BIBLIOASIA JUL - SEP 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 02 FEATURE Don't Mention the Corpses The Erasure of Violence in Colonial Writings on History may be written by the victors, but what they conveniently

leave out can be more telling. Farish Noor reminds us of the (Left) Native Dayaks (or Dyaks) in using sumpita, or blowpipes, to defend themselves from a coastal violent side of colonial conquest. attack led by , the White Rajah of Sarawak. Image reproduced from Brooke, J., & Mundy, G.R. (1848). Narrative of Events in and Celebes, Down to the Occupation of […] (Vol. II; 2nd ed.) (facing p. 227). London: John Murray. (Microfilm no.:NL7435). (Above) The court of the Sultan of Borneo, with the audience chamber filled with natives, all well-dressed and armed. The sultan sits cross-legged on the throne at the upper end of the chamber. Frank Marryat describes him as being bald and dressed in a “loose jacket and trousers or purple satin, richly embroidered with gold, a close-fitting vest of gold cloth, and a light cloth turban on his head”. Image reproduced from Marryat, F.S. (1848). Borneo and the Indian Archipelago: With Drawings of Costume and Scenery (p. 109). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. Retrieved from BookSG.

Mundy’s account in Narrative of Events in onslaughts will achieve nothing beyond a Borneo and Celebes, Down to the Occu- present and temporary good”.8 pation of Labuan (1848);5 and Marryat’s Violence was thus a constant leitmotif Borneo and the Indian Archipelago (1848)6 in many of the works written by colonial – would become the most widely read authors who arrived in Southeast Asia in accounts of the so-called “war on piracy” in the 19th century. Colonies were rarely maritime Southeast Asia, ultimately adding built by peaceful negotiations, and often the seal of legitimacy for what was really through the unequal contest of arms a sustained campaign to weaken ’s between unequal powers. In the writings standing as an independent Southeast of men like Snodgrass, Keppel, Mundy and Asian polity. Marryat, we see the power differentials Although Keppel, Mundy and Marryat between East and West laid bare as we were directly involved in the naval campaign witness the bloody genesis of new colonies in Borneo, and supportive of the efforts across the region. to expand British colonial power across The fact that these authors did not “All conquest literature seeks to Among the many outcomes of the colonial colonisation in Burma, Anglo-Burmese for the Burmese as a people – his work the region while weakening the power of feel the need to hide the truth that colo- explain to the conquerors ‘why era in Southeast Asia – from the 18th to the relations were largely hostile throughout is full of snide and disparaging remarks local kingdoms such as Brunei, they were nialism was built through violence is also we are here’.”1 19th century – is a body of writing that can most of the 19th century, and culminated about the Burmans and their ruler – he also brutally frank in their accounts of the a reflection of the mores and sensibilities be best described as colonial literature. By in a series of costly wars: the First Anglo- did not hide the fact that the battles conflict and the realities of colonial warfare. during the age of Empire. In the 19th this I am referring not only to the accounts Burmese War (1824–26), the Second Anglo- of the First Anglo-Burmese War were Keppel and Mundy did not hide the century, the technological gap between – Robert Bartlett, a that were written by intrepid European Burmese War (1852–53) and the Third ferocious, and remarked that “our first fact that attacks on native settlements did East and West widened. In tandem with The Making of Europe (1993) travellers who ventured to this region, but Anglo-Burmese War (7–29 November 1885). encounters with the troops of Ava were indeed take place, and Keppel was honest this development arose a body of pseudo- also the writings of colonial bureaucrats, Among those who wrote about these sanguinary and revolting”.3 enough to admit that, in the course of the scientific theories of racial difference and colony-builders and administrators, and wars was Major John J. Snodgrass, whose A similar kind of frankness can be subjugation of the natives of Sarawak, the racial hierarchies in which Asians and the men who took part in the conquest account of the First Anglo-Burmese War found in the works of men like Admiral colonial forces – led by the adventurer Africans were cast as “inferior” races who of the region by force of arms. was from the viewpoint of a British officer Henry Keppel, George Rodney Mundy and James Brooke – had also committed acts were backward, degenerate and unable to serving in the colonial army. Snodgrass’ Frank Marryat. All three were navy men, of plunder and looting.7 Keppel went as far govern themselves. Dr Farish A. Noor is presently Associate Professor The Justification for Violence Narrative of the Burmese War (1827) was and all of them had taken part in the naval as stating that such excessive use of vio- Such notions – though largely dis- at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies It is interesting to see how these authors a work that was bellicose and ultimately campaign off the coast of Sarawak that lence – which included the razing of native credited today – were all the rage then, and the School of History, College of Humanities, dealt with the issue of violence that often triumphalist in tone and tenor, and as led to the eventual attack on the Kingdom villages to the ground – was necessary, for and were often used to justify the use of Arts, and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University. His latest book is Before the Pivot: came with colonisation, and how such he had conceded earlier in his work, the of Brunei. The works of these three men “without a continued and determined series force in the process of empire-building. America’s Encounters with Southeast Asia 1800– violence was sometimes justified or even war was in fact “an unequal contest”.2 – Keppel’s Expedition to Borneo of HMS of operations of this sort, it is my conviction The idea was that “savage” and “primitive” 1900 (Amsterdam University Press, 2018). celebrated. In the long-drawn process of Although Snodgrass had little sympathy Dido for the Suppression of Piracy (1846);4 that even the most sanguinary and fatal Asians and Africans stood to benefit from 06 07 BIBLIOASIA JUL - SEP 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 02 FEATURE

exposure to Western civilisation, and would ting a one-sided view of the Javanese royal regalia and jewellery, among other was motivated by only the best motives to achieve by doing so in their writings. only submit to their colonial subjugators as a “degenerate” race that was lost in items – was put together by Raffles for his “to do good, to excite interest and to Scholars of colonial history are no doubt if they were forced to do so at gunpoint. the past and unable to progress without own research and his private collection. make friends”.17 appreciative of the fact that some of these Western intervention. To make things Such sanitised colonial propaganda colonial-era writers – such as Snodgrass, The Erasure of Violence worse, contemporary scholars such as The Violence Wrought Upon Java would become the norm in the decades to Keppel, Mundy and Marryat – were hon- And yet there is also another parallel tradi- Peter Carey (1992) have noted several Contemporary historians have pointed come. In 1862, yet another hagiographic est in their accounts of the violence they tion of colonial writing that emerged in the instances of plagiarism and fabrication out that the arrival of the British in Java, account of the Brooke legend appeared in perpetrated. At the very least, this opens 19th century. This took the form of works in Raffles’ work.12 which began with the attack on Batavia the form of Spenser St John’s two-volume the way for a critical discussion of colonial- that seemed to deliberately sideline the Notwithstanding the academic (present-day Jakarta), was anything but work, Life in the Forests of the . In ism and its enduring legacy. topic of violence altogether, attempting to shortcomings of The History of Java, there peaceful: so violent was the assault on the this work, St John repeated the familiar The works of Raffles, Low and St erase all memory of the violent encounters is also a glaring omission in the text – the fortified port-city that bodies were said trope of Brooke as the white saviour whose John, however, pose a far greater chal- between the colonising powers and the elephant in the room as it were – which is to have been piled up one on top of the presence alone would restore order – which lenge. In rereading the works of this other societies they came to dominate. the absence of any mention of the inva- other. Equally shocking are local accounts was in turn framed in bold relief against a group of writers with a critical eye today, Among the books written about sion of Java itself. In Carey’s account of of the British attack on the royal city of backdrop of “savage” Bornean natives and we see the stark and enormous gaps and colonial Southeast Asia where we see the British occupation of Java from 1811 Jogjakarta, which led to the killing of hun- A painting of James Brooke, the “White Rajah” of “treacherous” Bruneians and Chinese. That long instances of silence where the brutal a near-total erasure of the memory of to 1816, we find a detailed recounting of dreds, including the Javanese defenders Sarawak, by Francis Grant, 1847. Brooke took Sarawak’s story could only have a fairytale realities of colonial conquest were delib- conflict, three works come to mind: Stam- the violence of the British attack as well who had taken cover in the royal mosque. Sarawak by force in 1841. The land was not gifted ending seems obvious when we consider erately erased and eventually forgotten. ford Raffles’ The History of Java (1817),9 as instances of violence, humiliation and Carey, Tim Hannigan (2012)13 and to him, as some colonial writers have claimed. Image that the story was told in conjunction with In doing so, we can critique these authors Hugh Low’s Sarawak: Its Inhabitants and plunder that took place during the British others have noted that, in the wake from Wikimedia Commons. other tales of the Empire. for their moral complicity in what was, in Productions (1848)10 and Spenser St John’s occupation thereafter. of the successful attack, the Javanese In order for the story of benevolent the final analysis, one of the most violent Life in the Forests of the Far East (1862).11 The same cannot be said of Raffles’s royal family and nobles were forced to As noted earlier, there exist several imperial intervention to make sense, it eras in recent Southeast Asian history. The History of Java was a monu- work. Although Raffles had claimed that submit to the conquerors in the most accounts of the Sarawak campaign that was necessary to have as its counterpart mental two-volume work that courted he had amassed more information about humiliating manner, and that the royal were explicit in their treatment of colo- the story of native malevolence and NOTES controversy almost as soon as it came Java than any other European in his time, palace was looted and sacked. Hannigan nial warfare. But parallel to these works decline; and more perceptive readers 1 Bartlett, R. (1993). The making of Europe: Conquest, off the press. Raffles’ peers, such as John The History of Java does not elaborate on described the manner in which the Sultan was another kind of historical recounting of the works of Low and St John will be colonization and cultural change, 950–1350 (p. 96). Crawfurd, took exception to the work and how all that data was collected and how of Jogjakarta was stripped of his courtly written by the likes of Hugh Low. His book able to see that both writers have woven Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Call no.: 940.1 BAR) accused the author of misinterpreting the treasure horde of Javanese antiqui- regalia by the victorious British troops, Sarawak: Its Inhabitants and Productions a number of complex narratives that 2 Snodgrass, J.J. (1827). Narrative of the Burmese elements of Javanese history by presen­ ties – including statuary, manuscripts, and then thrown into a backroom, “while is startling in how it weaves a narrative developed in tandem with one another. war […] (p. 6). London: J. Murray. (Microfilm no.: the sepoys and English soldiers embarked that re-presents the conquest of Sarawak At the forefront is, of course, the NL5084) 3 Snodgrass, 1827, p. 31. on a victorious rampage” within the and the attack on Brunei in an almost tale of the Brooke dynasty, whose messy 4 Keppel, H. (1846). The expedition to Borneo of HMS (Below left) A Javanese man of the lower classes. Image reproduced from Raffles, S.T. (1817). The History of compound of the royal palace they had fairytale-like manner. and bloody genesis was cleaned up and Dido for the suppression of piracy […] (vol. I and vol. Java (Vol. I) (p. 84). London: J. Murray. Retrieved from Internet Archive. overrun.14 There are also accounts of how Low’s work purported to be a study sanitised. Parallel to this are three other II; 2nd ed.). London: Chapman and Hall. Retrieved (Below right) A Loondoo Dayak of Borneo, whom Frank Marryat described as being “copper-coloured, and from BookSG. members of the royal family had their of the land and people of Sarawak as well narratives that framed Brooke’s idealised 5 Brooke, J., & Mundy, G.R. (1848). Narrative of events extremely ugly: their hair jet black, very long, and falling down to the back; eyes were also black, and deeply jewels literally ripped off their bodies as a history of that part of Southeast image in bold relief: the story of the in Borneo and Celebes, down to the occupation of sunk in the head, giving a vindictive appearance to the countenance; nose flattened; mouth very large; the lips by the troops of the East India Company. Asia. But in the course of recounting decline of Malay power, embodied by the Labuan […] (Vol. II; 2nd ed.). London: John Murray. of a bright vermilion, from the chewing of betel-nut; and, to add to their ugliness, their teeth black, and filed to (Microfilm no.: NL7435) sharp points”. Image reproduced from Marryat, F.S. (1848). Borneo and the Indian Archipelago: With Drawings And yet nowhere in The History of this history, Low was also attempting to tale of Brunei’s fall from grace; the story 6 Marryat, F.S. (1848). Borneo and the Indian of Costume and Scenery (facing p. 5). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. Retrieved from BookSG. Java do we read of what truly happened present a sanitised account of how an of Chinese treachery, encapsulated in St. Archipelago: With drawings of costume and scenery. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. during these assaults, and the image of Englishman like James Brooke could have John’s account of the Sarawak uprising; Retrieved from BookSG. Java that we are left with is that of a assumed the role and title of the “White and the story of native backwardness and 7 Keppel, 1846, vol. II, pp. 67, 69. tranquil land rendered static and domes- Rajah” of Sarawak. Low’s retelling of the vulnerability that is found in the studies of 8 Keppel, 1846, vol. II, p. 231. 9 Raffles, S.T. (1817; reprint 1830). The history of ticated by colonial intervention. Even in Brooke tale borders on the fantastical native life and customs carried out by Low Java (vol. I and vol. II; 2nd ed.). London: J. Murray. the images that accompany the text – the when he glibly states that Rajah Muda and St John. Retrieved from BookSG. now-famous images of Javanese monu- Hassim of Sarawak found himself “tired 10 Low, H. (1848; reprint 1990). Sarawak: Its inhabitants 15 Coming to Terms with Reality and productions. Petaling Jaya: Delta. (Call no.: RSEA ments and the hand-coloured figure of Sarawak” for no explicable reason, 915.954043 LOW-[TRA]) studies of the Javanese themselves – all after which he promptly handed over Reading works such as these today we 11 Spencer, B.S.J. (1862). Life in the forests of the Far we get to see are idyllic portraits of a the territory of Sarawak to Brooke on are reminded of the fact that colonialism East. London: Smith, Elder. (Microfilm no.: NL3636) 12 Carey, P.B.R. (Ed.). (1992). The British in Java, 1811– land and a people rendered passive, inert 24 September 1841. was a complex process that in turn gave 1816: A Javanese account. London: Oxford University and thus exposed to the outsider’s gaze. What is totally absent from Low’s birth to complex accounts of it. At face Press. (Call no.: RSING 325.341095982 PAN) rose-tinted account of Brooke’s rise to value, the works of Raffles, Low and St 13 Hannigan, T. (2012). Raffles and the British invasion of Java. : Monsoon Books. (Call no.: RSEA The White Rajah who prominence is the fact that Brooke, as John strike the contemporary reader 959.82 HAN) “Saved” Sarawak the leader of his private army of 200 men, as being straightforward examples of 14 Hannigan, 2012, pp. 208–209. 15 Low, 1848, p. xix. Southeast Asia would experience a suc- had attacked Rajah Muda Hassim’s com- colonial propaganda, which they un- 16 Knapman, G. (2017). Race and British colonialism cession of such violent incursions where pound and forced the latter to surrender doubtedly were – and this was a type of in Southeast Asia, 1770–1870: John Crawfurd and brutalities would either be subsequently to him – a fact that was highlighted in the writing that continued well into the 20th the politics of equality (pp. 158–160, 161). London: 16 Routledge. (Call no.: RSING 325.01 KNA). Knapman erased or forgotten. More than two de- work by Gareth Knapman (2017). As far century, as exemplified by the works of notes that Brooke had demanded payment from Rajah cades after the British occupation of Java, as fairytale heroes go, Low’s depiction of later colonial functionaries such as Frank Muda in the form of a transaction of antimony. Upon another military-naval campaign visited Brooke fits the bill in many ways: for Low, Swettenham (1907).18 his return to Sarawak, Rajah Muda was unable or unwilling to abide by their deal, and that was used as maritime Southeast Asia – the aforemen- nothing of significance could be achieved But what is equally important to note the justification for Brooke’s attack on the Raja Muda’s tioned “war on piracy” – leading to the in Brooke’s absence or without Brooke’s is how and why some of these colonial compound and his threat to begin an uprising. capture of Sarawak by the former East India guidance; Asiatic monarchs would incredu- writers chose to sideline or even silence 17 Low, 1848, p. xix. 18 Swettenham, F.A. (1907). British Malaya: An account of Company-man-turned-rogue-adventurer, lously surrender their ancestral lands to the violence that invariably accompa- the origin and progress of British influence in Malaya. James Brooke. him in return for nothing; and the man nied colonisation, and what they hoped London; New York: John Lane. (Microfilm no.: NL19101) 08 09