A history of the Acheen Street Malay enclave from oral history accounts
Ib Larsen’s 2012 article in JMBRAS Vol. 85, Part 2 re-examines the two-century gap between the assassination of Sultan Tengah Manga in 1641 and the arrival of James Brooke in 1842, arguing that the conventional narrative of unbroken Brunei sovereignty over Sarawak during this period is too simplistic and that the sultanate of Sambas exercised considerably stronger influence on the territory than has been generally acknowledged. Drawing on Sambas royal genealogies, early modern European maps, British and Dutch colonial correspondence, and oral traditions from both sides of the border, Larsen constructs a picture of a contested periphery where control shifted between Brunei, Sambas, and local Malay datu depending on the era and the specific locality.
Summary
The article addresses a well-known lacuna in Sarawak historiography: after Sultan Tengah Manga was assassinated at Santubong in 1641, the official account holds that four hereditary Malay datu governed semi-autonomously under Brunei’s ultimate authority, yet almost no administrative records survive to confirm how that arrangement functioned in practice. Larsen’s central move is to follow the genealogical thread from Sultan Tengah Manga to his son Radin Suleiman, who became the first Muslim Sultan of Sambas, and then to ask whether Radin Suleiman and his successors retained any claim or practical authority over their father’s former territory. The argument proceeds by accumulating circumstantial evidence—cartographic, diplomatic, military, and genealogical—rather than by producing a single definitive document.
The evidence assembled spans several centuries. Early maps, notably Francis Valentyn’s c. 1725 Amsterdam publication, place the western part of Sarawak within the Sambas kingdom. British and Dutch records from the early nineteenth century repeatedly describe Sarawak figures as relatives or allies of the Sambas sultan, and the 1836 uprising by the Malay datu against the Pengiran Mahkota (sent by Brunei to exploit newly discovered antimony) is shown to have been materially supported by Sambas, with rebels explicitly requesting Dutch protection in 1839. Larsen also traces the physical infrastructure of Sambas coastal control—forts, tax-collection points, and a cannon found at Tanjung Datu—demonstrating that Sambas needed bases in western Sarawak to command the northwestern tip of Borneo and tax passing maritime trade.
The article is careful to note that its evidence, while convergent, does not constitute conclusive proof of direct Sambas sovereignty. Rather, it demonstrates that the binary of “Brunei rule” versus “local autonomy” is inadequate, and that Sarawak functioned as a contested zone where multiple claimants—Sambas descendants in Pelajau, the lineage of Raja Jarom in Samarahan, competing interests in Santubong, and datu loyal to Sambas in Lundu and Talang-Talang—held overlapping and sometimes simultaneous rights.
Key Findings
- Sultan Tengah Manga was appointed Sultan of Sarawak by his brother Sultan Abdul Jalilul Akbar of Brunei in 1599 and was assassinated at Batu Buaya, Santubong, in 1641; his son Radin Suleiman was crowned the first Sultan of Sambas (Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin I) around 1631 (pp. 5, 11).
- Francis Valentyn’s map of Borneo (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).
- A Dutch report from the 1820s records that in Sarawak “two Brunei Pengerans carried out the Government and extract three koyans of padi and two pikuls of birds’ nests a year from the local dayaks,” alongside “about a hundred Malays, most of them pirates” (p. 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, and the Sultan of Sambas dispatched an envoy to Brunei to negotiate the transfer (p. 7).
- During the 1836 uprising, the rebel datu sent a message in May 1839 to the Dutch Assistant Resident in Sambas stating they wished to come under Dutch (Sambas) rule; the Sambas government in turn wrote to the Pengiran Mahkota offering assistance in developing the antimony deposits (pp. 8–9).
- A Sambas cannon was recovered at Tanjung Datu, the northwestern tip of Borneo, and small forts were maintained at Panding Bandera, Kalang Bau, and Bata along the coast, indicating Sambas’ physical infrastructure for taxing maritime trade through the area (p. 14).
Conclusion
Larsen concludes that the question of who “ruled” Sarawak between 1641 and 1842 cannot be answered with a single sovereign name. The territory sat at the periphery of both Brunei’s and Sambas’ spheres of influence, and because it held little commercial interest for either power until the discovery of antimony in the early nineteenth century, effective control likely varied both over time and across different localities. The discovery of antimony at Siniawan and the subsequent 1836 uprising vitalized competing claims from both sides until the appointment of James Brooke by the Sultan of Brunei in 1842 finally settled the question in Brunei’s favour.
Context
- The study draws on the Silsilah Krajaan Sambas (a 1903 typewritten copy of a record made by Sultan Umar Aqam Uddin I, 1708–32), manuscripts and letters in the Indonesian National Archives and Leiden, Brunei court records, and oral interviews conducted in Sambas in 2004 and 2010 with members of the royal family and the Majelis Adat Istiadat Kesultanan Sambas (pp. 3, 9, 16).
- Historiographically, the article challenges the standard Sarawak narrative (as presented by Mullen, Runciman, and others) that treats the 1641–1842 period as a straightforward continuation of Brunei suzerainty, and aligns with J. H. Walker’s more recent work on the 1836 uprising while extending the argument further back in time.