I love this TL I can only hope though that this TL's Sarawak doesn't go the same way as OTL's 
Of Rajahs and Hornbills: A timeline of Brooke Sarawak
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I love this TL I can only hope though that this TL's Sarawak doesn't go the same way as OTL's
Well, we haven't even passed the 1860's yet! Who knows where the Brooke monarchy shall end up in 50 years' time?
Update is half-complete. I might be able to post it by tomorrow or next week.
Economics and Socio-Political Evolution in Sarawak
Apologies for the wall of text.
Vivian Tan, The Government of Sarawak; Past and Present (Kayangan Publishing: 1992)
From 1853 to 1862, The Kingdom of Sarawak experienced rebellions, war, and even a sack on the capital. Despite all of this, the new government soldiered on through the smoke, enacting new policies and spreading Brooke rule even as Dayak war fleets battled a few dozen kilometres nearby.
One of the first measures of the 1850’s was the establishment of new government posts to better facilitate the administration of Rajah James. The position of Datu Bandar or Town Mayor was created in 1851, with the posts of Datu Hakim – Chief Judge – and Datu Temenggung – Commander-of-War – being made fully official the following year. James hired experienced ex-Bruneians and Malays to these positions, knowing full well that governing Sarawak would be much harder without their trust and insight. The ongoing rebellions in the Simanggang Divison might have also been a factor in the creation of these offices.
Alongside this, several lesser government and law departments were also established during the tumultuous decade. An entirely new Police Corps was established in 1851 to aid the civil peace in Kuching, headed by several British Officers and a small troop of trained Malays in a miniaturized model of the London Police Service, albeit with some acclimatization due to the tropical environment. A Customs Department was also established to regulate imported British and foreign goods as trade with Singapore and the East Indies increased. However, the most novel of the new systems was the Sarawak Postal Service, created in 1855 with the aim to ferry messages to and from Kuching for the foreign Sarawak Service members.
However, due to the then-ongoing rebellions, not all of the government’s policies were able to be enforced throughout the land. The actions of both Libau Rentap and Sharif Masahor forced Rajah James to use the native Dayaks as auxiliary troops to combat the rebels, a hallmark of the White Rajahs that would last well into the 20th century. In addition, the ban on headhunting had to be waived in terms of battle as the Dayaks would not fight as hard without an enemy head to take back home with. Later on, the Kuching Uprising and the sack of the city in 1857 destroyed the offices and buildings of the Sarawak government, making state rule a lot harder to enact until the end of the decade.
However, the worst effect of the 1850’s rebellions was the cut-off of Sentarum from the Kingdom of Sarawak proper. Despite James Brooke’s Batang Lupar expedition in 1853, the forces of Libau Rentap managed to make the river a dangerous course for any steamers, cutting off Fort Brooke and the Sentarum Floodplains from the outside world (the Kapuas River was declared off-limits to any British shipping as per the Kuching Agreement). The Dutch, angered by the handover of the region, soon realized the absence of the White Rajah’s forces and began to conduct punitive expeditions to the area, with dire consequences for the Sentarum Division…
It is no doubt that the actions of James Brooke directly contributed to the multicultural society that is Sarawak and Sabah today. How much did the man influence, however, is a lot murkier.
Once James Brooke became Rajah of Sarawak for life in 1846, he set about on a quest to ‘reform’ the piratical and head-hunting Sarawak Dayaks whom he saw as “…noble yet misguided”. Christian missionaries were scouring the lands of Asia and Africa in those days, seemingly competing with one another as to who could win the most souls from the natives. With this in mind, and not wanting to antagonize the British Protestant clergy, he allowed missionaries from the British Empire to operate, on the conditions that they would not convert the Dayaks by force and that Catholic missionaries would also be allowed.
He allowed the missionaries to proselytize in and around the Kuching Division, even handing out parcels of land for the priests to build churches and schools. It was originally hoped that conversion to Christianity would relieve the Dayaks of their ‘barbaric activities’ and gain eternal salvation, thereby spreading “civilization” to Borneo. While there were some Dayak converts, their predisposition to headhunting did not immediately cease upon taking their vows. Furthermore, not all Dayaks welcomed the new faith or its espousers, most notable of all being the Iban. Nevertheless, Christianity began to spread among the Dayaks of Sarawak throughout the 1840’s and 1850’s, especially once word-of-mouth began to spread…
Besides the Dayaks, it was during the 1840’s and 1850’s that Sarawak began amassing its Chinese and Indian minorities. Of the many introduced cultures that now call the kingdom home, the Chinese are perhaps the oldest of them all. Since ancient times, traders from Canton and the coastal provinces sailed through the South China Sea to trade with the Sultanates of North and West Borneo, most notably the ancient Sultanate of Brunei. In the 18th century, several of the West Bornean Sultanates began employing Chinese Hakkas to work the mines of their kingdoms, with the unintended consequence of the settlers proclaiming a Chinese Republic in 1777. For the cash-strained Sarawak government of the 1850s, the Hakkas were cheap, plentiful, and experienced. With the rebellions in mind, Hakka miners were quickly brought in from West Borneo and the mainland…
However, the miners soon turned out to be too experienced, for they knew how to group amongst themselves and organize secret societies whilst trading illegally in the sidelines. This show of activities culminated in I857 when they revolted against the government and put Kuching to the torch, causing Rajah James to send word to London of his intentions for a Sarawak protectorate. The British Parliament might have answered the call, if it weren't for the Indian Rebellion.
Despite the chaos that followed, the Rebellion would be a blessing in disguise for the Kingdom of Sarawak. Not only was James’ protectorate plea dismissed amongst the outrage in Parliament, but the aftermath would provide the kingdom with a reliable military force. Disturbed by the death toll of British officers at the forts, the Kuching government requested that some of the lower ranked troops in the Rebellion be pardoned and sent to work in Sarawak, a sentence of exile for the mutineers. In normal cases this order would have been rebuffed, but Rajah James' connections, as well as the problem of containing the captured soldiers, made for a quick solution to both parties.
This system, later evolving into one in which Sikhs would be employed to man the Sarawak forts before being released from service, would sow the seeds of the second-largest Indian community in South-East Asia…
Aside from government matters, it was during this decade that the economy of Sarawak was put under the eye of Rajah James.
As per his Romanticist and Paternalist views, the adventurer-turned-ruler reasoned that large-scale investment would lead to mass-exploitation of the land. However, he also realized that – on its own – the Kingdom of Sarawak could never prosper unless there was at least some outside cash flowing in to prop up the government. As an answer to this, the first White Rajah embarked on an economic system that – like Sarawak itself – would set it apart from the rest of the world.
After consulting with the government and Supreme Council members, James and his ministers worked on a system of local smallholders producing goods of value from the forest alongside a few foreign companies active in the timber trade. However, the kingdom's lucrative mining sector would be placed under a private monopoly of a single company that can be watched from Kuching. Backed by his supporters in England, The Borneo Company Limited was founded in 1856 to, as said by the Scottish MP James Dyce Nicol, "take over and work Mines, Ores, Veins or Seams of all descriptions of Minerals in the Island of Borneo, and to barter or sell the produce of such workings".
Alongside the Borneo Company, the Brooke government also encouraged small-scale production among the native Malays and Dayaks, hoping that their kingdom would become wealthy in the export of native goods. the 1850's saw pioneering uses for materials such as rattan, timber, bird’s nests, and gutta-percha – the last of which would prove to be the second-most valuable resource as the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States gained steam. Chinese immigrants were encouraged to grow pepper whilst the Malays and Iban tribes peered into the cottage-industry of native cloths.
Despite all this, there were several Europeans that managed to slip through the system’s cracks, wanting to create a few plantations of their own. With the idea of cash crops filtering in from British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, several British entrepreneurs managed to gain parcels of land through working with the government, growing pepper and spices with the help of local labour.
Nevertheless, with these policies in place Sarawak’s economic output began to steadily rise through the 1850’s, even though the rebellions of Simanggang meant that most of the revenues went to combating the natives instead of being spent on state infrastructure. Nevertheless, the bulk of exported goods grew to such a point that in 1858, one year after the Kuching Uprising, the Brookes decided to create the ultimate sign of their independence. On September the 28th, the Sarawak Dollar was inaugurated as the official currency of the upstart nation.
The earliest surviving coinage from Rajah James' era, dated 1863
__________
Footnotes:
1) As always, most of what is written here is OTL with the exception of a few tweaks (though I won’t say where).
2) The Sarawak Dollar is an actual thing, and so is the Sarawak Postal Service.
3) It is not known just when did Sarawak had her own police force, but it was mentioned that it had one during the Kuching Uprising, according to contemporary travellers.
4) The Borneo Company Limited is also a thing.
5) The report of lower-ranked mutineers in the Indian Rebellion being sent to Sarawak is somewhat apocryphal when looking at the sources, but Margaret Brooke did mention it in her journals about her life in Sarawak so it's probable that it really happened.
Vivian Tan, The Government of Sarawak; Past and Present (Kayangan Publishing: 1992)
From 1853 to 1862, The Kingdom of Sarawak experienced rebellions, war, and even a sack on the capital. Despite all of this, the new government soldiered on through the smoke, enacting new policies and spreading Brooke rule even as Dayak war fleets battled a few dozen kilometres nearby.
One of the first measures of the 1850’s was the establishment of new government posts to better facilitate the administration of Rajah James. The position of Datu Bandar or Town Mayor was created in 1851, with the posts of Datu Hakim – Chief Judge – and Datu Temenggung – Commander-of-War – being made fully official the following year. James hired experienced ex-Bruneians and Malays to these positions, knowing full well that governing Sarawak would be much harder without their trust and insight. The ongoing rebellions in the Simanggang Divison might have also been a factor in the creation of these offices.
Alongside this, several lesser government and law departments were also established during the tumultuous decade. An entirely new Police Corps was established in 1851 to aid the civil peace in Kuching, headed by several British Officers and a small troop of trained Malays in a miniaturized model of the London Police Service, albeit with some acclimatization due to the tropical environment. A Customs Department was also established to regulate imported British and foreign goods as trade with Singapore and the East Indies increased. However, the most novel of the new systems was the Sarawak Postal Service, created in 1855 with the aim to ferry messages to and from Kuching for the foreign Sarawak Service members.
However, due to the then-ongoing rebellions, not all of the government’s policies were able to be enforced throughout the land. The actions of both Libau Rentap and Sharif Masahor forced Rajah James to use the native Dayaks as auxiliary troops to combat the rebels, a hallmark of the White Rajahs that would last well into the 20th century. In addition, the ban on headhunting had to be waived in terms of battle as the Dayaks would not fight as hard without an enemy head to take back home with. Later on, the Kuching Uprising and the sack of the city in 1857 destroyed the offices and buildings of the Sarawak government, making state rule a lot harder to enact until the end of the decade.
However, the worst effect of the 1850’s rebellions was the cut-off of Sentarum from the Kingdom of Sarawak proper. Despite James Brooke’s Batang Lupar expedition in 1853, the forces of Libau Rentap managed to make the river a dangerous course for any steamers, cutting off Fort Brooke and the Sentarum Floodplains from the outside world (the Kapuas River was declared off-limits to any British shipping as per the Kuching Agreement). The Dutch, angered by the handover of the region, soon realized the absence of the White Rajah’s forces and began to conduct punitive expeditions to the area, with dire consequences for the Sentarum Division…
**********
Chloe Pang, A Socio-Political History of Sarawak; 3rd Edition (Kayangan Publishing: 1999)
It is no doubt that the actions of James Brooke directly contributed to the multicultural society that is Sarawak and Sabah today. How much did the man influence, however, is a lot murkier.
Once James Brooke became Rajah of Sarawak for life in 1846, he set about on a quest to ‘reform’ the piratical and head-hunting Sarawak Dayaks whom he saw as “…noble yet misguided”. Christian missionaries were scouring the lands of Asia and Africa in those days, seemingly competing with one another as to who could win the most souls from the natives. With this in mind, and not wanting to antagonize the British Protestant clergy, he allowed missionaries from the British Empire to operate, on the conditions that they would not convert the Dayaks by force and that Catholic missionaries would also be allowed.
He allowed the missionaries to proselytize in and around the Kuching Division, even handing out parcels of land for the priests to build churches and schools. It was originally hoped that conversion to Christianity would relieve the Dayaks of their ‘barbaric activities’ and gain eternal salvation, thereby spreading “civilization” to Borneo. While there were some Dayak converts, their predisposition to headhunting did not immediately cease upon taking their vows. Furthermore, not all Dayaks welcomed the new faith or its espousers, most notable of all being the Iban. Nevertheless, Christianity began to spread among the Dayaks of Sarawak throughout the 1840’s and 1850’s, especially once word-of-mouth began to spread…
Besides the Dayaks, it was during the 1840’s and 1850’s that Sarawak began amassing its Chinese and Indian minorities. Of the many introduced cultures that now call the kingdom home, the Chinese are perhaps the oldest of them all. Since ancient times, traders from Canton and the coastal provinces sailed through the South China Sea to trade with the Sultanates of North and West Borneo, most notably the ancient Sultanate of Brunei. In the 18th century, several of the West Bornean Sultanates began employing Chinese Hakkas to work the mines of their kingdoms, with the unintended consequence of the settlers proclaiming a Chinese Republic in 1777. For the cash-strained Sarawak government of the 1850s, the Hakkas were cheap, plentiful, and experienced. With the rebellions in mind, Hakka miners were quickly brought in from West Borneo and the mainland…
However, the miners soon turned out to be too experienced, for they knew how to group amongst themselves and organize secret societies whilst trading illegally in the sidelines. This show of activities culminated in I857 when they revolted against the government and put Kuching to the torch, causing Rajah James to send word to London of his intentions for a Sarawak protectorate. The British Parliament might have answered the call, if it weren't for the Indian Rebellion.
Despite the chaos that followed, the Rebellion would be a blessing in disguise for the Kingdom of Sarawak. Not only was James’ protectorate plea dismissed amongst the outrage in Parliament, but the aftermath would provide the kingdom with a reliable military force. Disturbed by the death toll of British officers at the forts, the Kuching government requested that some of the lower ranked troops in the Rebellion be pardoned and sent to work in Sarawak, a sentence of exile for the mutineers. In normal cases this order would have been rebuffed, but Rajah James' connections, as well as the problem of containing the captured soldiers, made for a quick solution to both parties.
This system, later evolving into one in which Sikhs would be employed to man the Sarawak forts before being released from service, would sow the seeds of the second-largest Indian community in South-East Asia…
**********
Temenggung Jugah Anak Barieng, Early Sarawak: 1846-1868 (Kenyalang Publishing, 2000)
Aside from government matters, it was during this decade that the economy of Sarawak was put under the eye of Rajah James.
As per his Romanticist and Paternalist views, the adventurer-turned-ruler reasoned that large-scale investment would lead to mass-exploitation of the land. However, he also realized that – on its own – the Kingdom of Sarawak could never prosper unless there was at least some outside cash flowing in to prop up the government. As an answer to this, the first White Rajah embarked on an economic system that – like Sarawak itself – would set it apart from the rest of the world.
After consulting with the government and Supreme Council members, James and his ministers worked on a system of local smallholders producing goods of value from the forest alongside a few foreign companies active in the timber trade. However, the kingdom's lucrative mining sector would be placed under a private monopoly of a single company that can be watched from Kuching. Backed by his supporters in England, The Borneo Company Limited was founded in 1856 to, as said by the Scottish MP James Dyce Nicol, "take over and work Mines, Ores, Veins or Seams of all descriptions of Minerals in the Island of Borneo, and to barter or sell the produce of such workings".
Alongside the Borneo Company, the Brooke government also encouraged small-scale production among the native Malays and Dayaks, hoping that their kingdom would become wealthy in the export of native goods. the 1850's saw pioneering uses for materials such as rattan, timber, bird’s nests, and gutta-percha – the last of which would prove to be the second-most valuable resource as the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States gained steam. Chinese immigrants were encouraged to grow pepper whilst the Malays and Iban tribes peered into the cottage-industry of native cloths.
Despite all this, there were several Europeans that managed to slip through the system’s cracks, wanting to create a few plantations of their own. With the idea of cash crops filtering in from British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, several British entrepreneurs managed to gain parcels of land through working with the government, growing pepper and spices with the help of local labour.
Nevertheless, with these policies in place Sarawak’s economic output began to steadily rise through the 1850’s, even though the rebellions of Simanggang meant that most of the revenues went to combating the natives instead of being spent on state infrastructure. Nevertheless, the bulk of exported goods grew to such a point that in 1858, one year after the Kuching Uprising, the Brookes decided to create the ultimate sign of their independence. On September the 28th, the Sarawak Dollar was inaugurated as the official currency of the upstart nation.
The earliest surviving coinage from Rajah James' era, dated 1863
__________
Footnotes:
1) As always, most of what is written here is OTL with the exception of a few tweaks (though I won’t say where).
2) The Sarawak Dollar is an actual thing, and so is the Sarawak Postal Service.
3) It is not known just when did Sarawak had her own police force, but it was mentioned that it had one during the Kuching Uprising, according to contemporary travellers.
4) The Borneo Company Limited is also a thing.
5) The report of lower-ranked mutineers in the Indian Rebellion being sent to Sarawak is somewhat apocryphal when looking at the sources, but Margaret Brooke did mention it in her journals about her life in Sarawak so it's probable that it really happened.
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So the Dutch did not try and grab the plains firing the Troubles?
Glad the missionaries are about, and on a good moral chain. Catholics too. With the Sikhs moving in we are well on our way to that highly diverse Sarawak.
Glad the missionaries are about, and on a good moral chain. Catholics too. With the Sikhs moving in we are well on our way to that highly diverse Sarawak.
Sikhs acting as extra muscle to help the Brookes secure Sarawak from outside invaders? Sweet idea, not to mention being wrapped up in a good update overall . Although, I'm not sure I'm so cozy with the Hakka immigration going on (IIRC they had a big hand in the Malayan Emergency IOTL, although I might be off on that).
. Although, I'm not sure I'm so cozy with the Hakka immigration going on (IIRC they had a big hand in the Malayan Emergency IOTL, although I might be off on that).Ah, the Borneo Company. I love those odd little late-imperial Corporate Colonialists; such a strange mix of the modern and the reactionary.
Sikhs acting as extra muscle to help the Brookes secure Sarawak from outside invaders? Sweet idea, not to mention being wrapped up in a good update overall
This right here the Chinese have proven themselves to be of questionable loyalty to the kingdom the fact that even more of them are coming in is going to be uncomfortable for many people no doubt in Sarawak.
Sikhs acting as extra muscle to help the Brookes secure Sarawak from outside invaders? Sweet idea, not to mention being wrapped up in a good update overall
Why not recruit Sikhs? Brooke was a British officer at heart, after all, and he'd served in India, so the Indian "martial races" would be a natural place to look for troops.
It'll be interesting to see what the Sikh soldiers and their children do at the end of their terms - given generational patterns in other countries where British colonizers imported Indians, they may end up owning many of the small businesses in the capital.
Thanks! As for those two, I won't promise that they will appear in the TL or not (especially considering ITTL Sarawak being more noticeable to world leaders) but I can definitively say that Male Rising Teddy Roosevelt and Samuel Clemens are among the awesomest figures I've ever read.
Seeing that America already had an interest in East Asia since the late 1800's, I might be able to squeeze them in...if I can get the other Sarawak-interested European rulers sorted out.
Yes the Sikhs have finally arrived
Sikhs acting as extra muscle to help the Brookes secure Sarawak from outside invaders? Sweet idea, not to mention being wrapped up in a good update overall
Hee hee, I was planning to include the Sikhs for quite a while, but couldn't find an appropriate place to squeeze them in. There were Sikhs working for Brooke Sarawak in OTL, but they were never really highlighted due to everyone going gaga over the 'noble Dayaks' (still dislike the term). In the future, some of the Sikhs would settle down in the main cities and will contribute to other sectors of the kingdom, though they won't be really noticeable until the early 20th century.
As for the missionaries, that part was surprisingly OTL. Sarawak attracted both Catholic and Protestant missionaries in it's heyday and even in OTL the Christian distribution of the country was patchy and lopsided with the areas around Kuching being majorly Protestant while the outer towns and villages (the mining town of Bau, for example) converting to Catholicism. ITTL, this pattern will mostly stay the same until the end of the 19th century. After that, *spoilers*
Whoops, didn't realize I didn't put that in! Correcting now...
Actually, the Dutch did launch punitive expeditions to the Sentarum Floodplains during the 1850's in OTL. ITTL, with Libau Rentap making the Batang Lupar river inaccessible for Brooke steamers, Sentarum is basically cut-off from Sarawak proper, allowing the Dutch ample time to launch punitive expeditions to explore and secure the area. Before anyone asks, yes this is violating the Kuching Agreement and both Sarawak and the DEI will butt heads over this in the early 1860's.
The one thing I didn't have the time to highlight was the super complicated Chinese problem. The Brookes did not want to make the Malays or Dayaks work the mines so they had to use the Chinese, and there were an already plentiful population in both Malaya and Borneo due to hundreds of years of emigration and trade. You two are right in that Rajah James distrusted them for what they did in 1857 (and to be fair, he did crack down hard on the Chinese after that), but these was simply no other force that was as knowledgeable about mining operations as the Chinese. The fact that the Sultans of Dutch Borneo have employed them for nearly a century made sure for a steady stream of miners from across the border.
Then there was the Second Opium Wars which were going on at the same time, preventing any large numbers of Chinese immigrants from China proper (though that didn't stop them from emigrating entirely). India was in Rebellion and London was a bit tetchy about the whole thing afterwards, so Chinese immigrants it was. It was also noted that some of the Chinese populace grew pepper and spices which can be traded around, improving the Sarawak economy as a whole. All in all, it was complicated and everything is a potato.
This won't be the last we hear of the Corporate Colonialists, nor will this be the last of the Corporate Colonial model being used in Borneo.
EDIT:
Darn it! I was hoping to keep that a secret!
Yep, with James being who he is recruiting Sikhs would be considered natural for both him and the government. The Sikhs will have an economic presence in Sarawak, but it will be quite some time before this happens, and there are plenty of butterflies to flutter for the Indians in Sarawak and Malaya.
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It's not that it doesn't make sense, but rather it's something I didn't see coming at this time. I also wouldn't see any problem with, say, the Ghurkas filling out such a role as well, but Sikhs would do just fine from where I'm sitting. And it's a move I find preferable to just hiring European mercenaries to boot, partly because of the very influence you mention might happen as a result of long-term Sikh presence in Sarawak (truly setting the place up as a melting pot nation).
Actually, there were several Gurkha regiments serving in OTL Malaya during the British period and even during WWII. I personally visited an Empire cemetery at Perak earlier this year that had troops from as far as Canada and New Zealand buried there, and Gurkhas and Sikhs made up a sizable number of the graves.
Anyway, I've been thinking about making some headline updates on the far-off places that will be affected by this TL. Since I don't know the entire history of the world and writing so would detract from the original vision of the timeline, I've been wondering if I can update the far-off places with newspaper headlines instead of book-style updates. Like:
The London Times
"Benjamin Disraeli Dies!"
Is that OK with everyone?
I've been thinking of making the headline idea a little something like this:
(Also, this is something I just cooked up in about 10 minutes or so. A real newspaper headline would have dates and proper textures and stuff)
In this way, we get to see what's going on around the world that are distantly related to the TL. Also, the lack of content can give all of us room to speculate on what happened or what events occurred that would lead to the incident. Also, it gives me some diversity with this TL as well as room to bend with ideas and all.
On the books, there are books and written records that are penned by westerners about Borneo but they are often either obscure or don't deal with the matters close to the timeline. ITTL, there could be a greater number of books written about Borneo, but it'll take some time getting there.
Yeah the headline idea is awesome it's your TL after all so the rule of cool applies and nothing is more cool than the White Rajahs
I agree on how sad it really is on how few books there really are on this subject
I agree on how sad it really is on how few books there really are on this subject
Okay then! Headline updates are a go! (though IMO we won't see the first of them until the mid-1860's comes knocking around).
By the way, does anyone know how to change a thread update that's already locked? I've made a serious mistake in one of my older updates; it's supposed to say "...When Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II died in 1853, his son-in-law inherited a crumbling empire."
Considering that my next update concerns Brunei, it might throw later readers out of balance.
Headline updates are a go! (though IMO we won't see the first of them until the mid-1860's comes knocking around).By the way, does anyone know how to change a thread update that's already locked? I've made a serious mistake in one of my older updates; it's supposed to say "...When Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II died in 1853, his son-in-law inherited a crumbling empire."
Considering that my next update concerns Brunei, it might throw later readers out of balance.
Witch0Winter
Banned
I don't think you can do anything to old updates that are locked, sadly.Okay then!
By the way, does anyone know how to change a thread update that's already locked? I've made a serious mistake in one of my older updates; it's supposed to say "...When Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II died in 1853, his son-in-law inherited a crumbling empire."