak” in the Sarawak Museum Journal December 1971
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