The origin of ‘Sabah’ and a reappraisal of Overbeck as Maharajah
P.J. Rivers, writing in 2004, undertakes a philological and archival reappraisal of the name “Sabah” and the title “Maharajah of Sabah” bestowed on Baron von Overbeck in the 1870s, arguing that both were Victorian-era constructions rather than ancient indigenous designations. The article challenges the widely repeated claim that “Sabah” was a long-established territorial name predating British involvement, demonstrating instead that it derives from a Brunei Malay directional term meaning “downstream” that was selectively elevated to a geographical label by company promoters seeking to legitimise their territorial claims.
Summary
Rivers traces the etymology of “Sabah” through Jawi manuscripts, colonial administrative records, and company promotional literature to demonstrate that the term has no basis as a pre-existing territorial name. The earliest and only attested place-name is Kampong Saba (also spelled Saba’), a water village in Brunei Town situated at the downstream end of the Brunei River, where the term simply denotes position relative to the river’s flow (p. 76). In the Silsilah Raja-Raja Berunei (Book of Descent of the Rajas of Brunei), the word appears directionally—arah ke saba—meaning “in the direction of downstream,” which in Brunei Malay corresponds to a northeasterly bearing along the coast, not a fixed compass point (pp. 76–77). Rivers argues that scholars such as Hugh Low and Amin Sweeney, working from Jawi manuscripts that lack upper-case letters, mistakenly rendered saba as the proper noun “Sabah,” thereby creating the illusion of a territorial entity where only a directional reference existed (pp. 77–78).
The second thread of the argument concerns Overbeck’s self-styling as “Maharajah of Sabah.” Rivers demonstrates that the Malay phrase maha raja functioned as a job description—equivalent to “supreme ruler” or chief supervisor—rather than as a hereditary title of nobility in the Indian sense (pp. 79–80). The Sultan of Brunei’s Will, translated by D.E. Brown, records the cession money (wang hasil, meaning “rent” or “tax”) paid by Dent and Overbeck, suggesting the Sultan regarded them as tax farmers rather than sovereigns (p. 80). The British Colonial Office itself described Overbeck as a “mere speculative Adventurer” attempting “to set up a Maharajahdom” (p. 80). The title was a product of Overbeck’s selective reading of the Brunei grant, amplified by W.H. Treacher’s translation in a January 1878 despatch, and subsequently adopted by the Company for promotional purposes (pp. 80–81).
Rivers further shows that “North Borneo” was itself a newly coined term, apparently minted by Dent’s Provisional Association in emulation of the earlier Borneo Company Limited of 1856, and that the Royal Charter of 1 November 1881 was the first document to yoke “Sabah” and “North Borneo” as synonyms in the phrase “Maharajah of Sabah (North Borneo)“—the bracketed addition being an interpolation not present in the original Brunei commission (pp. 82–83). The Company’s 1881 promotional map showing “British North Borneo or Sabah” was part of this same lobbying effort to create a unified territorial identity from a patchwork of non-contiguous cessions (p. 83).
Key Findings
- The only attested place-name “Saba/Sabah” in the pre-colonial period is Kampong Saba in the Water Village of Brunei Town, named for its downstream position; no territorial entity called Sabah appears in D.E. Brown’s district registers or in any nineteenth-century Brunei administrative list (p. 76).
- The Silsilah Raja-Raja Berunei uses saba exclusively as a directional term (northeasterly from Brunei), paralleling hulu (southwesterly/upstream); in Manuscript A, arah ke saba appears alongside arah kelaut, arah kedarat, and arah kehulu as one of four cardinal vectors for fortification work (pp. 77, 86).
- Baron von Overbeck was appointed by the Sultan of Brunei at the end of 1877; the Sultan of Sulu’s grant followed on 22 January 1878, conferring “Datu Bandahara and Raja of Sandakan” and describing Overbeck as “supreme and independent ruler”—a translation of maha raja as a functional description, not a hereditary title (pp. 78, 80).
- The Royal Charter of the British North Borneo Company was granted on 1 November 1881; “Sabah” appears in it only twice, within the title “Maharajah of Sabah (North Borneo),” and is absent from the detailed territorial descriptions (p. 82).
- The last postage stamps bearing “North Borneo” were issued on 4 June 1963 and withdrawn on 30 June 1964; overprinted “Sabah” stamps were used from 1 July 1964, and the first stamps headed “Sabah” and “Malaysia” were issued on 15 November 1965 (p. 69).
- The Federal Government gazetted the states of Malaya as “West Malaysia” and Sarawak and Sabah as “East Malaysia” with effect from 6 August 1966 (p. 69).
Conclusion
Rivers concludes that “Sabah” as a territorial name is a product of the 1870s–1880s, created by the convergence of a Brunei Malay directional term, Overbeck’s self-aggrandising adoption of “Maharajah,” and Dent’s company promotion that fused the invented “Sabah” with the newly coined “North Borneo” into a single national identity. The adoption of “Sabah” as the state name upon Malaysian federation in 1963 was therefore not a resurgence of an ancient name but an evolution of a Victorian commercial construct that had been absorbed into the local vernacular over eighty years of Company and Crown Colony rule (pp. 84–85).
Context
- The article draws on the Silsilah Raja-Raja Berunei (Manuscripts A and B, transliterated by Amin Sweeney), the Royal Charter of 1881, W. Pretyman’s diary (1878–1880), Sultan Mumin’s Will (translated by D.E. Brown), and the Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue, alongside secondary works by Tregonning, Irwin, Tarling, and Ongkili.
- Historiographically, the article corrects a persistent anachronism in the Sabah literature—the assumption that “Sabah” was a pre-colonial territorial name—and repositions the name’s origin within the politics of Victorian chartered-company promotion rather than indigenous toponymy.