Of Rajahs and Hornbills: A timeline of Brooke Sarawak

[Al-numbers]

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Eunice Thio, The Fraternal Twins: Johore and Aceh in the Imperial Period, (Ender Publishing; 2005)

...In a sense, the rebuilding of Aceh did not go as the Acehnese originally planned.

Despite all their efforts, it was incontrovertible that the Aceh War wiped the land clean of many treasured craftsmen and spice planters, most of whom fled to British Malaya, Temenggong Johor, Brooke Sarawak, or the D.E.I to escape the carnage. Later on, this void would be filled by more than 60,000 Chinese immigrants and settlers, grasping the opportunities created by the postwar-Acehnese court’s copying of Johor and Sarawak’s Kangchu policies. [1] Despite this, the Aceh War had given her neighbours a golden opportunity to develop their production of pepper, gambier, cloves, and other cash crops, forcing the sultanate out from its corner of the global market; Aceh would never enjoy her former prosperity as a spice producer.

Nonetheless, the pace of the sultanate’s rebuilding was impressive. When the Dutch finally left the region in 1888, they left behind an Aceh of scorched earth. Burnt fields, massacred villages, and destroyed plantations blighted the land with the Acehnese court having to depend on international charity to feed her population for the first few years. But the nature of the war had also protected a surprising source of potential revenue from overexploitation by the Acehnese: gutta-percha. By the late 19th century, the world went wild for rubber and Southeast Asia formed one of the largest raw producers of malleable latex. However, regional overexploitation had left many of Aceh neighbours bare of gutta-percha, with populations of the latex-bearing palaquium gutta trees crashing across the archipelago by 1884. [2]

This drop in production, also known as the Gutta-Percha Crisis, was the opportunity that Aceh sought. With their Ottoman saviour in need of raw materials for industrialization, Aceh stepped in as a grateful benefactor by harvesting and exporting wild latex to the Sublime Porte, collecting enormous profits along the way. In fact, gutta-percha exports and taxation would be so lucrative, it would form 1/5th of all total government revenues In Aceh by 1910. With the birth of the Great War, Aceh’s customer base would even grow as British (and later German) governments signed emergency agreements to claim even more of local wild rubber. While this trade would later collapse by the end of the decade due to overharvesting, the sheer scale of the revenues produced would set the Acehnese with more than enough financial capital to rebuild.

And rebuild, they did. By 1898, the capital of Kutaraja had been completely rebuilt with many new buildings set in the neo-Mughal and neo-Ottoman style as a result of local infatuation with the Islamic West. Once-despoiled residential quarters were back to overflowing as new immigrants flooded in from the countryside and beyond, carving off their own neighbourhoods. The sultanate’s conflict with the Dutch had also brought it enormous clout within the Islamic world, leading to an immigrant Turco-Arab-Hadrami population of over 8000 by the Great War. These new peoples, most of whom were traders, entrepreneurs or prospectors, even began to pioneer Aceh’s mining industry as ore seams began to be investigated across the interior mountains.

Aceh National Archives: ‘Locals at the market in Kutaraja’, circa 1905.
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But if there was one place where Aceh lagged, it was industrialization.

Despite all the progress, the sultanate government was still much too sceptical of Western nations to accept their promise of foreign investment. The fact that business dealings were also wrapped up in Acehnese customs – such as wearing traditional clothes provided by the palace court and high officials – further dissuaded many westerners (though not all) from dipping their toes locally. [A] There was also a tussle within the royal government to turn the clock back and relaunch Aceh as a spice producer with the associated agrarian-based economy to support it, as it was during the land’s heyday, which conflicted with more modernist voices who clamoured for greater exploitation of the region’s coal reserves.

Instead, the honour of industry went to Johor, which had carefully grown her spice economy to become not only the richest independent sultanate in the Malay Peninsula, but perhaps all of archipelagic Southeast Asia. After decades of careful investment – supplemented with the Kangchu system and the arrival of the Acehnese spice planters – the Johorean government had acquired enough capital to embark on projects that would make any subordinated sultanate cry; Johor Bahru was the first city after British Singapore to install electric lights and a sewage system, along with a myriad of semi-artisanal industries that blossomed as a result of royal patronage and international demand – a happy consequence of the state’s showing-off at the periodic World Fairs.

Another sign of forwardness came from one of Sultan Abu Bakar’s pet projects: a state railway. Taking a leaf from equally-rising Japan, foreign experts were hired to help the royal government in connecting the far-flung towns, villages, and plantations of the sultanate together, which had the added benefit of helping the tabulation of the state’s population, a process that has long thwarted government efforts. While such a project – which would entail cutting down virgin forests, blowing up hills and erecting new bridges – would have swallowed any local state with debt, Johor’s wealth enabled it to continuously fund the project [3] and even embark on some showpiece projects, such as the grandiose Johor Bahru railway station.

A cigarette card showing a locomotive of Johor’s state railway (above) and a photograph of the imposing Johor Bahru train station and hotel, completed in 1906.

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But industrial development was always on the minds of the sultan and his ministers, and such an opportunity arose when the Great War broke out. Despite Abu Bakar’ Anglophilia and the royal court’s erring for the Sublime Porte, Johor remained a neutral nation and even accepted the flight of hundreds of Italian, French, and Russian families fleeing from British Singapore and Malaya. For the government, the moneyed and skilled arrivals were an untapped source of knowledge as they began to embark on building their first factories; the War made a mess of global shipping routes and jumped-up the price of imported goods flooding in from Singapore. Such a chance was rarely seen.

The first assembly lines were built to churn out military kits that would supply British, Indian, and Ottoman forces across the Arabian, African, and Indochinese battlefronts. However, it wasn’t long before more commercial concerns mushroomed. The most famous of these were the canning wares of Jean Clouet, a Frenchman who emigrated to Singapore in the 1890’s to start a trade in selling perfumes and wines for the rich. However, his entrepreneurial spirt soon led him to import canned food to the Singaporean public, which led to both popularity from the locals and disgruntlement from the British, whom confiscated Jean’s business during the Great War. Fleeing to Johor, it wasn’t long before his idea for a canning factory found reception by the government and by 1907, the now-famous ‘Ayam Brand’ of tinned foods was officially launched. [4]

But for all this, Johor’s growth had one Achilles’ heel: the absence of coal and oil. Back then, the only nearby source of coal in Malaya was in Batu Arang, deep in Selangor. In an ironic twist, the sultanate that aimed to achieve industrial growth had to rely on oversea coal imports from Aceh, which saw the latter’s mining industry boom as a result…

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Nor Kamsiah binti Halila, Islam and Ideology across the Colonial East, (Tengath-Timur: 1985)

…Given Johor and especially Aceh’s connections to the Ottoman Empire, it was only a matter of time before Islamic reformism struck the two polities with full force.

For Aceh, their decades-long war with the Dutch had obliterated old styles of religious tradition and the royal government sought a fresh start by looking beyond their borders. Coming from the bottom, it was obvious to see why the Ottoman Empire was so enrapturing for many Acehnese; here was a beautiful, established, and powerful Islamic empire that fought against the Western Powers on several occasions, and sometimes won. The high culture of the Turks and Arabs – in all their arts, poetry, lifestyles, and philosophies – was worlds away to many Acehnese peasants and even nobles who had to content themselves with wooden homes and brick palaces. Students and travellers to Cairo, Alexandria, Edirne, and Kostantiniyye spoke of the cities festooned with enchanting mosques and bedecked in such wealth, people, and prosperity that made populated Kutaraja seem like nothing more than dust.

And of the Ottoman philosophies that Aceh beheld, two were held in the highest regard: Islamic Modernism and Pan-Islamism.

Given the battering it had against the Netherlands East Indies, a great many Acehnese students and courtiers saw Islamic Modernism as a way out for their homeland. Centred in the great halls of Cairo and Kostantiniyye and spearheaded by figures such as Sheikh Muhammad Abduh, the movement called for a rethinking of Islamic doctrine, the use of intelligence and reasoning, friendliness and cooperation between non-Muslims, and a reconciliation between science and spirituality. For the Acehnese whom listened, these were heady and incredible notions that went far beyond traditional homeland creeds. For those who subscribed to the philosophy, reinterpretations of sharia to reconcile scientific, technological, and social progress was seen as essential if Aceh were to rise again as a modern nation.

But equally as popular (and more forceful among the religiously inclined) was Pan-Islamism. This movement, partly borne by the rise of new creeds such as Deobandism and Wahhabism, calls for different paths: emphasizing Islamic unity over ethnic and national boundaries, religious revivalism, doctrinal purification from old practices, the upholding of traditional sharia (except in cases where it obstructs the Pan-Islamist ideal), and anti-imperialism. This ideology was especially attractive to religious students and pilgrims studying in Cairo, Makkah, and Madinah as they became aware of just how much western colonialism was so dominant worldwide. For them, Pan-Islamism became a clarion call for mass-resistance, organization, and international unity.

‘The Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo’, by Adrien Dauzats (circa: 1831)​

By 1906, both these philosophies had taken root in mainland Aceh with the first political clubs coalescing around each ideal, formed mainly by returnees. However, many locals saw no wrong in subscribing to both movements in some shape or form; Acehnese society was still rural and thus heavily conservative, and religious orthodoxy in the form of Turco-Arab-centric practices was considered a respectable way of Ottoman emulation. However, there was an equal awareness that some modernization in the Japanese, Siamese, or Johorean style was important for Aceh to survive in a colonial-happy neighbourhood. In another vein, almost all Acehnese equated both Modernism and Islamism as supporting the Ottoman sultan as paramount caliph, a notion that was distasteful to several Arab and Turkish ideologues.

In Johor’s case, the ideologies of Islamic Modernism and Pan-Islamism took root in a different way. Similar to Aceh, the sultanate’s Malay youths and ulamas (clerical establishment) saw the Ottoman Empire as place of pilgrimage and education. However, the decades of partial cooperation with the British Empire saw a number of Malay notables seeing the British as a worthy emulator of progress, with the most notable effects being the persistent push for industrialization and the creation of western institutions such as a central bank. A number of Malay nobles also sent their children to be educated in Great Britain, though a majority still sent theirs to the universities of Cairo and Kostantiniyye.

As such, the currents of Islamic, Western, and Ottoman philosophies hybridized in a different way in mainland Johor, aided along by the sultanate’s equally mixed institutions of rule which stayed strong while Aceh’s was obliterated during their long war against the Dutch. This hybridity was soon given a name: Islah – ‘Reform’ in Arabic. For the newly-educated Malays, the Islah movement was more than just a philosophy, but a political and ideological creed to push Malay culture, scholarship, business, and thought away from the traditional creeds of the Malay ulamas - who saw religion in only spiritual terms and cared little for progress or British influence on everyday life.

One of the Islah movement’s early proponents, the Johorean Sheikh Faisal Tahir al-Jalaludin, summed up the movement’s goals in a 1906 pamphlet [5]:

• The reformation of Islam in Malaya and the disbandment of practices not of Islam;
• Practical considerations on workers welfare;
• Wealth pools for Malay businesses;
• Governmental support for Malay businesses;
• Emphasis on good education, attention and knowledge to the English language;
• Application of British progress to Malaya;
• The upholding of the Malay sultan;
• And the education, emancipation, and participation of women in Islamic, scientific, and political scholarship.

In time, all three movements would spread change and upheaval across the Malacca Straits…

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Mazyar Ebrahimi & Jana Daghestani, Ottomanophilia: The Tale of Ottoman Influence in Southeast Asia (Journal of Southeast Asian Studies: 1979)

…To be fair, Aceh’s erring for the Islamic West wasn’t exactly a new thing. For centuries, the sultanate had looked towards the empires of India and Arabia as inspiration for local rule. In the 17th century, for instance, the Kutaraja court created the position of Shaykh ul-Islam as the supreme authority of religion throughout the land, in emulation of the Ottomans and their own ennoblement of senior jurists to dictate religious affairs.

But the Ottomanophilia of the re-emerging Aceh was much larger and deeper in scope, not simply confined to philosophy-waxing students and nobles. In northern Sumatra, the love for Turco-Arabian culture permeated through all fabric of life; Fezzes and robes became everyday wear for locals, while the homes of the wealthy became decked in Turkish carpets weaved as far away as Uşak or Bursa. Hookah and coffee culture rose to prominence in major towns – though this was partially aided by the growth of Chinese-run coffeehouses, which fiercely competed with their Arab and Turkish counterparts for new customers. Some Arab and Hadrami notables became employed as Aceh’s ambassadors to the wider world, such as the famed ambassador Habib Abd Rahman al-Zahir [6]. A number of Arabic and Turkish schools were even set up for young children and adults to master the languages, with exemplary students being offered a chance to study in the faraway Empire itself.

The most significant effect was in martial relations. Families with Ottoman links became highly sought after for Acehnese notables and even local townsfolk were impressed if a person managed to marry an Ottoman citizen. The influx of Turks, Arabs, and Hadramis moving in certainly kept the prospects afloat, lured in as they were by Aceh’s attempts to reopen and expand its economy from spice-farming. By the Great War, around 8000 Ottoman immigrants made Aceh their new home, with many intermarrying with local Acehnese for business or practical reasons.

But of all, the most prized match was to wed a fair Circassian. The sultanate had, along with the greater Muslim world, heard tales of the Russian annexation of the Caucasus Mountains and the expulsion of its Circassian inhabitants, and it too had been brought along into the romanticized portrayal of the ‘Circassian Beauties’, whom were seen as extremely beautiful and voluptuous. The Acehnese royal court became particularly enamoured, especially as princes and diplomats began to travel to Kostantiniyye for various affairs – such women were often presented as concubines by the court of Abdulhamid II as gestures of goodwill. As to whether these women consented to be married off and taken so far from home, their words are scant to be found; many Circassian-descended families are notoriously cagey of their histories and the Acehnese royal archives are just as secretive.

Personal photograph of Putri Ayshe Konca, a Circassian woman who was married to the crown prince of Aceh, circa 1907.

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On a darker scale, Ottomanophilia also meant that Aceh picked up some of the less salubrious aspects of the Empire. Incoming Greeks and Armenians were particularly distrusted due to their opinions and (in the case of the Greeks) outright revolt against Ottoman rule, which partially explains into the contemporary rivalry between Kutaraja and British Penang, which housed a sizable Greek and Armenian community [7]. The emulation also expressed itself into local support for controversial Ottoman policies such as the internment of many Armenians into camps during the Great War in Anatolia [8], which has complicated Acehnese diplomacy to this day.

But most dark of all was the growing suspicion by some Acehnese of the land’s Chinese minority. Brought in by the Kangchu system to restart the spice economy, more than 60,000 Qing Chinese immigrants had settled in Aceh to plant pepper, gambier, and other spice crops. But the new arrivals quickly began to make themselves known in other ways by building their own villages, town quarters, and temples that honoured foreign gods. Some had even began to smuggle opium, which was still a legal good in British Malaya and the D.E.I. . Their foreign connections were also exploited in the form of new sundry stores and coffeehouses which began to grow faster than their local or Arab counterparts. Even the Acehnese court hired a Chinese Peranakan as their finance minister, further adding to the suspicion that, in one contemporary maxim, “We fought off one conqueror, only to be conquered by another”.

As a result, many locals began pushing for the institution of Ottoman-esque laws such as the Millet system, in effect to create a separate administration of law for the Chinese. But a few also began to push for the primacy of Islam and the Acehnese people vis-à-vis the increasingly large Chinese minority, calling for the restriction of several rights and freedoms in a manner reminiscent of Turco-Arabian dhmmitude – ironic given how such concepts were themselves being challenged back in the contemporary Ottoman Empire. As the Great War rolled on and the Balkan and Anatolian theatres were fought and slowly retaken, the calls for what to do with the local populace became mirrored in Aceh with what to do with the Chinese…

Photograph of a Chinese temple near the town of Meulaboh, circa 1910.

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In Johor, Ottomanophilia was similarly buoyant and followed by both nobles and peasants with a few Circassians, Arabs, and Turks being equally married into local society. And like Aceh, it too suffered a problem of being engulfed by minorities. But the decades of unbroken co-habitation with the Chinese populace (rough estimate of 250,000 by 1905) – now far exceeding the original Johorean Malays (about 95,000) and immigrant Acehnese and Javanese (around 40,000 each) – began to produce a strange effect that was seen as unfavourable to the biased locals of Aceh: local intermarriage.

Such unions were uncommon but not unprecedented in Malayan history. As far back as the 15th century, there have been oral and written tales of Chinese women and men having Malay spouses. The growth of the mercantile Peranakan class was in itself a sign of how malleable locals were at the prospect. Given the dearth of Chinese women for many Kangchu settlers in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, it was inevitable for interracial marriage rates to start ticking upwards in the Johorean backwoods and market towns. While the most of these marriages involve Chinese men taking Malay women as concubines, a few did took the extra step of conversion to Islam or syncretise it with traditional beliefs of ancestor worship and native/foreign gods, giving rise to a new strain of a Malayan faith... [9]

But the biggest splash in this paradigm was taken up by none other than Sultan Abu Bakar himself. Over the decades, the man had become personable with a rich Cantonese entrepreneur called Wong Fook Kee, who helped invest in the modernization of Johor. Along the way, he began to ensconce himself into the sultan’s inner circle and decided to go further by presenting his own daughter Wong Siew Kuan as a prospective match. Abu Bakar was already married twice, but that did not stop the two from being wed in a public ceremony in 1886. Wong Siew Kuan subsequently converted and renamed herself as Sultanah Fatimah, and accounts report that she was surprisingly the most respected of all Abu Bakar’s wives, taking a keen interest in the development of Johor.

All this, despite Johor adopting a “Separate but Equal” policy for their Malay and Chinese residents, points to a clear shift in preference regarding spouses vis-à-vis Aceh. And with this, it is perhaps no wonder that as both sultanates began to influence their surrounding regions – Johor for Malaya and Aceh for Sumatra – both polities began to drift apart…

Wong Siew Kuan / Sultanah Fatimah (left) and her daughter Tunku Besar Fatihah (right)


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Notes:

First off all, thanks to @frustrated progressive for helping me with proofreading!

Whew! This update was a mammoth of an undertaking. I have promised almost a year ago that we shall delve into how the Ottoman Empire impacted Aceh and Johor, and here it is. The previous interlude was meant to form an introduction to this piece, but the following paragraphs and passages became so long, I decided to post the interlude first instead of cutting it out for the sake of brevity and bloat-cutting.

Regarding the incidence of Malay-Chinese intermarriages, legends of such date back all the way to the Malacca Sultanate of the 1400’s in which a Ming princess named Hang Li Po was married to the Malaccan sultan Mansur Syah. However, Ming records show no such event taking place, although they do note the presence of Chinese communities, diplomats, and even graveyards around contemporary Malacca. More personally, the fact of such intermarriages are hard to ignore once you start looking up your family tree.

Also, the part where Abu Bakar married a Cantonese woman isn’t just a TTL event. The Johorean royal family really did marry non-Malays during the late 19th century with Chinese and Circassian brides becoming a part of several prominent families. To this day, a fair number of Malay-Muslim politicians claim some mixed Chinese or Eurasian ancestry, like Malaysia’s third Prime Minister who had partial Circassian ancestry. No less than the current Queen of Malaysia herself, Tunku Azizah Aminah, has openly stated of her Cantonese heritage (from her ancestor Abu Bakar’s marriage, no less!) and has said that, with some digging, she could retrace back her maternal lineage back to southern Guangdong.

[A] This practice of foreigners wearing traditional clothes before facing royalty and high officials was attested as far back as 1599! (page 60)
(B.) Opium sales and opium taxes made up a substantial portion of colonial revenues for the British and Dutch all the way to the mid-20th century IOTL.

Spoiler: so many notes...

1. See post #464 on the Kangchu system of Johor and Sarawak.

2. See post #896 on the growth and collapse of the Gutta-Percha trade in Southeast Asia.

3. The profitability of a spice-cargo rail line was seen even back then by the Muar State Railway, which was built between the towns of Bandar Maharani (present-day Muar) and Parit Pulai in 1890. Carrying spices and fruits from the two termini, the transport of goods and people was so profitable that there were proposals to extend the railway to further reaches of Johor. Sadly, they were never carried out and the line was eventually closed in 1929 due to soft ground and rising maintenance costs.

4. The Ayam Brand is a real brand of canned foods in Malaysia that was started by Alfred Clouet, a Frenchman who travelled to Singapore to sell luxury goods. ITTL, it was his TTL cousin who sailed to Southeast Asia and started the manufactory. When the Great War arrived, he moved the business (and factory) to Johor.

5. Every part of that list were the actual aims of the Islah movement in British Malaya, though it should be noted that the original espousers took some inspiration from both the Ottoman Empire and Kemalist Turkey, especially regarding women’s rights. ITTL, Johor’s long history with the British provided another point of hybridity into the reformist movement.

6. Habib Abd Rahman al-Zahir was an actual Hadrami wildcat of a person who led a colourful life serving in the royal governments of Hyderabad and Johor whilst also shuttling back-and-forth all over the Indian Ocean in trading various goods. But he was also inducted into the Acehnese court and became Aceh’s diplomat during the early years of the Aceh War, trying in vain to entice Ottoman intervention. ITTL, he was successful and continued to serve as an ambassador right up to his death in 1896.

7. Penang still has Armenian Street ITTL, and the continued influence of the Ottoman Empire in trade ITTL allowed some Armenians to still reside there during the Great War.

8. F o r e s h a d o w i n g . . .

9. M o r e f o r e s h a d o w i n g . . .

 

[Somebody-Someone]

>Wahabbism spreading into NusaNtara

Oh god oh fuck

 

[The Merovingian]

Wow, what a great chapter. Probobly one of your best. This only makes me harken even harder to see the post war social changes that Sarawak will have. You have a fascinating way of building cultures and unique settings that seem wholly possible, perhaps because there is more than just tad bit of real history mixed in.

I did hear that while rare, Indian men and British women did occasionally marry before it was banned after the sepoy rebellion. Perhaps a feature of sarawak could be a small but growing population of Half white/Asian paranakan peoples.

Great and wonderful chapter. Thanks for working so hard on it. It really shows.

 

[frustrated progressive]

Wonderful as always!
For Johor, I can't help but wonder if Anglophilia and Ottomanophilia will collide some day, especially as the "Dar-al-Islam" as a whole might become more...assertive (never mind the evident tensions between pan-Islamism and the caliphal claims of the Ottoman sultan).
I love the continuing Circassian focus, maybe if some men arrive eventually, there could even be a community of sorts (please shut me up about my notions of a surviving Ubykh-speaking group in Malaya).

 

[Al-numbers]

>Wahabbism spreading into NusaNtara

Oh god oh fuck

Oh honey, Wahhabism – or more accurately, Wahhabist-inspired ideals – has been kicking around for quite some time now in Nusantara, both IOTL and ITTL. The creed had reached Sumatra as far back as the late 18th century and was particularly popular in the Minangkabau homeland on the island’s mid-western half. (Sidenote: The Minangkabau are an ethnic group that blended Islam with traditional elements and remains today one of the few societies that emphasize matrilineal lineages and inheritances.)

The fallout of this contact even led to a massive 3-decade long conflict called the Padri War where religious clerics and followers fought a war between the traditional nobility and their Dutch allies, which led to the latter taking control of the Minangkabau homeland entirely. Wahhabist-ish creeds were pushed underground after that, yet their impact created a certain religious revivalism that still impacts the region today.

ITTL, the growth of Aceh will cause a lot of splits in Sumatra and elsewhere as to which Islamic creed to follow. Wahhabism will be particularly attractive to many conservatives and revivalists, though the movement’s anti-traditionalism and anti-Ottoman stance will cause a lot of friction between true adherents and those whom like it yet still believe in the Ottoman sultan as caliph.

Wonderful as always!

Wow, what a great chapter. Probobly one of your best. This only makes me harken even harder to see the post war social changes that Sarawak will have. You have a fascinating way of building cultures and unique settings that seem wholly possible, perhaps because there is more than just tad bit of real history mixed in.

[…]

Great and wonderful chapter. Thanks for working so hard on it. It really shows.

Thank you! One of things that’s always in my mind is just how diverse is Southeast Asia (even now) and how much can change just by pushing a few factors. The fact that colonial rule often distorts or accelerates social, economic, and religious trends makes for so many interesting things to think about and wonder.

Oh, and don’t worry about these changes coming to Sarawak. There will be a lot of that coming along soon!

I did hear that while rare, Indian men and British women did occasionally marry before it was banned after the sepoy rebellion. Perhaps a feature of sarawak could be a small but growing population of Half white/Asian paranakan peoples.

Oh, that is interesting! Usually the most I hear of Anglo-Indian marriages are the other way around.

Given that Sarawak’s urban development is still at a stage where peoples from all over can mix and mingle without any racial/color/religious restrictions, and that most of Sarawak’s white immigrants are more of the adventurous folk with fewer qualms about European social norms, there will definitely be some interesting relations and romances going about. It will be hushed-out and be looked at with disdain by the wider colonial community in Sundaland (kinda like Aceh looking down on Malay-Chinese marriages next door) but a veeeeery small nucleus of Euro-Sarawakian peranakans is slowly forming underneath their eyes.

(Heh, it can be argued that Rajah Clayton Brooke wants to be a part of this group, in his own way.)

For Johor, I can't help but wonder if Anglophilia and Ottomanophilia will collide some day, especially as the "Dar-al-Islam" as a whole might become more...assertive (never mind the evident tensions between pan-Islamism and the caliphal claims of the Ottoman sultan).

That’s going to be one tangle that may or may not arise in the future. Johor’s strong British focus has made it independent and economically successful, but the future may see Great Britain at odds with Kostantiniyye, and it won’t be long before some people think, “why can’t we use this modern stuff to be, like, you know, the Ottomans?”

But if there is anything that has shown itself from the state’s views on interracial marriage and the Islah movement, it’s this: ideologies can be mixed into the greater cultural milieu, if given the time and proper environment. The Islah movement is already an odd mix of Anglo-Ottoman-Arabian creeds blended together, and its adherents might just say, “Well why can’t we learn from both worlds and show everyone it’s not black and white?”

With that said, the tensions between all these ideologies will play some part in Johor’s future development, though it may have an easier time dealing with them than Aceh.

I love the continuing Circassian focus, maybe if some men arrive eventually, there could even be a community of sorts (please shut me up about my notions of a surviving Ubykh-speaking group in Malaya).

It’s going to be a tall order though; Many Circassians preferred to settle around the Ottoman territories or move to Europe and the Americas for better opportunities. But adventurer-merchants are still a thing, so if some Circassian men think they can get good work in Southeast Asia, there might be a few who will migrate.

Stranger communities have planted roots; Malaya had an Armenian and Jewish community well into the 20th century (and still have, though in secret).

 

[Al-numbers]

Shoot. Only now do I realize I forgot to add in our favorite screwball of an imam into the last updates.

That's one thing that'll be included in the near-future. Salahodin will be pleased as he could be at all the Ottoman fanboying, but not so much at some of the ideologies being bandied about. He could probably be a shoe-in for some of the more extreme movements if not for his... uncomfortable views on native groups.

 

[Icedaemon]

From the looks of things, Johor is currently heading towards creating a unique identity for itself, albeit perhaps not too dissimilar from OTL Singapore, while Aceh it seems is due to boom-and-bust itself out of yet another natural resource and then be on track to turn into a rather unpleasant place, rife with ethnic violence and religious extremism.

 

[Al-numbers]

From the looks of things, Johor is currently heading towards creating a unique identity for itself, albeit perhaps not too dissimilar from OTL Singapore, while Aceh it seems is due to boom-and-bust itself out of yet another natural resource and then be on track to turn into a rather unpleasant place, rife with ethnic violence and religious extremism.

OTL Singapore would probably be half-pleased at this TL's increasingly prosperous Johor (more trade!), and half-aghast at the creeping intermarriages between the Chinese and Malays (socio-religious implications).

Johor will be seen as the odd-sultanate out from the rest of Malaya, though the land is dotted with state-level oddities at this point. There are Chinese majorities in places like Penang and certain regions where Malays are predominant, and in the far north you have states with noticeable Thai minorities. There are even other states where Chinese, Indian, and Malay groups are all sandwiched together beneath the British thumb (Selangor and Perak, to name a few). But Johor's hybrid racial and cultural makeup will make it an especially odd member of the Malay world once nationalism kicks in.


As for Aceh:

Nobleman A: "what do you mean wild rubber can run out!? Surely the thought is as surely preposterous!"
Nobleman B: "Just in case, you should know that we have some good coal and mining seams if we need to exploit them."
Nobleman C: "But the spice trade is growing back! ... albeit in a slower pace than we thought and on the backs of Chinese laborers."
Nobleman A: "Let's just pretend that wartime demand and high prices will continue, and we won't even see the cliff edge!" 🤩

 

[Somebody-Someone]

OTL Singapore would probably be half-pleased at this TL's increasingly prosperous Johor (more trade!), and half-aghast at the creeping intermarriages between the Chinese and Malays (socio-religious implications).

Johor will be seen as the odd-sultanate out from the rest of Malaya, though the land is dotted with state-level oddities at this point. There are Chinese majorities in places like Penang and certain regions where Malays are predominant, and in the far north you have states with noticeable Thai minorities. There are even other states where Chinese, Indian, and Malay groups are all sandwiched together beneath the British thumb (Selangor and Perak, to name a few). But Johor's hybrid racial and cultural makeup will make it an especially odd member of the Malay world once nationalism kicks in.


As for Aceh:

Nobleman A: "what do you mean wild rubber can run out!? Surely the thought is as surely preposterous!"
Nobleman B: "Just in case, you should know that we have some good coal and mining seams if we need to exploit them."
Nobleman C: "But the spice trade is growing back! ... albeit in a slower pace than we thought and on the backs of Chinese laborers."
Nobleman A: "Let's just pretend that wartime demand and high prices will continue, and we won't even see the cliff edge!" 🤩

yeah Aceh is sort of fucked and will probably become a Wahhabist insanity state in like 30 years

 

[Al-numbers]

yeah Aceh is sort of fucked and will probably become a Wahhabist insanity state in like 30 years

We don't know that yet. True, the sultanate isn't as accepting of non-Muslims as Johor or Malaya, but the region is also the core of the regional Islamic Modernism movement whom do recognize the importance of building bridges. The push for dhimmitude and religious puritanism is still a minority position, and regardless of the future, Aceh does recognize that a lot of her spice farms is being laboured by Chinese hands; to turn fully Wahhabist is to sink her non-rubber economy.

Also, I dunno if the Acehnese Pan-Islamists could handle one of the main expousers of Wahabbism being the Saud family, whom aren't known for liking the Ottomans... or see Abdulhamid II as caliph.

The Philippines shall be the next update, followed by an interlude (Sarawak maybe), and then it's off to the rest of the world, and then it's marriage time.

 

[I'tikaf]

We don't know that yet. True, the sultanate isn't as accepting of non-Muslims as Johor or Malaya, but the region is also the core of the regional Islamic Modernism movement whom do recognize the importance of building bridges. The push for dhimmitude and religious puritanism is still a minority position, and regardless of the future, Aceh does recognize that a lot of her spice farms is being laboured by Chinese hands; to turn fully Wahhabist is to sink her non-rubber economy.

Also, I dunno if the Acehnese Pan-Islamists could handle one of the main expousers of Wahabbism being the Saud family, whom aren't known for liking the Ottomans... or see Abdulhamid II as caliph.

The Philippines shall be the next update, followed by an interlude (Sarawak maybe), and then it's off to the rest of the world, and then it's marriage time.

Ahh will we finally get to see Brooke's Jodoh? Also with the preeminence of Johore among the Malay States and a clear divide between it and the other states as such what is the likelihood of a united Malay Nation or even a Singapore which is successfully integrated into the Johorean Sultanate?

 

[Al-numbers]

Ahh will we finally get to see Brooke's Jodoh?

We may or may not... or we get to see one possible way in which people try to get their way into the Astana. Ever heard of gift-giving?

Also with the preeminence of Johore among the Malay States and a clear divide between it and the other states as such what is the likelihood of a united Malay Nation or even a Singapore which is successfully integrated into the Johorean Sultanate?

Well, it should be noted that the OTL British, pre-WWII, never thought the Malay peninsula could be unified into one single nation, as it was too diverse and full of ethnic minorities here and there. Hell, the 1930's saw some decentralization as more power was given to individual states instead of the federated government in Kuala Lumpur. In fact, pre-war British Selangor had the Indian community being the single largest group within the state, outnumbering even the Malays!

But a decade of war, insurgency, and state-building proved that wrong enough.

Here, it's still too early to say if history shall follow the same, but a pan-Malay movement might still arise if noting but a reaction to the sheer amount of immigration flooding into the peninsula; local leaders and nationalists would want a unified front against all these newcomers. Besides that, the early emergence of the Islah movement and the creed's malleability in Malay issues would prove very attractive to many youngsters.

 

[I'tikaf]

We may or may not... or we get to see one possible way in which people try to get their way into the Astana. Ever heard of gift-giving?



Well, it should be noted that the OTL British, pre-WWII, never thought the Malay peninsula could be unified into one single nation, as it was too diverse and full of ethnic minorities here and there. Hell, the 1930's saw some decentralization as more power was given to individual states instead of the federated government in Kuala Lumpur. In fact, pre-war British Selangor had the Indian community being the single largest group within the state, outnumbering even the Malays!

But a decade of war, insurgency, and state-building proved that wrong enough.

Here, it's still too early to say if history shall follow the same, but a pan-Malay movement might still arise if noting but a reaction to the sheer amount of immigration flooding into the peninsula; local leaders and nationalists would want a unified front against all these newcomers. Besides that, the early emergence of the Islah movement and the creed's malleability in Malay issues would prove very attractive to many youngsters.

Haha. Interesting.. though I mispoke Brooke already found his Jodoh in that Kadazan man. I meant Isteri though you do seem to be holding on to this secret for dear life so I doubt I'll get much more out of you Lol.

The Islah Movement is very interesting to me it seems to be some sort of a Malay Tanzimat or even the Intellectual awakening Indian Muslims had at this time OTL. Any serious Malay movement ITTL would have to be substantially more accepting of racial and ethnic diversity than the malay nationalism we see IOTL. I doubt the leaders of any Pan-Malayan Movement IOTL would advocate for Chinese Migrants to be denied citizenship at the very least. I wonder if we'd see a more violent war of independence ala Indonesia especially with the the tension between the British and the Ottomans. With the time of decolonisation fast approaching It will be very interesting to see how the Malay States and Johor in particular attain their independence. I did not know that British Selangor had such a sizeable Indian population that is interesting I did know that Alor Setar (or was it Ipoh?) was predominantly Chinese in it's ethnic makeup. In any case I'm looking forward to further updates. Atb dan an early Selamat Hari Lebaran!

 

[Al-numbers]

San Nicolas neighborhood, Manila, Spanish Philippines, 29 November 1906​

It wasn’t the crowd Errico Malatesta thought he would preach, but it was a crowd nonetheless.

The dockhands and factory workers weren’t too put-off by his halting Spanish, at least. “As I said before, by what right do your employers have to claim that your sweat and tears are for your own gain? Isn’t that like a farmer who whips a donkey incessantly just so it could walk faster? And then shout to it that the scars shall make him strong?”

Looking up and around – the warehouse had a tendency to amplify his voice, which made him alert for any unwanted ears, he finished. “If they truly cared about your lives, they should have given you all a living wage to begin with!”

The responses were the usual, but one man – a young mestizo with Chinese features – caught his attention. “But even if we band together and protest, the police shall be on us all! I want more than anything to be something more for my children, but I don’t want them to lose a father!” He squinted. “Even if we can unite ourselves, even if we can organize every single worker in Manila and elsewhere, do you think the authorities back in Spain will just let us be!? Or the Dutch? Or the White Rajah?”

That, Malatesta knew, was the most difficult question. “What is your name?”

“Rafael.”

“So Rafael, let’s say you are fired from your work for some reason or another. Would you stop looking for employment there and then?”

“No!” The reply was biting. “I’ll try again!”

“And would you try and help your friends with employment or their lives along the way?” Malatesta continued, “With all that you can?”

“It depends, but I won’t simply leave them alone, if that is what you are saying!”

“Exactly. Helping one another supports us all. And that is why organizing yourself at work is the absolute right thing to do! The police are able to pick-off people one by one, but not a united crowd, and never against a city. I definitely don’t recall them having complete control over Manila. Same too for the abusive archbishops and the Spanish church; where are the letters from God that said they have the right do what they wish on this land and its people? I would like to see it! And as for Spain and the neighbors, their leaders are just as supported by the same injustices as here! If we can all stand united, how many walls can we breach?”

“But our children and families! What if the police gets to them to get us to stop!?” Rafael was still irate. "And you don’t know how the factories work here! The kapatas can throw us all out in a day and get a floor of new workers the next! There shall always be new people from the villages that want a wage! What then?”

“Solidarity, Rafael.” Malatesta said. “That and humanity. When I suffered through the hell of Devil’s Island – (No more. No more…) – I had to rely on other prisoners to ease my pain. We helped each other with labor, shared what little food we had, and soothed each other when the guards weren’t looking. We were thieves, bastards, rabble-rousers and stabbers, but solidarity made us stand through all that place’s horrors, and it was solidarity that helped us escape when Italian Sabah was falling apart. It was solidarity that let me here, now!

You can help by making protective associations for your wife and children with other women, so that they can be safely fed, provided, and protected from harm. And if we can change things here on the behalf of the downtrodden, then those villagers can work in far better surroundings than they could be, in this city and others. If we push the barangays and haciendas to be better, they wouldn’t need to move at all! It’s like the old Malay saying: ‘Bersatu tagoh, bercarai raboh’ (I hope that Malay wasn’t atrocious) – united we stand, divided we fall. And if a factory can fire every single one of you and hire replacements the following day, that is a factory that shouldn’t exist at all.”

But whatever the argument, a loud burst of sound interrupted the exchange. “STOP! Everyone! We need to leave!” A street boy entered the doorway, panting. “The police are on the way! Twenty of them armed with guns! We have to all go, NOW!”

At that, pandemonium erupted. Malatesta jumped off the boxes he used as a stage and rushed out to the nearest side door. One look with Rafael beside him spoke enough. We shall talk later.

********************

Jerome Farrales III, A Leftist History of the Philippines, (Cradling Star: 2019)

It is interesting to note how such a fountain of change could come from such a miserable island.

Located off the coast of Sabah, the Devil’s Island (Italian: Isolo del Diavolo) prison complex acted the same as its French counterpart in the American Guianas: to house rabble-rousers and the worst of men. From its very opening in 1885, scores of murderers and political dissidents were shipped off on the premise that they would be, ‘reformed and reverted to true members of good society’, as one newspaper article put it. But the scores of anarchists, socialists, and general leftists that show up on the records point to a different story of political silencing. Just as the Spanish Philippines exiled their intellectuals to the Congo, and the Algerians under France to New Caledonia, so shall Italy cart the undesirable speakers of truth to the farthest end of the earth.

Once arriving on the formerly named isle of Timbun Mata, the life of a new prison inmate was harsh and exhaustive. Given the far distance and logistics, the prison was intended to be partially self-sufficient, and that entailed the planting and growing of food on a hilly island, cloaked in jungle. Prisoners were instructed to fell trees, clear rocks, build terraces, and plant crops of rice, beans, and other produce in an effort to, “re-build exercise and character”, as the island’s chief sovrintendente, Ricario Petricca, responded in 1899 to journalistic enquiries. “The improvement of a criminal nature can only be so once it is exposed to, and thus receive, the fruits of honest labor.”

So it is rather bewildering how there were several attempted escapes from Devil’s Island already before 1905. The most daring of which involved two prisoners attempting to float by using sacks full of buoyant coconuts [1], only to be caught by a patrol boat as they floundered in the water. The harshness of work was reason enough to flee, but so was the punishments; prisoners whom flouted rules had to face longer working hours, forced stands in the heat, and even confiscation of their own hard-sown food from nightly meals. This method induced inmates to not destroy their crops, but also contributed to an abnormally high death rate of over 35% over the prison’s operation, mostly through malnutrition and elemental exposure. To this day, the prison cemetery remains a site of pilgrimage for many Italian and Southeast Asian leftists, journeying every year to honor the fallen on the Isle of Misery.

But though their bodies were beaten, the spirits of the inmates were far less so, and this showed greatly amongst the sharing, caring, companionship, and collaboration that was noted by both victims and jailors. It was the spread of agricultural knowledge amongst prisoners that prevented the death rate from climbing higher, and it was through successive mass-wrangling that better housing conditions were provided in 1903. But perhaps the best example was during the fall of Italian Sabah in 1905 during the first year of the Great Global War, when socialist and anarchist inmates staged a riot that overrun the facility as the sovrintendente and his cohorts attempted to flee. Taking control of the complex proved to be last unified decision for the inmates, though, as a fair number (the robbers and murderers) decided to flee inland while the rest (communists and radicals) sought escape to Sulu and the Philippines.

Almost all whom headed inland were killed during the Ancur; the tribal bloodbath that engulfed Sabah and Borneo.

…When the first boats arrived in Zamboanga and Mindanao, many leftists were grappled with a new question: what should they do now? Many had never conceived of travelling to Asia, much less to a Spanish dominion inhabited by natives and criollos of many colors. Indeed, several communists were in fact disgusted at the local cultures and social mores, exemplifying how even chain-breaking Leftism can be undone by racist and culturalist prejudices. But travelling home to Italy, across now-unsafe oceans and watchful colonies, was simply out of the question. And so many began a strange, new, hidden, and bewildering existence in the colonial realms of the Asian east.

-------------------------------------------

​

For exile, it would be hard to find better places in Southeast Asia for it than the Spanish Philippines. A neutral dominion of a neutral nation, the archipelago blossomed during the late 19th century as decades of rolling investments transformed the isles into a center of industry. Now, the Great War fed to even more prosperity as imperial belligerents clamored for ever-needed raw materials to consume each other. With new bridges and railroads being forged as fast as they were laid, the lowered costs and soaring profits from various mines, quarries, farms and workshops fed to the embellishment of the burgeoning cities. Filigrees and ornaments adorned even the meanest of tobacco factories, signaling the ostentatious wealth of their ever-prouder owners. And all along, the great society of peninsulares, criollos, mestizos, natives, and everything in between hustled and bustled in a colorful array.

But this veneer of prosperity hid a rotten core. Wracked by the turbulence of the 1890’s [2], a new dominion government now headed the Philippines, centralized in Manila. However, this arrangement was unfairly gerrymandered to produce conservative, pro-Spanish majorities in the Manila Cortes, and discretionary powers were broadly wielded by the Governor-General to ensure the continuum of colonial imperium. Residual laws on race were still upheld, as were the unjust wealth and educational qualifications for votership. And of the land’s crop of educated nationalists – the ilustrados – many had to toe the governmental line, lest they be continuously locked up for demanding a freer homeland. The loudest espousers often had to flee abroad to places like Japan, or found themselves exiled to central Africa on charges of ‘sedition’.

The lower classes and peasantry suffered worse. Uncounted tens of thousands were swallowed up by the new mines, plantations, and factories of the archipelago. Villages that stood in the way were often confiscated of their land, or were added to corrupt estates called haciendas which often expelled recalcitrant farmers, adding to the landless poor. For the indigenous peoples, such encroachment also came with a religious additive in the form of the Spanish Philippine Catholic Church, then-packed with foreign priests from the Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian Orders. Far from defending the helpless, the Spanish-born clergy had no qualms ratting out nationalists and radicals from the confession booth, even if they were of their own parish priests [3]. Religion had become the government’s eyes and ears.

Small wonder then this era is remembered by the now-infamous term: La Frailocracía.

A session of the corrupt Philippine Cortes, circa 1904​

For the escaped Italian leftists, it was a world that was strikingly similar. Yet not all were so eager to espouse what they believed in; colloquial Spanish was not a language most knew, the fear of arrest remained an issue, and a fair few regrettably preferred their racist and cultural prejudices to rule their judgement. One socialist hidden in Cebu noted how “…the superstition, attitude, and general character of the Philippine people are too low to understand the words of Marx.” As for the indigenous, many never thought of them as an issue of worth, or darkly assumed that modernization – however crude – would uplift them into ‘proper people’. As another socialist noted, “Why do these natives reject the world of order? Because they are in love with baseness, sloth, and disorder.”

But an equally fair number saw differently and were entranced with their new residence, and none went as far as promote the cause of equality as Errico Malatesta. A devoted anarchist since his youth, he was arrested in 1899 and transported to Devil’s Island the following year, though the dispiriting conditions failed to stop him becoming a leader in the 1905 prison breakout. Now an escapee halfway from home, he was struck by the social conditions of the Spanish Philippines and did what he did best: wander and organize. Helped along by a few others, he began to print pamphlets on leftist ideals and organized meetings with workers and intellectuals across the archipelago, though their religiosity sometimes dissatisfied Malatesta, who was an avowed atheist.

But it was his self-induction into the dominion’s cultures that truly affected him. After repeated interviews, wanderings, and studies, Malatesta was struck by the similarities and differences between European anarchism with traditional village life, divisions of labor, land conception, and the value of resources. From the nomadic Lumad peoples whom practiced swidden agriculture in the unclaimed rainforests, to the Panay and Negrito tribes whom were as materially free as the Spaniards aren’t, the myriad of cultures were nothing short of eye-opening. It is no coincidence that his famous meetings in Manila sometimes used analogies to local culture and his own incarceration, calling for solidarity with the downtrodden, equitable use of resources, mutual aid, education, and tools and land held in common – or at least in trust to the original inhabitants.

In mid-1906, Malatesta announced the birth of the Philippines’ first labour organization: the Unión Obrera Filipina – the Philippine Workers Union. [4]

Of course, this development was far from welcomed by the powers that be, and attempts were made to arrest Malatesta and his cohorts. But it was too late. Other socialist and communist groups were similarly sprouting, planted by fellow Italian escapees whom were now spreading Leftism beyond the Philippines. The socialist Giuseppe Ciancabilla was similarly successful at founding the Philippine Socialist Association (Asociación Socialista Filipina – A.S.F) which was successful enough to birth a sister organization in the Dutch Indies [5]. Though later arrests were made on a few Italian exiles, the agitators used local help in slipping away and fostering the creeds of leftism in secret, outpacing the authorities by the depth of their new movements.

And these movements, along with the local clergy, public discontent, Japanese observance, and economic shocks, shall light the path to the Philippines’ Second War of Independence…

********************

Somewhere in Mindanao, Sultanate of Maguindanao The Spanish Philippines, 07 December 1907​

Sultan Badaruddin II held his breath, and the ‘Amin’ almost didn’t came out at all.

But it did, and the union was sealed. Amin.

It is done.

The makeshift pavilion now exploded with joy as all manner of guests and family members began to surround the married couple. Following close behind, Badaruddin [6] kept himself busy conversing with the new in-laws and with the imam that solemnized the marriage. Still, even as the party traversed down the path, even the smell of food wafted through the air, even as the dining pavilion came into view, he couldn’t help but be deeply irked.

It has come to this. To be married off like a fallen house.

It rankled. Oh, how it rankled. Once, the sultans of Sulu had free reign to pick whatever spouses they wished. Once, the palaces of Jolo were flushed with wives and concubines that hailed as far away as China! Now, he had to see his darling daughter be married to a prince of Maguindanao, the ceremony solemnized in a pavilion of rickety wood deep in the mountains of the latter sultanate. Bitterly, Badaruddin wondered if this is what it was like for an upstart noble; milking his children in a clamoring for royal favors.

Hmph. At least the other Maguindanao princess is now ours.

Now under the dining pavilion’s shade, Badaruddin sat down and picked up some durian flesh from a porcelain plate. At least they aren’t completely destitute. Weddings and solemnization ceremonies are usually when royals and nobles show-off their wealth and splendor, but the recent wars with the Spanish have drained both Sulu and Maguindanao of all their priceless treasures. Still, a wedding without adornments, without fineries of gold, silver, silk, brass, and porcelain, is a wedding fit for paupers. Whosoever marries in such a condition – even though they were of purest royalty – is a family truly unworthy of dignity. [7]

Hmm, delicious. At least the food is satisfactory.

But as he craned his neck to see his daughter settling alongside the prince, with the sultan of Maguindanao coming close to congratulate the pair, Badaruddin also felt a small pang of guilt. It’s not like they have a choice. The decision to unify the houses of Sulu and Maguindanao was an outrageous one, but given how much the Spaniards are in control of the islands and lowlands, it could be the only choice that could save them all. The secret expedition to Aceh – the nobles should have reached Kutaraja by now – could be the deliverance they all need, but what good is foreign support if Manila could pick off royal houses and noble warlords piece by piece?

Divided, we all fall, but united… together… may our children achieve what we can’t.

After all, nothing lasts forever. Not even wars.

…Now, don’t tell me these people don’t have dancers or entertainment!


____________________

Notes:

Firstly: Happy Eid / Aidilfitri / Lebaran to all readers!

And thus, the partial foreshadowing in previous updates are now connected. The Spanish Philippines is becoming into quite a state as it grows under a resource-rich, neutral empire during the Great War, yet that very prosperity may have sown the seeds of the region’s downfall: gerrymandered politics, rising inequality, abusive behaviors, and the locking-up of intellectuals. In a way, the arrival of new leftist ideas is just the icing on the cake.

And if you’re wondering why the written section is extremely biased, that was intentional. The book’s premise and ideological bent did not make for an objective review of sorts.

The photo of the prison is actually that of the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands (used to house Indian nationalists), and the photo of the Cortes is actually that of the First Philippine Senate.

Spoiler: Translations

Kapatas = Foremen

Barangay(s) = Administrative division within the Spanish Philippines, equivalent to a village, rural district, or small town.

Hacienda(s) = landed estate of a family or group, whom use the lands for agricultural or other productive purposes. In the Spanish Philippines, the system was so strong and lucrative that even church Orders had their own haciendas.

Bersatu (kita) teguh, bercerai (kita) roboh = An old Malay saying: “We stand united, we fall divided” – that is often used to highlight cooperation and togetherness.

Sovrintendente = Superintendant.

Criollos = Creoles, Spaniards whom are born and raised in the Philippines.

Peninsulares = Spanish-born residents born in Spain. Often seen as above Criollos in judicial and societal matters.

Mestizos = Mixed-race people of Spanish and local descent.

Ilustrados = Spanish for "erudite," "learned," or "enlightened ones".

Spoiler: Actual notes

(1) You may laugh, but this actually how two prisoners escaped from one of the prisons in French Guiana!

(2) See post #1067 for more on the troubles afflicting the Spanish Empire in the 1890’s.

(3) Local Philippine clergymen, being local, were often more sympathetic to the nationalist movement than the Spanish-rooted foreign orders. For example: the ringleaders of the 1872 Cavite Munity were local priests, and their relation to noted intellectuals accelerated separatist sentiments.

(4) In comparison, the first workers union of the Philippines, the Unión Obrera Democrática Filipina (Democratic Workers Union of the Philippines) was established in 1902 IOTL based on socialist ideas the intellectuals picked up from Europe. Amazingly, one of the founding documents that the group used to exemplify its principles was Errico Malatesta’s own 1884 anarchist tract: Between Peasants.

(5) See post #1,843 for more information on the Dutch Socialist Association and other groups in the D.E.I.

(6) Sultan Badaruddin II of Sulu died in 1884 at the age of 19. Here, life was a lot kinder in not making him sick.

(7) This is attested by both oral, written, and my own family accounts of traditional weddings. Up until the 70’s and 80’s and even sometimes today, families in Malaya, Indonesia, and the southern Philippines would sometimes bankrupt themselves in hosting a grand wedding festivity in their homes, which often served as a ceremony of union and a community get-together. In fact, a couple that marries elsewhere (or, God forbid, in a mosque) is often seen by others as a) too poor to throw a bash, or b) eloping.

 

[Icedaemon]

On the one hand, a rural-idyll-obsessed anarchist is certainly a novel leader for a leftist movement, perhaps one who is somewhat less likely (or, well, at least less willing) to create a horrorshow at least as dreadful as the corrupt autocracy he overthrows than your average leftist demagogue. On the other, it does seem probable that the Philippines will only become steadily worse, first as a response to these revolts and soon thereafter as a consequence.

 

[NickBana]

Given that Sarawak’s urban development is still at a stage where peoples from all over can mix and mingle without any racial/color/religious restrictions, and that most of Sarawak’s white immigrants are more of the adventurous folk with fewer qualms about European social norms, there will definitely be some interesting relations and romances going about. It will be hushed-out and be looked at with disdain by the wider colonial community in Sundaland (kinda like Aceh looking down on Malay-Chinese marriages next door) but a veeeeery small nucleus of Euro-Sarawakian peranakans is slowly forming underneath their eyes.

(Heh, it can be argued that Rajah Clayton Brooke wants to be a part of this group, in his own way.)

Heh. Old Charlie did encourage their officers taking locals as partners and believes in creating a class of ruling Eurasians. He himself have an Eurasian kid.

 

[Al-numbers]

On the one hand, a rural-idyll-obsessed anarchist is certainly a novel leader for a leftist movement, perhaps one who is somewhat less likely (or, well, at least less willing) to create a horrorshow at least as dreadful as the corrupt autocracy he overthrows than your average leftist demagogue. On the other, it does seem probable that the Philippines will only become steadily worse, first as a response to these revolts and soon thereafter as a consequence.

Malatesta isn’t advocating for the Spanish Philippines to become some Southeast Asian Acadia (he was supportive of industry and organized urban workers organizations IOTL and ITTL), but his anarchist ideas for peasant-and-worker organization and commonly-owned/trust land, based on his experiences and TTL events, would sound very attractive to many many farmers in and around the archipelago.

As for whether the Philippines will emerge from this better or worse, that’s a future with a lot of endings. Ideas like Malatesta-style anarchism would be popular with the rural poor, but it might also come as a tad too familiar to some ethnic minorities, whom see him as ‘preaching to the choir’ or have different conceptions of land ownership. Then there are the other strains of socialism advocating for more familiar methods such as strikes, boycotts, and ownership of factories, which will instantly notice the government to react.

Then there are the pressures of the companies, plantations, and haciendas, which will not stand any sort of labour movement. And lastly, there is the church to consider; the foreign Orders are seen as mud by many Filipinos and Moros, but Christianity has been the main religion of the archipelago for centuries with strong observance, and local clergy are often the main sympathisers and ringleaders of Philippine nationalism – and even more so ITTL as more ilustrados are shipped off to Congo.

With so many factors adding to the anarchist-socialist movements, the future Philippines could very well end up better or worse than OTL.

And then there’s the quibble of such ideas crossing borders into, say, Borneo…

Heh. Old Charlie did encourage their officers taking locals as partners and believes in creating a class of ruling Eurasians. He himself have an Eurasian kid.

I’m still wondering if I should put the kid (Esca Brooke-Daykin) into this TL as a last-minute surprise. "Congratulations Rajah Clayton! You now possess: One (1) secret half-brother!!! 🤡"

 

[Neoteros]

Malatesta.

Fuck yes.

 

[Al-numbers]

Malatesta.

Fuck yes.

Given his outspoken nature, wanderings, and propensity to get into trouble, Malatesta was a shoe-in for this TL.

 

[Neoteros]

Given his outspoken nature, wanderings, and propensity to get into trouble, Malatesta was a shoe-in for this TL.

Filipino culture and Italian culture are far closer than anyone would expect too, due to the Catholic and Spanish influence on both of them; the meme about the Philippines being the Mexico of Asia, here, could be somewhat different, if both countries are able to pull their shit together.