Article

A history of Johore (1673–ca.1800 A.D.)

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

A history of Johore (1673–ca.1800 A.D.)

R.O. Winstedt published this edition of the Hikayat Negeri Johor in 1932, presenting a Jawi-script manuscript from the Batavian Society’s von de Wall collection alongside an English summary that traces the political history of the Johore-Riau sultanate from the sack of Johor Lama by Jambi in 1672 through the English restoration of Riau to Sultan Mahmud in the 1780s. The overarching thesis, implicit in Winstedt’s editorial framing, is that this manuscript constitutes the principal indigenous source for the turbulent Bugis-Malay-Dutch period of Johore’s history, a period otherwise poorly documented in European records.

Summary

The article consists of Winstedt’s brief introduction on manuscript provenance, followed by a detailed English summary of the Jawi text, and then the full manuscript itself. Winstedt identifies four known copies of the Hikayat Negeri Johor—two in Leiden (one dated 1849) and two in the Batavian Society’s collection—and argues that MS CCCLVI is the superior witness, being more concise and containing fewer corruptions than CCCLV. He also notes the existence of a separate, modern Hikayat Johor by Dato’ Major Haji Muhammad Said, private secretary to Sultan Ibrahim of Johore, which deals mainly with the reign of Sultan Abubakar and is distinct from the text printed here.

The narrative proper covers the displacement of the Johore court from the mainland to Riau following the 1672 sack of Johor Lama, the succession crises of the early eighteenth century, and the complex power-sharing arrangement between the Malay sultans and the Bugis Yang di-pertuan Muda that characterised Riau from the 1720s onward. Winstedt’s summary draws on the manuscript’s own chronology—given in Hijri dates with occasional Gregorian equivalents—and supplements it with marginal references to the Tuhfat al-Nafis, Wilkinson’s 1931 article, and other sources. The text is notable for its granular attention to marriage alliances between Bugis and Malay royal families, the movement of courts between Riau, Pahang, Trengganu, Selangor, and Lingga, and the military confrontations with the Dutch at Malacca and in the Riau archipelago.

The final portion of the manuscript, covering the 1770s and 1780s, documents the rise and death of Raja Haji (Pengiran Suta Wijaya), the Dutch conquest of Riau, Sultan Mahmud’s flight to Lingga and Pahang, and the eventual English intervention that restored the sultan to his seat. Winstedt’s marginal notes occasionally correct or clarify the manuscript’s genealogical statements, particularly where the Tuhfat al-Nafis offers a different reading.

Key Findings

  • Johor Lama was sacked by Jambi in 1083 AH (1672 AD); Sultan Abdul-Jalil Shah (Marhum Besar) fled to Pahang and died there in 1080 AH (1669 AD) (p. 164).
  • Sultan Sulaiman Badar-u’l-Alam Shah was installed by the Bugis leaders Klana Jaya Putra (Daeng Parani) and Daeng Manampu in 1722; Daeng Parani died of a cannon-shot in 1136 AH (p. 165).
  • Daeng Kemboja, as Yang di-pertuan Muda, paid $30,457 to the Dutch Governor at Malacca as the debt of the late Sultan Sulaiman for the cost of the attack on Linggi during the Siak war (p. 168).
  • Sultan Sulaiman Shah Alam died at Riau on 20 August 1760; his successor Sultan Ahmad also died, leaving the child Sultan Mahmud under the guardianship of Daeng Kemboja (p. 168).
  • Raja Haji (Pengiran Suta Wijaya) was killed by the Dutch at Teluk Ketapang; his followers fled to Muar and took Sultan Mahmud back to Riau (p. 169).
  • The English took over Malacca and returned Riau to Sultan Mahmud, who entrusted its administration to Engku Muda, Dato’ Temenggong, and resided at Lingga; Raja Ali served as Yang di-pertuan Muda from 1784 until his death in 1805 (p. 169).

Conclusion

Winstedt’s definitive contribution is the establishment of this Batavian manuscript as the authoritative indigenous chronicle for the Johore-Riau period 1673–ca. 1800, a period in which the sultanate’s political centre of gravity shifted irreversibly from the mainland to the Riau archipelago. The text demonstrates that the Bugis-Malay power-sharing system, though often characterised in later historiography as a simple dichotomy, was in practice a fluid arrangement of marriage, military alliance, and periodic rupture that involved multiple competing claimants across Johore, Riau, Selangor, Trengganu, and Siak.

Context

  • Winstedt (C.M.G., D.Litt.) was a senior colonial administrator in the Straits Settlements and a leading scholar of Malay literature; his editorial role here is that of a philologist making a manuscript accessible to the English-speaking scholarly community, with the English summary serving as a guide to the Jawi text rather than as an independent historical argument.
  • The primary archival source is the Batavian Society (Bataviaasch Genootschap) manuscript collection, specifically the von de Wall collection; Winstedt cross-references the Tuhfat al-Nafis and Wilkinson’s 1931 JMBRAS article on the early Bugis period.

References