John Clunies-Ross

John Clunies-Ross (* 1786 in Weisdale, Shetland Islands , Scotland ; † May 26, 1854 ) was a Scottish captain and, as Ross I, King of the Cocos Islands from 1827 to 1854 .

Neither John Clunies-Ross nor his descendants of the Clunies-Ross family were ever recognized internationally as kings.

biography

Clunies-Ross was a Scottish captain in the service of the merchant Alexander Hare , who was British resident in Borneo around 1825 . After the Netherlands took power over Java and Hare, who was also the operator of a harem and slave trader, was expelled from the Dutch East Indies , Clunies-Ross accompanied him in search of a new residence. In 1825 Clunies-Ross reached the uninhabited Cocos Islands , which he claimed for himself, however, and declared himself king as Ross I.

When he returned there in 1827, Hare had settled there with his harem . There was strong opposition between the two men, so Hare finally left the Cocos Islands in 1831. Ross then brought some Malaysian workers to the islands and began harvesting coconut to make copra .

In 1836 Charles Darwin visited the islands and wrote of his impressions:

"The Malays are in a free state, but they are considered slaves ."

When a strike broke out in 1837 and workers demanded higher wages, Ross offered them houses and gardens for each family. He then tried unsuccessfully to put the islands under the protectorate of Great Britain. A visit to the Dutch colonial administration of Java meant that he was entitled to duty-free trade due to his previous residence in Borneo .

By the time of his death in 1854 he had finally started a flourishing copra trade.

Web links

• rulers.org