The identity of Ngah Jabor and Mohamed Jabor bin Bardot (1858–1921
Mohd Hashim bin Sam Abdul Latiff, a direct descendant of his subject, published this article in 1980 to resolve a persistent ambiguity in Perak’s colonial history: whether Ngah Jabor, the man identified by witnesses as the assassin of British Resident James W.W. Birch in November 1875, is the same person as Mohamed Jabor bin Bardot (1858–1921), the wealthy tin miner and rubber planter who reappeared in Kampar district in 1894. Drawing on trial transcripts, colonial correspondence, mining lease records, and family oral traditions, Latiff argues affirmatively, contending that the two names refer to a single individual who was quietly released from Singapore’s civil gaol under the patronage of Raja Dris (later Sultan Idris) and who subsequently reconstructed his public identity.
Summary
The article opens by interrogating the evidentiary basis for identifying Ngah Jabor as “the Maharaja Lela’s brother,” a designation used by witnesses at the 1876 trial who had limited familiarity with local kinship structures. Latiff demonstrates that the term “brother” was applied loosely to a network of chiefs bound by blood, marriage, and the Perak royal practice of adik beradik sesusu (milk-brotherhood). The critical link is the claim, preserved in family oral tradition, that Jabor bin Bardot was suckled by Ken Uda, mother of Raja Dris, after his own mother Uda Punta’s milk failed following the birth of her eighth child. This would explain both the “brother” designation and the use of the prefix “Ngah” (meaning “middle”), which would be inappropriate for the youngest of eight biological siblings but plausible within an adopted family where Raja Dris was the elder.
The narrative then traces the convergence of two disappearances: Ngah Jabor vanishes from the historical record after his commuted sentence in December 1876, while the young Jabor seen at the households of Dato Sagor and Maharaja Lela is likewise unaccounted for until 1894. Latiff proposes that Jabor was released on Raja Dris’s secret order when the latter assumed the throne in 1887, and that the intervening years were spent in seclusion and martial training in the Perak interior, possibly including participation in the 1892 Pahang expedition alongside his future father-in-law, Imam Perang Haji Basir. The adoption of the name “Mohamed Jabor” upon reappearing is explained by the visual similarity of “Ngah” and “Mohamed” in casual Jawi script, and by the practical need to obscure his identity.
The final portion of the article reconstructs Mohamed Jabor’s career as a mining and rubber magnate, his political positioning within the Perak State Council, his strained relationship with the royal household following his wife’s elopement and divorce, and his economic marginalisation after the death of his patron Sultan Idris in 1916. Latiff uses the Perak Estimates and Kinta Land Office files to demonstrate the scale of Jabor’s wealth relative to both the royalty and ordinary subjects, and to show how the new Sultan Abdul Jalil systematically revoked his mining privileges.
Key Findings
- Birch was assassinated on 2 November 1875 at Pasir Salak; the trial of three accused (Seputum, Si Gondah, Ngah Ahmat) took place at Bandar Bahru from 3–5 March 1876, with Seputum hanged on 20 May 1876 and the other two commuted to penal servitude for life (pp. 5–6).
- The trial of the chiefs at Matang (14–22 December 1876) resulted in the hanging of Dato Maharaja Lela, Dato Sagor, and Pandak Indut on 20 January 1877; Ngah Jabor, Panjang Buh, Kulop Ali, and Si Tuah received commuted sentences of penal servitude for life (p. 7).
- Mohamed Jabor obtained mining lease ML 882 on 18 November 1894 for approximately 22 acres in the Gopeng area of Kampar, employing 167 coolies; by 1895 he held nearly 90 acres across four leases in the district (p. 10).
- In 1900, Raja Muda Musa, acting as wakil Sultan, appointed Mohamed Jabor and Haji Abdul Rahman to manage and supervise mining on the Sultan’s own lease at Sungei Kedondong, Kampar (p. 11).
- Following Sultan Idris’s death in 1916, Jabor’s application to convert mining leases 7204 and 7205 to rubber planting was rejected (June 1916), and a subsequent extension request was denied (May 1917), resulting in the cancellation of leases covering over 100 acres in Tronoh, which reverted to the State (p. 14).
- The 1916 Perak Estimates allocated the Sultan $40,000 per annum and a privacy purse of $12,000, while the family of the late J.W.W. Birch still received a compassionate allowance of $1,500 per year; by contrast, royal princes’ allowances had been set at $15–$25 per month as early as 1882 (pp. 15, 20).
Conclusion
Latiff’s definitive takeaway is that the wheel of fortune turned fully for this man: from alleged assassin sentenced to life imprisonment, he became one of the earliest Malay pioneers in the tin and rubber industries of the Kampar valley, died in 1921 at the age of 63 owning nearly four hundred acres, and left a legacy of patriotism and civic pride embodied in his descendants, including Tan Sri Mohd Haniff Omar, who rose to become Inspector-General of Police. The article ultimately reframes the Birch assassination not as a simple act of criminal conspiracy but as an episode in a complex web of royal kinship, political rivalry, and colonial intervention in which individual fates were shaped by patronage, loyalty, and the shifting balance of power between the Perak court and the British administration.
Context
- The author is the grandson of Mohamed Jabor (son of Sam Abdul Latiff, Jabor’s third son), and the article draws substantially on family oral traditions, a family pedigree prepared by Wan Ismail bin Wan Akib, and personal recollections of the 1968 encounter between the reigning Sultan of Perak and the then Malaysian Envoy to Italy. This familial proximity provides access to otherwise unrecorded traditions but also means the article functions partly as a genealogical vindication.
- Primary archival sources include the British Parliamentary Papers (Misc. 8, 1876), Colonial Office Records (CO 273/102, File 4752), Kinta Land Office files, Perak State Council minutes, and the Perak Estimates of 1916 (Muzium Perak, Taiping). The article’s historiographical contribution lies in bridging the gap between the well-documented 1875–1877 trial period and the post-1894 public career of Mohamed Jabor, a period for which no official record of the prisoner’s fate survives.