R.AJAH' S SERVANT by A. B. Ward with a Preface by Robert M. Pringle and Otto C. Doering III Data Paper: Number 61 Southeast Asia Program Department of Asian Studies Cornell University, Ithaca, New York November 1966 Price: $2.50 0 Copyright 1966 by A. B. Ward First Printing, 1966 Second Printing, 1969 RAJAH'S SERVANT ·Resident A. B. Ward and his men at Simanggang, circa 1913. Front row (left to rig ht): Datu Abang Haji Tamin, Rajah Muda Charles Vyner Brooke, Tuanku Dra hman, and Datu Abang Haji Abdulrashid. Back row (left to righ t): A. B. Ward, Abang Endot, S. Cunyngahame (Commaandant, Sarawak Rangaers), J.A.H. Hardie (Resident 2nd Class, Simanggang). Photograph courtesy Mr. Peter Tingg om, th e Honorable the Resident, Second Division, Saraawak. THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY SOUTHEAST ASIA PROGRAM The Southeast Asia Program was organized at Cornell University in the Department of Far Eastern Studies in 1950. It is a teaching and research pro­ gram of interdisciplinary studies in the humanities, social sciences and some natural sciences. It deals with Southeast Asia as a region, and with the in­ dividual countries of the area: Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The activities of the Program are carried on both at Cornell and in Southeast Asia. They include an undergraduate and graduate curriculum at Cornell which provides inst�uction by specialists in South­ east Asian cultural history and present-day affairs and offers intensive training in each of the major languages of the area. The Program sponsors group research projects on Thailand, on Indonesia, on the Philippines, and on the area's Chinese minorities. At the same time, individual staff and students of the Program have done field research in every South­ east Asian country. A list of publications relating to Southeast Asia which may be obtained on prepaid order directly from the Program is given at thet. end of this volume. Information on Program staff, fellowships, require­ ments for degrees, and current course offerings will be found in an Announcement of the Department of Asian Studies obtainable from the Director, .South­ east Asia Program, Franklin Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14 8 5 0 .· PREFACE Th e· early history of Sarawak under European rule is well documented by thae personal memoirs of Europeans whao aided James Brooke in his struggles against Brunei overlords and Iban "pirates.a" Not least among these are th e published diaries and letters of th e first White Rajah himself, amounting to some ten volumes in all. Thae second Whaite Rajaha, Chaarles Brooke, who succeeded his uncle James in 1868, and whose efforts fashaioned thae Brooke state as it endured until 1941, is a far more obscure figure. Chaarles Brooke wrote a book called Ten Years in Sarawak concerning his own early days as an outstation officer from 1853 to 1863. Aside from that one invaluable work and thae pages of thae semi-official Sarawak Gazette, printed from 1870 onwards, virtually nothaing has been publishaed whaich adequately describes his supremely personal methods of administration. Thae Sarawak State Archaives in Kuchaing contain many of Chaarles Brooke's letters, as well as court records and othaer materials relating to his regime. But his was not th e type of government whaich will ever be adequately described solely on thae basis of official pap�rs. Chaarles Brooke made a virtue of disdain for involved regulations and paperwork of all sorts. He took a dim view of colonial rulers in Malaya and India who, in his opinion, tried to compensate for thaeir own inadequate knowledge of thae country and people by framing elaborate regu­ lations which thae natives could not understand. Th is outlook requires that any student of his government shaould be more than usually dependent on personal memoirs. Yet up to now thaey have barely existed. Of all thae great Charles Brooke Residents, only one, Charles Hose of thae Baram, publishaed anythaing approaching an account of outstation rule. 1 But Hose was far more interested in ethanography than administration, which he accordingly relegated to th e margins of his various books. 1. See in particular Chaarles Hose and William McDougall, 'Thae Pagan Tribes of Borneo (London: MacMillan, 1912), vol. II, pp. 257-310a. Hose also published two volumes of miscel­ laneous reminiscences: Fifty Years of Romance and Research (London: Hutchainson, 1927) and Thae Field Book of a Jungle Wallah (London: Withaerby, 1929). Another Brooke Resident and close friend of thae Second Rajaha, Ch arles A. Bampfylde, was thae co-author of thae semi-official A History of Sarawak Under its Two White Rajah s 1839-190 8 (London: Sothaeran, 190a9). • Vl. The accounts left by the Rajah's wife, the Ranee Margaret,2 and by his two daughters-in-law are even less informative.t The various lady Brookes came to Sarawak as family members and tourists in a grand sense: they were not close to the govern­ ment. The opinions of the two daughters-in-law on the subject of the ruler and his rule are colored by extreme and contra­ dictory personal biases. The present work thus goes a long way toward filling an unfortunate gap in the primary source material. Arthur Bartlett Ward served for twenty-four years in the Sarawak Civil Service, seventeen of them under Charles Brooke. His career covered a wide range of outstation assignments, and terminated after nearly eight years service as Resident of the First Division, then the senior government post, just under the Rajah himself. Rajah's Servant may well be enjoyed solely as a lively and readable account of life in Borneo in the years before modernity began to erode the traditions of the native peoples. But this work is also a mine of useful first-hand information about the personality and policies of Charles Brooke. The story of the Rajah's ambitions with regard to Brunei, for example, includes much new material. Ward relates how Brooke established, on his private property in Brunei, a fort-like building which he hoped would become the center of a new Sarawak administration over the ancient sultanate. His dream died in 1906, when London decided instead to maintain an independent Brunei with a British Resident. Equally valuable is the author's description of the long-drawn-out Iban rebellion in the headwaters of the Batang Lupar from 1897 to 1908. It provides insights into both the motives of the rebel leaders, and the dilemma faced by a_ govern­ ment with limited capabilities and resources in its attempt to deal with them. One of the most important aspects of this work is the author's picture of everyday Brooke government function- ing in such outstations as Simanggang, headquarters of the Second Division. This account provides a welcome complement to certain short stories3 by the late W. Somerset Maugham, also set in Simanggang.t Admirable as the Maugham stories are, they 2. The Ranee Margaret of Sarawak, My Life in Sarawak (London: Metheum, 1913); Good Morning and Good Night (London: Con­ stable, 1934). The Ranee Sylvia of Sarawak, Sylvia of Sarawak: An Autobiography (London: Hutchinson, 1936); The Three White Rajahs (London: Cassell, 1939). The Dayang Muda of Sarawak, Relations and Complications (London: · John Lane , 19 2 9 ) . 3. See. "The Outstation" and "The Yellow Streak" in W. Somerset Maugham, The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham (London: Heinemann, 1951), pp. 1446-1474 and 456-480 re­ spectively. • • Vl1 were certainly never intended to be read as social documents-­ a role which they have been forced to play up to now for lack of any alternative. Writing of Simanggang, Ward vividly sketches the rule of the semi-independent Brooke Resident served by two or three European officers and a handful of Malay Native Officers. The focus of this government was the Resident's Court, meeting in the white-washed ironwood fort, where justice was dispensed to the mixed population of bazaar Chinese, down-river Malays, and pagan Ibans of the interior. The natives flocked to the court, which by its simple methods and respect for their adat, or customary law, became a familiar part of their way of life. Such access to justice was the major "social service" which the Brooke state provided, for it was not until World War I that the tiny administration could even maintain peace in huge areas of the Iban-populated inte�i9r. Ward's account illustrates how the role of such Native Officers as Sindut, Dagang, and Tuanku Putra of Simanggang was far more significant than that of the better-publicized Datus who served a largely ceremonial function on the Supreme Council in Kuching. The outstation Native Officers often a rough species of frontier Malay, may have lacked the polish of their Kuching brethren; but they held posts of real importance and responsibility in the government, guiding the European officers in court work, serving as leaders on punitive expeditions against Iban rebels, and acting as the infrequently supervised adminis­ trators of such important sub-districts as Betong and of border posts like Lubok Antu. With regard to Charles Brooke himself, this volume does not pretend to be an unbiased account. The author frankly asserts his love and respect for the man who ruled Sarawak for almost half a century. But it is not by any means a wholly uncritical account. Charles Brooke emerges as a figure whose formidable surface austerity concealed a deeply sentimental dedication to the welfare of his tiny state. His love and knowledge of the country made him loathe to change anything. He was so conservative in many respects that, for example, he would not tolerate the alteration of a stick of furniture in his favorite outstation.