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A “Suitable Population”: Charles Brooke and Race-Mixing in Sarawak

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

R.H.W. Reece
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Extract

In the “Concluding Remarks” appended to his journal for 1853–63, published in London in 1866 as Ten Years in Sarawak, Charles Brooke gave his support to the unfashionable idea of miscegenation between Europeans and Asians. The younger nephew of the first Rajah, James Brooke, and heir apparent to the Brooke raj to which he succeeded two years later, his views were of some significance. Accepting that a tropical climate was “not adapted for the permanent residence of Anglo-Saxons,” he proposed that a mixed race could provide Sarawak with a “suitable population.” To support his argument, Brooke cited the observation of Dr W.J. Moore of the Bombay Medical Service that Europeans had not survived as a race after many generations of British rule in India:

Of the numerous pensioners, etc. etc., there is not one single instance – there is not a great-grand-child or grand-child of these pensioners retaining their European characteristics. An infusion of native blood is essential to the continuance of the race. The fact is, for the white man, or his offspring, there is no such thing as acclimatisation in India. Exposure, instead of hardening the system, actually has the contrary effect, and the longer Europeans remain in this country, the more they feel the effects of the vertical sun.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 67 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1985

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References

Notes

1. Moore, W.J., Health in the Tropics; or, A Sanitary Art Applied to Europeans in India London, 1862Google Scholar, cited by Brooke, C., Ten Years in Sarawak, 2 vols., London: Tinsley Brothers, 1866, II, p. 331Google Scholar. Charles remained firmly convinced of the deleterious powers of the sun on exposed European heads and always insisted that his officers should wear solar topees or some other form of head covering. For his views on acclimatisation, see Ten Years in Sarawak, I, pp. 7–9.

2. Ten Years in Sarawak, II, p. 337.

3. Ibid., II, p. 338.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., II, p. 337.

6. Ibid., II, p. 338.

7. Ibid.

8. Published in Paris, 1853–55, part of the Essai was translated into English and published in 1856 as The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races.

9. Moore, op. cit., p. 277.

10. Ten Years in Sarawak, II, p. 337.

11. “On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species,” published in The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, September 1855. For Wallace's views on James Brooke and his administration, see The Malay Archipelago …, 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1880, pp. 92–4Google Scholar, and My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions, 2 vols. London, Chapman and Hall, 1905, I, pp. 337–47, 354–5Google Scholar. Wallace was unsympathetic to Christian missionary efforts and this may help to explain his friendship with St John.

12. Ten Years in Sarawak, II, p. 329.

13. Ibid., II, pp. 335–7.

14. Ibid., I, pp. 66–7.

15. Ibid., I, pp. 129–130.

16. Ibid., II, pp. 338–9.

17. The originals are in the British Museum. Photocopies can be found at Rhodes House Library, Oxford [RH]MSS Pac.s. 33, Vol. 3 (B).

18. Tarling, N., The Burthen, The Risk And The Glory: A Biography of Sir James Brooke, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 3Google Scholar. It is difficult to see why Professor Tarling doubted that Moher Bibbee was Charles William's mother.

19. Ballhatchet, K.,Race, Sex and Class under the Raj …, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1980, pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

20. James Brooke to Emma Johnson, 2 June 1858, RH MSS Pac.s. 90, Vol. 1, f. 230. James told this to Emma when explaining to her his recognition of his own illegitimate son, Reuben George Walker.

21. See letters from James Brooke to Alfred Brooke, 1860–67, RH MSS Pac.s. 83, Box 29, ff. 5–15.

22. Cited by Margaret Noble, Ibid., Vol. 14, f. 124.

23. Copies of both documents can be found at PROCO 537/2241.

24. Margaret Brooke to Johnson, 29 June 1927, RH MSS Pac.s. 83, Vol. 18, f. 10.

25. Ibid. (Marked “Confidential”)

26. I am grateful to Hj. Yusuf Heaton and his informants, Sharifah Mastura and Hj. Abu Bakar, for allowing me to use the information gathered in 1982.

27. There are frequent references to Abang Aing in Ten Years in Sarawak.

28. There is also oral tradition confirming that Tia was not the only woman in Simanggang to receive Charles Brooke's favours. Another woman called Dayang Janyah was also his gundek and was reputedly taken by him to Kuching and installed in a house in Kampong Gersik where she later married a local man.

29. Margaret Brooke to Johnson, 10 August 1927, RH MSS Pac.s. 83, Vol: 18, f. 15.

30. Margaret Brooke to Johnson, 25 June 1927, Ibid., f. 8 (My emphasis).

31. “Excerpts from memoirs of Esca Brooke-Daykin.”

32. Ranee Margaret of Sarawak, Good Morning and Good Night, London: Constable, 1934, pp. 132–3.Google Scholar

33. “Excerpts from memoirs of Esca Brooke-Daykin.”

34. Ibid.

35. Margaret Brooke to Johnson, 10 August 1927, RH MSS Pac.s. 93, f. 15.

36. “Excerpts from memoirs of Esca Brooke-Daykin.”

37. For the history of these attempts in 1926–27 and 1946, see R.H.W. Reece, “Claimants to the Brooke Raj: Hope Brooke and Esca Brooke-Daykin.” (Forthcoming)

38. G.H. Malcolm to his father, 16 August 1899, RH MSS Pac.s. 55.

39. Minute by Stubbs, 10 December 1906, CO 144/81, cited by Pringle, R., Rajahs and Rebels … Macmillan: London, 1970, p. 359.Google Scholar

40. James Brooke to Thomas Williamson, 26 January 1847, in Templer, John C., ed., The Private Letters of Sir James Brooke …, 3 vols., London: Richard Bentley, 1853, II, p. 114Google Scholar, cited by Pringle, Rajahs and Rebels p. 147 note. Williamson, about whom little is known, was drowned just three days later.

41. This interesting document of seven pages was possibly printed in Kuching but is undated. The only surviving original copy, to my knowledge, is amongst Hugh Low's six-volume collection of Borneo pamphlets now held by Rhodes House Library, Oxford (II, No. 30) but it was reprinted as an appendix to Spenser John's, St.The Life of Sir James Brooke: Rajah of Sarawak …, London: Blackwood & Sons, 1879, pp. 396–401.Google Scholar

42. See Ballhatchet, op. cit., pp. 144–5.

43. The four children, baptised by McDougall on 3 December 1848, were: Julia Steward (daughter of a merchant and a Dayak woman), Mary Douglas (daughter of the captain of the Julia and a local woman), Peter Middleton (son of Joseph Middleton, and a local woman), Thomas Williamson (son of Thomas Williamson, government interpreter, and a local woman). Another Eurasian child, baptised on the same day, was Annie Steele.

44. Ten Years in Sarawak, I, p. 137.

45. Hahn, Emily, James Brooke of Sarawak, London: Arthur Barker, 1953, p. 28.Google Scholar

46. In his article “Another Affair of James Brooke?” (Brunei Museum Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1972), p. 206)Google Scholar, D.E. Brown cites a letter from Resident F.W. Douglas to the Foreign Office, 19 July 1915, CO 531/19: “I should here mention that Mr Brooke had married a niece of Pangiran Muda Hassim one Pangiran Fatimah the daughter of Pangiran Abdulkadir. Probably the marriage would not be valid in Europe but this might explain the grant [of Saramak] to Mr Brooke and his heirs. My authority for the fact of the marriage is one Pangiran anak Hashima, a niece of the lady. Quite recently I met a Dr. Ogilvie who told me he had met a daughter of Rajah Brooke's in 1866: she was married but evidently had foreign blood in her.”

47. Keppel, Henry, The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido …, 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1846, I, p. 66. (My emphasis.)Google Scholar

48. McDougall to T.F. Stooks 2 May 1849, U.S.P.G. Archives, Borneo, vol. I.

49. Ten Years in Sarawak, II, p. 29. For Chalmers' linguistic work, see his Vocabulary of English, Malay, and Sarawak Dayak, Canterbury: St. Augustine's College Press, 1861.Google Scholar

50. Ten Years in Sarawak, II, p. 30.

51. Howell, E. and Bailey, D.J.S., A Sea Dyak Dictionary, Singapore, 1900–02.Google Scholar

52. “List of Europeans on the Sarawak Territory,” n.d. [c. 1858], RH MSS Pac.s. 90, vol. 16, f. 116.

53. McDougall to Evelyn, 7 March 1864, RH MSS Pac.s. 90, Vol. 14, f. 110.

54. St John to Brooke Brooke, 22 April 1858, RH MSS Pac.s. 90, Vol. 15, f. 228.

55. St John to Charles Brooke, 10 November 1858, Ibid., f. 295.

56. Mary St John married a Sarawak government officer.

57. Harriette McDougall to Brooke Brooke, n.d., RH MSS Pac.s. 90, Vol. 14, f. 154.

58. Runciman, S.. The White Rajas. A History of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960, p. 285 note.Google Scholar

59. Pope-Hennessy to Lord Kimberley, Despatch No. 9222, 20 June 1971, CO 144/34.

60. Low, Hugh, Sarawak: Its Inhabitants and Productions, London 1848.Google Scholar

61. Nona was used among other things, to designate the local mistresses of Europeans in Malacca, Penang and Singapore and was also adopted in Labuan.

62. Pope-Hennessy to Lord Kimberley, Despatch No. 9222, 20 June 1871, CO 144/34.

63. Ibid.

64. I recognize the complexity of class, status and racial elements in this situation which needs much closer analysis.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid.

67. Pope-Hennessy, James, Verandah: Some Episodes in the Crown Colonies 1867–1889, London: Allen and Unwin, 1964, pp. 107–8.Google Scholar

68. Pope-Hennessy to Lord Kimberley, Despatch No. 9222, 20 June 1871, CO 144/34.

69. Beard to Lord Kimberley, 23 June 1871, CO 144/35.

70. Ranee of Sarawak, Good Morning and Good Night, London: Constable, 1934, p. 63.Google Scholar

71. Ibid. This letter does not appear to have survived.

72. Ten Years in Sarawak, II, p. 329.

73. Charles Brooke to Bishop Mounsey, 1 October 1913, Letterbooks of Charles Brooke, SM/RL/8, p. 43.

74. Ibid.

75. Charles Brooke to Bishop Mounsey, 15 February 1914, Ibid., p. 80.

76. Charles Brooke to Bishop Mounsey, 9 December 1913, Ibid., p. 59.

77. Cited by Taylor, Brian, The Anglican Church in Borneo 1848–1962, Bognor Regis: New Horizons, 1983, Notes – 20.Google Scholar

78. Runciman, The Three White Rajahs, p. 167.

79. Charles Brooke to Hope Brooke, 22 November 1910. Letter books of Charles Brooke, Sarawak Museum SM/RL/6, pp. 237–8. See also, letters to C.W. Darbyshire, Torr and Co., and the Governor of the Straits Settlements, June–October 1913, SM/RL/8, pp. 18, 32, 48.

80. Tarling, op. cit., pp. 225–31.

81. Charles Brooke to Brooke Brooke, n.d. (c. 1862), RH MSS Pac.s. 90, Vol. 16, f. 127.

82. Ten Years in Sarawak, II, p. 210.

83. Charles Brooke to Brooke Brooke, 17 July 1862, RH MSS Pac.s. 90, Vol. 8, f. 167.

84. Charles Brooke to Emma Johnson, 2 August 1868, MSS Pac.s. 90, Vol. 8, f. 245.

85. Although Margaret was indifferent about her suitor at first, a reading of Ten Years in Sarawak seems to have converted her to his cause.

86. Good Morning and Good Night, p. 20.

87. Ibid., pp. 33–4.

88. Charles Brooke to R.K. Phillips, 22 July 1896, Letter books of Charles Brooke, Sarawak Museum, SM/RL/3, p. 363.

89. Ward, A.B., Rajah's Servant, Ithaca (N.Y.): Cornell University, 1966, p. 60.Google Scholar

90. Baring-Gould, S. and Bampfylde, C.A., A History of Sarawak under its Two White Rajahs 1839–1908, London: Sotheran, 1909.Google Scholar

91. Charles Brooke to Treasurer, 18 April 1914, SM/RL/8, pp. 100–101.

92. Charles Brooke to Vyner Brooke, 18 April 1914, Ibid., p. 100.

93. Charles Brooke to Rajah Muda, 1 June 1914, Ibid., pp. 109–11.

94. Ibid. Baring–Gould was eventually restored to the position of Resident of the Third Division and retired from the Service in 1920. I have not been able to establish whether Mrs Baring–Gould returned to England after the incident, but it certainly seems likely.

95. Charles Brooke to K. Caldecott, 21 August 1912, SM/RL/6, p. 361.

96. Vyner Brooke to P. Gordon White, 20 April 1907, Letter books of Vyner Brooke, Sarawak Museum, SM/RL/7, p. 6.

97. Vyner Brooke to P. Gordon White, 7 May 1907, Ibid., p. 8.

98. Vyner Brooke to P. Gordon White, 12 May 1907, Ibid., p. 11.

99. Charles Brooke to Donald Owen, 18 June 1907, “Memoirs of Donald Adrian Owen 1880–1952.” RH MSS Pac.s. 102, p. 95.

100. Charles Brooke to Donald Owen, 5 July 1907, ibid.

101. Yusuf Peter Heaton, “Frustration is Half a Story,” Sarawak Gazette, 31 January 1974, p.g. Heaton suggests that White had taken his cue from an earlier case of elopement in his district in 1907 in which it had been decided that the father could not force his daughter's return “against her own inclination and judgement.”

102. H.H. The Rajah's Order Book, Sarawak Museum.

103. Charles Brooke to L. Hockley, 29 September 1910, Letter books of Charles Brooke, Sarawak Museum, SM/RL/6. This incident no doubt provided the basis for Sylvia Brooke's play, “The Merry Matrons”, which was first performed in Kuching in 1935 and published in the same year.

104. II, p. 79.

105. Good Morning and Good Night, p. 52.

106. Ibid., p. 51.

107. Margaret, Ranee left a delightful account of her time with the Kuching Malays in My Life in Sarawak, London: Methuen, 1913.Google Scholar

108. Personal communication from A.J.N. Richards.

109. Ward, op. cit., p. 60.

110. ADM 3 (Council Negri and Residents' Meeting), Sarawak Museum.

111. Reece, R.H.W., The Name of Brooke: The End of White Rajah Rule in Sarawak Kuala Lumpur: OUP, 1982, pp. 61–3.Google Scholar

112. Mjöberg, E., Borneo. L'île des Chasseurs de Têtes, Paris 1934, p. 129.Google Scholar

113. See Yusuf Peter Heaton, “W. Somerset Maugham and Sarawak,” Sarawak Gazette, 30 June 1974.

114. Sarawak Gazette editorial, 1 December 1925. See also a parody of Maugham in Sarawak Gazette, 1 April 1925.

115. M.P. O'Connor, The More Fool I, cited by Yusuf Peter Heaton, op. cit.

116. Maugham, W. Somerset, A Writer's Notebook, London: Heinemann, 1949, p. 200.Google Scholar

117. Ibid.

118. Maugham, W. Somerset, Sixty Five Short Stories, London: Heinemann, 1976 pp. 284–300Google Scholar. Subsequent quotations are from this volume.

119. Ibid., pp. 266–283.

120. Pringle, Rajahs and Rebels, p. 145.

121. Baring–Gould and Bampfylde, A History of Sarawak, p. 13.

122. Obituary, Sarawak Gazette, 2 January 1925, p. 7. See also, Ranee Margaret My Life in Sarawak, pp. 215–216 et seq.

123. Other prominent pre-war Eurasian families were Geikie, Brodie, Zehnder, Ricketts.

124. Margaret Brooke to Johnson, 29 June 1927, RH MSS Pac.s. 83, Vol. 18, f. 10.

125. Margaret Brooke to Johnson, 10 August 1927, ibid., f. 15.

126. Harry de Windt to Margaret Brooke, 27 June 1927, ibid., f. 17.

127. Sylvia Brooke to Esca Brooke Daykin, 20 January 1940, CO 537/2241.

128. Ranee of Sarawak, Sylvia of Sarawak: An Autobiography, London: Hutchinson, 1936, p. 201.Google Scholar

129. Ibid., p. 257.

130. London: Eveleigh Nash & Grayson, 1930, p. 319.

131. For a discussion of these, see Resink, G.J., Indonesia's History between the Myths: Essays in Legal History and Historical Theory, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968.Google Scholar

132. Malcolm MacDonald Papers, Durham University, 38/6/6-7, 38/6/31, 38/6/49.