An examination of the sources concerning the reign of Sultan Mansur Syah of Trengganu (1741–1795) with special reference to the Tuhfat-al-Nafis
Barbara Watson Andaya’s 1976 source-critical study interrogates the historiographical reliability of the Tuhfat al-Nafis as a vehicle for understanding the reign of Sultan Mansur Syah of Terengganu (1741–1793), a ruler whose fifty-year tenure made him the dominant figure in eighteenth-century Malay politics. Andaya demonstrates that the Tuhfat, long treated as the principal source for this period, systematically distorts Sultan Mansur’s character and actions through selective adaptation of its underlying texts, presenting him as a treacherous and cowardly antagonist to the Bugis in order to legitimise the Bugis-descended community’s political position in Riau.
Summary
The article opens by establishing the severe limitations of the source base for eighteenth-century Terengganu. No indigenous Terengganu chronicle survives, and the European archival material—Dutch VOC correspondence from The Hague, English records from India House and the Straits Settlements, a brief French visitors’ report, and scattered Portuguese references—conveys almost nothing about internal governance or the ruler’s relationship with his subjects. These external sources illuminate Sultan Mansur’s “foreign policy” but leave his domestic administration opaque. The Tuhfat al-Nafis therefore fills a critical gap, yet Andaya shows it is itself built on four source texts—Peringatan Negeri Johor, Siarah Selangor (the so-called Hikayat Negeri Johor), Karangan Engku Busu, and Siarah Siak—none of which originates from or represents the Terengganu court.
Andaya’s central analytical move is to trace how the Tuhfat’s author, Raja Ali Haji, adapted and amplified material from these sources to construct a consistently negative portrait of Sultan Mansur. The Karangan Engku Busu, in particular, is the memoir of a Johor prince who harboured a personal grudge against the Terengganu ruler over marriage alliances and political rivalries, and the Tuhfat uncritically adopts this hostile perspective. Where the shorter Tuhfat text (Kon. Inst. 630) already depicts Sultan Mansur as ambitious and untrustworthy, Raja Ali Haji’s expanded version intensifies the denunciation, inserting fabricated dialogue and implied guilt (such as the suggestive juxtaposition of Sultan Mansur’s arrival in Riau with the death of Yamtuan Muda Daeng Cellak) that have no basis in the underlying sources.
The most compelling evidence for Andaya’s thesis comes from direct comparison with the Dutch VOC records. In the episode of the 1756 attack on Linggi, the Tuhfat portrays Sultan Mansur as a schemer who attempted to have Raja Haji arrested by the Dutch and launched the attack without Sultan Sulaiman’s knowledge. The VOC correspondence, by contrast, shows Sultan Mansur acting as Sultan Sulaiman’s authorised representative, mediating between factions, while it was the Dutch Governor who pressed for military action. This discrepancy is not isolated; it reflects a broader pattern in which the Tuhfat externalises blame for Malay-Bugis conflict onto a single Terengganu figure, thereby preserving the narrative of a harmonious and mutually beneficial Bugis-Malay alliance in Riau.
Key Findings
- The Peringatan Negeri Johor (Kl. 24B, Leiden), a court notebook of the Bendahara family, ends in 1750 and thus provides no information for the period of Sultan Mansur’s greatest influence in Malay politics (p. 87).
- The Karangan Engku Busu (Cod. Or. 1724, Leiden), the most pro-Bugis source used by the Tuhfat, was copied in A.H. 1243 (1827) and reflects the bitter personal animosity of a Johor prince who was captured by Raja Kecil in 1721 and who resented Sultan Mansur’s marriage of his daughter to Raja Ismail, son of Raja Kecil (pp. 89–91).
- Dutch VOC records for the 1756 Linggi campaign show that Sultan Mansur was Sultan Sulaiman’s delegated representative and that it was Governor Dekker, not Sultan Mansur, who initiated the attack; no Dutch document mentions any plan to arrest Raja Haji (pp. 94–96).
- The capture of the English opium sloop Betsy at Riau in February 1782, arranged by the French captain Barbaron under a VOC-sanctioned privateering scheme, was the immediate trigger for the Dutch-Bugis war of 1784; Raja Ali Haji, however, attributes the war’s true cause to Sultan Mansur’s alleged conspiracy with Captain Glass to spread disinformation in Riau (pp. 98–99).
- Sultan Mansur was conferred the title Yang di Pertuan Kecil (heir apparent) in 1736, was referred to as “heir” by the Dutch by 1746, and was formally excluded from the Johor succession in 1759 when Sultan Sulaiman appointed his own son Raja Abdul Jalil as heir (pp. 99–100).
- The Tuhfat’s shorter version (Kon. Inst. 630) and Raja Ali Haji’s expanded text share the same anti-Terengganu orientation, but Raja Ali Haji’s additions are significantly more accusatory, inserting invented dialogue and implications of guilt absent from the source texts (pp. 96–98).
Conclusion
Andaya concludes that the Tuhfat al-Nafis functions as a “legitimising charter” for the Bugis-descended community of the nineteenth century. By locating the cause of Malay-Bugis conflict in the person of Sultan Mansur—an outsider who could be blamed without impugning the fundamental loyalty of the Bugis to the Johor throne—the text preserves the ideological foundation of Bugis political authority in Riau. The anti-Terengganu bias is thus not merely a matter of individual prejudice but a structural feature of a historiographical tradition designed to serve the political interests of its patrons.
Context
- Primary archival collections consulted: Algemeen Rijksarchief (The Hague), VOC Overgekomen Brieven and Generale Missiven series; India House (London), Francis Light correspondence; Leiden University Library (Cod. Or. 1724, Cod. Or. 7304, Kl. 24B); Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Kon. Inst. 630).
- Historiographical contribution: The article establishes a methodological framework for evaluating the Tuhfat al-Nafis as a source for non-Bugis actors in the Malay world, demonstrating that its pro-Bugis orientation extends beyond general sympathies to active fabrication and selective omission when dealing with figures like Sultan Mansur Syah.