Unfortunately for the EIC, any hopes they had of seizing the Philippines as an EIC base of operations was scuppered by the ending of the war back in Europe before news of the seizure of Manila could be included in the peace negotiations. Concurrent with these developments, the EIC sent out a separate expedition against the Spanish colony of the nearby Phillippines at the tail end of the Seven Years War and managed to seize Manila itself in 1763. It was Dalrymple who was able to come to terms with the Sultan of Sulu in 1761 which would give the EIC a factory in his territory along the Northern coast of Borneo to facilitate trade between the Sultan of Sulu, the EIC and China. In 1759 William Dalrymple lobbied his company for permission to explore and make new charts around the China Seas. With its success in India, the East India Company was feeling strong enough to challenge the Dutch stranglehold over the spice trade once more. Tentative attempts to re-establish their colonies in Soekadana from 1693 to 1694 and again in Bandjermasin from 1700 - 1707 (and once more from 1737 - 1747) still highlighted Dutch primacy and hostility to rival activity in the region. The English were successfully out-manouevered from the region after a massacre of their traders further South in Amboina which deterred English activity in the area for most of the rest of the century. The English East India Company had half-heartedly attempted to establish trading bases in South-East Borneo at Soekadana and at Bandjermasin as early as 1609 but both of these projects had been abandoned by 1612 largely due to Dutch hostility and perceived opportunities elsewhere. The Dutch did all in their power to prevent any rival ships in any form from carrying legitimate cargoes and so the alternative was either not to trade or turn to piracy. It should be said though that it was Dutch mercantalist and monopolist policies that contributed to the presence of much of the pirate activity in the first place. The Dutch had long since seized control of much of the valuable spice trade throughout South East Asia as a whole, but even they gave Northern Borneo a wide berth due to the hostile tribes and easier pickings elsewhere. It was generally thought of an as an area to avoid. Sarawak, on the northern coast of the huge island of Borneo, had become synonymous with piracy, slavery and wild head hunters (known as Dyaks) with its critical location alongside the busy South China Sea routes. ![]() The last Rajah of Sarawak, Anthony Brooke, ceded the province to the UK in 1946.Pirates, Dyaks and Initial British Contacts Undeterred, James Brooke ruled Sarawak until his death in 1868, when the title of rajah passed to his nephew. But even that turned out to be, as Barley put it, "a relatively valueless opal". He did console himself with the discovery of the "fabulous Brooke Diamond". And while his fiefdom was awash with crude oil, nobody had yet found a use for it. ![]() ![]() But the fact is, that the riches spoken of have to be developed or created"īy seizing the antimony mines and instituting a rice tax, Brooke was able to raise about £5,000 a year by his own (probably unrealistic) estimates to fund his government. He wrote, "We are so accustomed to hear of the riches of the isles of the Eastern seas, that many imagine we have but to step in to reap a rich reward. Brooke was disappointed with the lack of ready wealth that rule brought. He appointed himself as judge and sat in session with his companion an orangutan named Betsy at his side, bringing to heel an unruly head-hunting people known as the Dayak, and ridding the area of pirates.īut power wasn't enough. Following a little gunboat diplomacy, the sultan confirmed the status quo, with Sarawak effectively an independent kingdom, just under a year later.īrooke lost no time in setting up his courthouse. ![]() "He quite unlawfully assumed the title of Rajah and began his rule and his new life in a legalistic high moral tone". Delighted with the victory, Brooke cheerfully noted, "the agreement was drawn out, sealed and signed guns fired, flags waved and on 24 September 1841, I became the governor of Sarawak with the fullest powers".īut, as Nigel Barley notes in White Rajah, what he really meant was Rajah of Sarawak.
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