White Rajas
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Kingdom of Sarawak 1841–1946 |
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| Capital | Kuching | ||||
| Head of state |
James Brooke (1841–1868) Charles Johnson Brooke (1868–1917) Charles Vyner Brooke (1917–1946) |
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Location of Sarawak in what is now Malaysia |
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White Rajas of Borneo were the names of the members of the English-born Brooke family , who ruled the Kingdom of Sarawak on the north coast of Borneo in the 19th and 20th centuries .
history
The adventurer James Brooke toured the coastal waters of North Borneo in 1839 with his schooner The Royalist . He helped Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II of Brunei to pacify an uprising by the local Bidayuh . Brooke succeeded in pacifying the uprising without a single sacrifice: he summoned the chiefs of the rebel tribes and demonstrated the firepower of his ship to them. The Sultan made him his liege in 1841 and gave him a huge area as Raja , Prince of Sarawak, for personal administration. For this he had to pay the Sultan £ 500 a year. James Brooke managed to break his domain from the sultan's suzerainty and become sovereign.
Brooke reformed the administration of the country and led from 1843-1844 together with the future Admiral Sir Henry Keppel several expeditions to suppress piracy by the Iban tribe . In 1857 Brooke was temporarily expelled from his capital, Kuching , but was able to return with the help of his nephew and subsequent successor Charles Johnson Brooke . Since James Brooke remained childless, he first named his nephew John, Charles' brother, as his successor. However, he later withdrew this decision, so that from 1865 Charles Anthoni Johnson was appointed as Charles Brooke as his successor. After the death of James Brooke (1868), he became the second White Raja to rule Sarawak.
The Brookes administered from Kuching the northern part of Borneo (with the exception of the narrower area of Brunei ) as an independent kingdom for three generations until 1946. The vast forest area of Sarawak and the oil deposits were the personal property of the Brooke family. The area of their rule was largely identical to what is now the Malaysian state of Sarawak . During the reign of the Brookes, Sarawak experienced an economic boom. Particularly in the first years of Charles Vyner Brooke's rule , oil and rubber production experienced an upswing and enabled extensive modernization of the country.
Charles Vyner Brooke was evicted by the Japanese Army in December 1941 during World War II . He returned to Sarawak after the war. On July 1, 1946, however, the rule of the White Rajas ended . Charles Vyner Brooke left Sarawak to British colonial rule in exchange for a substantial pension for himself and his three daughters. His nephew and heir Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke was initially against this decision. In 1951, however, he renounced any claim to the Sarawak crown.
List of white rajas
| List of white raja | from | to |
|---|---|---|
| James Brooke | 1841 | 1868 |
| Charles Johnson Brooke | 1868 | 1917 |
| Charles Vyner Brooke | 1917 | 1946 |
literature
- Muzaffar DJ Tate: Rajah Brooke's Borneo. The Nineteenth Century World of Pirates and Head-Hunters, Orang Utan and Hornbills, and other such Rarities as seen through the Illustrated London News and other contemporary Sources. Falcon Press, Damansara Jaya 1997, ISBN 983-9672-23-1 .