The Neighbours: Brunei and Dutch Borneo (BRUNEI RETCON)
I should have posted this days ago. College made me stall.
Muhammad Amirul Idzwan, Brunei: Rise and Fall of the Bornean Empire (Delima Publishing: 2001)
When Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II died in 1852, his son inherited a crumbling empire.
By the mid 1800’s Brunei wasn’t just declining, it was disintegrating. Trade with native states has dropped markedly due to the Dutch subjugation of the East Indies and the new British port of Singapore. With revenues slipping the sultanate found itself unable to project its power effectively on the Bornean coast, and the outlying towns that were once under Bandar Brunei’s steed began to face threats they had never before prepared.
As the protective power of the sultanate faded, the native Dayaks of Borneo took the decline as an opportunity to pillage the coastal communities. Sure enough, Dayak raids spiraled out of control and by 1852 there were indigenous raids up and down the southern coasts. Faced with this threat, power flowed away from the established Bruneian towns and pooled in the new and independent Malay communities that dotted the river deltas. These new communities consisted primarily of Malay fisherman and Dayak farmers, engaging in both inter-communal trade and revenge-raiding activities. With this, Brunei lost more trading revenue as well as part of their tax base, causing the sultanate’s finances to go on a tailspin.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the 1850’s was also the period when the nearby Sulu Sultanate – a trading kingdom south of the Philippines – began to flex its muscles, demanding slaves and goods from the Bornean towns. To aid in this, the state began to employ local marauders known as the Illanun to do their dirty work. During the monsoon season, these state-sanctioned pirates would roam the Bornean coast, capturing ships and collecting loot and slaves before returning back to Jolo. The Sulu Sultanate was trading heavily with China and slaves were needed to drive Sulu’s economy, adding another bullet point to the list of problems for beleaguered Brunei.
Therefore, when James Brooke traveled to the capital city in 1853 and offered an annual payment in exchange for more lands, the new Sultan thought it was an excellent idea: Brunei would receive an average of 1500 Dollars every year, and it would get rid of some of the more troublesome areas of the Sultanate, especially the Far South which was in revolt against Brunei at the time.
Thus, an agreement was made, and the Kingdom of Sarawak expanded to over twice its original land area…
Anton De Rycker, The Hornbill and the Lion: Dutch-Brooke Relations (Leiden University Press: 1982)
Before the Kingdom of Sarawak, Dutch Borneo was nothing more than a wild, forested hinterland.
Ever since the arrival of the Dutch East India Company in the area, the Sultanates of South and West Borneo had become useful in controlling the East Indies' spice trade, with links between the polities and the Dutch dating back to the year 1779. However, by the 19th century Borneo declined and became a neglected sphere of influence as more attention was given to the neighboring island of Java. The Dutch knew next to nothing about the far interior of the island, nor do they know of the peoples and cultures that resided there.
There were several attempts to restart a relationship prior to Brooke arrival. However, they were often not thought out properly and were always not capitalized. In 1822 and 1823, two expeditions were launched to sail up the great Kapuas River in hopes of establishing relations with the inland kingdoms, but they were nothing more than minor attempts. The Dutch failed to build on this relationship and by 1826 the sole Dutch post in the Upper Kapuas at the town of Sintang was withdrawn.
Then James Brooke arrived, and it all changed.
When the adventurer was appointed Governor of Sarawak in 1842, the Dutch began to take notice of their neglected Bornean possessions. This soon turned to alarm when the daring James established his Kingdom of Sarawak from his appointed lands in 1846. Believing that his presence would open the door to British interests in Borneo, the Dutch immediately sent expeditions to the Kapuas Basin the following year, re-establishing relations between the sultanates of West and South Borneo. At the same time, the authorities in Batavia and Buitenzorg began asking the new Rajah on demarcating his boundaries.
However, what the Dutch failed to notice was that James Brooke also had an interest in Dutch Borneo, and that as early as 1847 his ex-Bruneian emissaries began appearing on the courts of the West Bornean sultanates. What's more, during the period the Dutch were convinced that they would only need to send steamboats up the rivers to secure the sultanates' allegiance, failing to grasp that the indigenous groups felt much differently about the whole affair, especially considering the news of the Englishman's Semangat, then filtering in from the Bidayuh tribes...
In 1853, the Brooke kingdom expanded again as the result of a deal between Brunei and the White Rajah, and immediately after the adventurer launched an anti-headhunting expedition up the Batang Lupar River, accompanied by thousands of native Dayaks joining in for the plunder. As the expedition went up the river, few had any idea that they were crossing into Dutch territory...
__________
Footnotes:
1. The problems that Brunei had – the Dayak raids, the revenge-raiding, and the Sulu Sultanate – were close to what OTL Brunei faced in the mid-1800s.
2. All Dutch activities in Borneo prior to 1842 were exactly as OTL.
Muhammad Amirul Idzwan, Brunei: Rise and Fall of the Bornean Empire (Delima Publishing: 2001)
When Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II died in 1852, his son inherited a crumbling empire.
By the mid 1800’s Brunei wasn’t just declining, it was disintegrating. Trade with native states has dropped markedly due to the Dutch subjugation of the East Indies and the new British port of Singapore. With revenues slipping the sultanate found itself unable to project its power effectively on the Bornean coast, and the outlying towns that were once under Bandar Brunei’s steed began to face threats they had never before prepared.
As the protective power of the sultanate faded, the native Dayaks of Borneo took the decline as an opportunity to pillage the coastal communities. Sure enough, Dayak raids spiraled out of control and by 1852 there were indigenous raids up and down the southern coasts. Faced with this threat, power flowed away from the established Bruneian towns and pooled in the new and independent Malay communities that dotted the river deltas. These new communities consisted primarily of Malay fisherman and Dayak farmers, engaging in both inter-communal trade and revenge-raiding activities. With this, Brunei lost more trading revenue as well as part of their tax base, causing the sultanate’s finances to go on a tailspin.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the 1850’s was also the period when the nearby Sulu Sultanate – a trading kingdom south of the Philippines – began to flex its muscles, demanding slaves and goods from the Bornean towns. To aid in this, the state began to employ local marauders known as the Illanun to do their dirty work. During the monsoon season, these state-sanctioned pirates would roam the Bornean coast, capturing ships and collecting loot and slaves before returning back to Jolo. The Sulu Sultanate was trading heavily with China and slaves were needed to drive Sulu’s economy, adding another bullet point to the list of problems for beleaguered Brunei.
Therefore, when James Brooke traveled to the capital city in 1853 and offered an annual payment in exchange for more lands, the new Sultan thought it was an excellent idea: Brunei would receive an average of 1500 Dollars every year, and it would get rid of some of the more troublesome areas of the Sultanate, especially the Far South which was in revolt against Brunei at the time.
Thus, an agreement was made, and the Kingdom of Sarawak expanded to over twice its original land area…
**********
Anton De Rycker, The Hornbill and the Lion: Dutch-Brooke Relations (Leiden University Press: 1982)
Before the Kingdom of Sarawak, Dutch Borneo was nothing more than a wild, forested hinterland.
Ever since the arrival of the Dutch East India Company in the area, the Sultanates of South and West Borneo had become useful in controlling the East Indies' spice trade, with links between the polities and the Dutch dating back to the year 1779. However, by the 19th century Borneo declined and became a neglected sphere of influence as more attention was given to the neighboring island of Java. The Dutch knew next to nothing about the far interior of the island, nor do they know of the peoples and cultures that resided there.
There were several attempts to restart a relationship prior to Brooke arrival. However, they were often not thought out properly and were always not capitalized. In 1822 and 1823, two expeditions were launched to sail up the great Kapuas River in hopes of establishing relations with the inland kingdoms, but they were nothing more than minor attempts. The Dutch failed to build on this relationship and by 1826 the sole Dutch post in the Upper Kapuas at the town of Sintang was withdrawn.
Then James Brooke arrived, and it all changed.
When the adventurer was appointed Governor of Sarawak in 1842, the Dutch began to take notice of their neglected Bornean possessions. This soon turned to alarm when the daring James established his Kingdom of Sarawak from his appointed lands in 1846. Believing that his presence would open the door to British interests in Borneo, the Dutch immediately sent expeditions to the Kapuas Basin the following year, re-establishing relations between the sultanates of West and South Borneo. At the same time, the authorities in Batavia and Buitenzorg began asking the new Rajah on demarcating his boundaries.
However, what the Dutch failed to notice was that James Brooke also had an interest in Dutch Borneo, and that as early as 1847 his ex-Bruneian emissaries began appearing on the courts of the West Bornean sultanates. What's more, during the period the Dutch were convinced that they would only need to send steamboats up the rivers to secure the sultanates' allegiance, failing to grasp that the indigenous groups felt much differently about the whole affair, especially considering the news of the Englishman's Semangat, then filtering in from the Bidayuh tribes...
In 1853, the Brooke kingdom expanded again as the result of a deal between Brunei and the White Rajah, and immediately after the adventurer launched an anti-headhunting expedition up the Batang Lupar River, accompanied by thousands of native Dayaks joining in for the plunder. As the expedition went up the river, few had any idea that they were crossing into Dutch territory...
__________
Footnotes:
1. The problems that Brunei had – the Dayak raids, the revenge-raiding, and the Sulu Sultanate – were close to what OTL Brunei faced in the mid-1800s.
2. All Dutch activities in Borneo prior to 1842 were exactly as OTL.
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