Article

The first Sultan of Sarawak and his links to Brunei and the Sambas dynasty, 1599–1826

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The first Sultan of Sarawak and his links to Brunei and the Sambas dynasty, 1599–1826

Ib Larsen (2012) examines the largely undocumented two-century period between the assassination of Sultan Tengah Manga in 1641 and the arrival of James Brooke in 1842, arguing that the conventional narrative of continuous Brunei suzerainty over Sarawak is too simplistic and that the neighbouring sultanate of Sambas exercised considerably stronger influence on the territory than has been generally credited.

Summary

The article addresses a significant lacuna in Sarawak historiography: the near-total absence of documentary evidence on how the territory was governed after the death of its only sultan. The official Sarawak narrative holds that four hereditary Malay datu governed semi-autonomously under Brunei suzerainty, but Larsen questions whether this accounts for the full picture, noting that the area sat on the periphery of both Brunei’s and Sambas’s spheres of influence and held little commercial interest for either until the discovery of antimony in the early nineteenth century (pp. 1–2, 14).

The core argument is that Sambas maintained strong and possibly direct influence over Sarawak throughout this period. Larsen draws on a combination of early European maps, British colonial correspondence, Dutch administrative records, oral traditions recorded in the 1940s, and — crucially — manuscripts from the Sambas royal palace and family archives to build this case. The evidence includes the 1836 uprising in which the Malay datu sought Sambas protection, the documented presence of Sambas royals in Sarawak, and the geographic and economic interdependence of the two areas, with Sarawak’s main overland route to Dutch Kalimantan running directly through to Sambas (pp. 6–9, 13–14).

The article also traces the genealogical and political connections between the Sambas dynasty and Sarawak, showing how Radin Suleiman, son of Sultan Tengah Manga, became the first Sultan of Sambas and how his descendants may have retained claims over Sarawak. The discovery of antimony and the subsequent 1836 uprising crystallised the competing claims, and it was only the intervention of James Brooke on the Brunei side that definitively settled Sarawak under Brunei authority (pp. 8–9, 14).

Key Findings

  • Sultan Tengah Manga was appointed Sultan of Sarawak in 1599 by his elder brother Sultan Abdul Jalilul Akbar of Brunei and was assassinated at Batu Buaya, Santubong, in 1641; his mausoleum was constructed at Santubong in 1995 (pp. 2, 5).
  • Francis Valentyn’s map of Borneo, printed in Amsterdam c. 1725, clearly places the western part of Sarawak under “T Koninkryk van Sambas” (Sambas Kingdom), and a mid-nineteenth-century map by J. Rapkin (1851) still shows Kuching within the Sambas sultanate (pp. 3–4).
  • In 1811 the British ship Commence was burned by “Pangeran Samewda of Sarawak, a relative of the sultan of Sambas”; the British navy responded by bombarding Sambas in 1812, and Raffles sent a warning to the “Rajah of Sarawak” in 1813 (pp. 6–7).
  • In 1831 the Dutch resident in Sambas formally proposed to the East Indian government that Sambas should acquire Lundu, Sematan, Sarawak and Sadoud from Brunei, with the stated purpose of stopping rampant salt smuggling (p. 7).
  • During the 1836 uprising, the rebel datu sent a message to the Dutch Assistant Resident in Sambas stating they wished to come under Dutch rule; the Sultan of Sambas supplied the datu with arms and ammunition, and after the suppression by Muda Hashim, Datu Patinggi Abdul Gabur and Datu Temenggong Mersal withdrew to Sambas protection (pp. 8–9).
  • Sultan Muhammad Ali Tsafi Uddin (r. 1815–28) spent most of his pre-accession years in Sarawak (specifically Lundu), and during the British occupation of Sambas in 1812–13 the Sultan sent four datuk kiayi to Lundu to retrieve him (p. 14).

Conclusion

Larsen concludes that the story of absolute Brunei rule over Sarawak between 1641 and 1842 is too simplistic. Sarawak sat on the periphery of both Brunei’s and Sambas’s spheres of influence, and control likely varied over time and between different parts of the territory. Sambas needed bases in western Sarawak to control the tip of Borneo and tax marine trade, and the discovery of antimony vitalised competing interests from both sides until the claims were finally settled by the appointment of the first White Rajah (p. 14).

Context

  • The study draws on previously underutilised Sambas-side primary sources, including the Silsilah Krajaan Sambas (a 1903 typewritten copy of a record made by Sultan Umar Aqam Uddin I, 1708–32), family-held manuscripts, the Indonesian National Archives, and Leiden archives, supplemented by field visits to Sambas in 2004 and 2010 (pp. 3, 9).
  • Historiographically, the article challenges the standard Sarawak narrative by integrating Sambas royal and family archives into the pre-Brooke history, demonstrating that the “missing” two centuries of Sarawak governance are better understood through the lens of Sambas influence rather than as a simple continuation of Brunei administration (pp. 1, 14).

References