Francesco Batti, Of Sultans and Headhunters: Colonial Italy in Borneo, (Nicollo: 1997)
With the
Prang Sempadan settled and its territorial holdings secure, it was time for Rome to begin assessing their new Bornean holdings. The machinations of the previous years against Sarawak and the Dutch already placed both Eastern Sabah and Brunei on the public eye, and there were a fair number of published accounts detailing on the land’s rainforests, peoples, and native kingdoms.
Still, the nature of the territorial acquisitions – Eastern Sabah being a handover from the Sultanate of Sulu and Brunei being the result of the royal court’s plea for help – raised a lot of questions as to what should be done about them. Compared with the other colonial Powers, Italy was a latecomer whose only experience was administering enclaves in Tunisia and the far-off colony of Italian Papua. Sabah and Brunei, on the other hand, were a lot closer to the international world than Papua and yet less connected and developed than Tunisia. The lack of accurate maps of the Sabah-an interior also hampered initial efforts to understand the region.
Adding to this were the diverging interests of the government themselves. Italy during the 1880’s was a Great Power under great strain. The nation’s agricultural production has stagnated since the
Risorgimento, placing tens of thousands to near-unemployment. Meanwhile, the nascent industries of Turin and Milan required more resources – and money – than the state could afford. It should then come to no surprise that most businessmen preferred the new colonies to be resource-extractive than anything else. Besides this, the machinations of the region opened many eyes to the power of naval supremacy, and there were many voices asking for Borneo to house a new wing of an expanded
Regia Marina.
On the other side, there were the colonialists who looked at the territories as places of settlement. The debacle of “New France” by the Marquis De Rays was fresh in many minds, yet it also provided Italian Papua with new crop of settlers. Expanding from this, there were voices in government which argued for a British approach to Borneo; to populate Sabah and Brunei with settlers to farm the land and develop the territory. It would reduce strain on the unemployment situation back home whilst providing the state with new commercial markets. More darkly, it would also provide the government with a way to ship off radicals from the Peninsula without causing trouble elsewhere.
For the colonial authorities, now headquartered in Sandakan, some of the demands lay at odds with each other; is direct or indirect rule the answer? How would the British react to an expanded
Regia Marina in the South China Sea? Could these interests apply with that of Islamic-centred Brunei? Would anyone even want to settle in such a hot, tropical region?
Thus, it was to no surprise that Italian policy in Borneo during the 1880’s was based on a mix of commercial interests, messing around, copying their neighbours, and repeating the lessons learnt from Italian Papua. Their effects, on both Brunei and Sabah, would transform both the mother country and the East Indies in more ways than one…
Eastern Sabah
The 1885 Brussels Conference did set down some standards for colonial rule with the promulgation of the “Three C’s”: Commerce, Christianity and Civilization. Making good on those standards was another matter.
Besides botanists and explorers, the first Italians who truly took an interest in Eastern Sabah were the prospectors and concessionaires. A fair part of the territory, especially near the northeast around Sandakan, consisted of lowland-hill forests which were denuded of land Dayaks; an effect of the Sulu Sultanate’s pirate-slaving activities. With only the coastal towns to deal with and little to no interior chieftains to negotiate treaties, it was not long before large swaths of land lay under the maw of timber and wild-rubber companies.
Next came the missionaries who travelled up the Sugut, Segama, and Kinabatangan rivers to find native villages to convert. With the coastal and riverine towns inhabited by syncretic Muslims, it was considered easier to take in people who have not heard of Abrahamic faiths whatsoever. For the first 20 to 40 kilometres or so, few such settlements were found – with the exception of the Islamized
Orang Sungai tribes. As they travelled deeper, the terrain changed, and the interior villages of the Dusun, Murut, and other unknown peoples revealed themselves. Despite their civilizing aims, initial native contact was held in contempt and early Dayak descriptions were peppered with unflattering negatives such as “lax”, “dirty”, “uncivilized”, and most of all, “suspicious”.
Finally, there was the
Regia Marina and the colonialists. From the start, Eastern Sabah was held to be of strategic value due to its proximity towards the Philippines and the South China Sea. There is also the factor of Brunei being too exposed and surrounded by a wary neighbour. As such, there was much pressure to transform Sandakan into a naval hub for Italy’s oceanic fleet. After all, such a feat would require builders and engineers and farmers to feed them all. Still, the colonial government deliberated on executing such a policy, fearful of what its Dutch, Spanish, British and Sarawakian neighbours would think of it. It wasn’t until 1886 that diplomatic conditions were assessed to be stable enough to warrant a modest port expansion. In the same year, the first notices for settlement were distributed throughout the Italian Peninsula, calling for “engineers, farmers, and enterprising businessmen”, to settle in Eastern Sabah.
Back home, the public viewed the region with a mix of exoticism and disdain. Whatever riches that might lie there, the prospect of living in a far-off tropical rainforest was a life most Italians were distasteful of. The fact that Sabah was poor for temperate farming and possessed no highlands for such agriculture (the Kinabalu Mountains and Pensiangan Hills being under Sarawak and Dutch control respectively) further drove off prospective farmers. The ones that did respond in a positive manner were the businessmen and entrepreneurs; a group which would trickle into the towns of Sandakan, Tawao and Semporna in the coming years to take advantage of the territory’s strategic position.
Slowly, the capital grew to a town of several thousand, swelled by the influx of naval crews who jostled for space with local traders, Neopolitan businessmen, Venetian destitutes and contract labourers from southern China. The construction of the infamous
Isola del Diavolo prison complex at Timbon Mata Island also point to another use of the colony: as a dumping ground for dangerous Italian criminals and radicals, with the first inmate arriving in December 1888.
For the numerous ethnic groups of Eastern Sabah, the arrival of the Italians was met with confusion and suspicion. Most remembered well the brutal rule of the Sulu Sultanate, with some groups (Tidung, Bajau,
Orang Sungei) prospering while others (Murut, Dusun) did not. The colonial administration did nothing to help matters; piracy was curtailed as soon as the officials arrived, angering the
Illanun crew followers who resided on the coast. Headhunting was next, with a death sentence to those who still practiced it. The missionaries then turned their attention to the coastal Dayaks, many of whom practice Islam in differing shades and admixtures. To speed-up development, new taxes were imposed on most goods and services. Finally, a March 1887 order encouraged most families, coastal and interior, to send one of their sons for
corvée labour for certain periods in Italian-owned plantations.
Such acts were reasoned by the authorities as necessary to ‘develop’ the slovenly natives into upright citizens. To some, that was the final straw. Most responded with their feet, moving or sailing across to Western Sabah or to Dutch Borneo. Others responded with violence, attacking Italian officers or missionaries as they see. By 1888 the whole colony sizzled with low-grade unrest, fuelling rumours of Eastern Sabah as an unsafe place and hardship posting, a place almost as difficult – if not more so – than Italian Papua. Scrambling quickly, the authorities at Sandakan brainstormed for answers. One of which was a proposal for an experiment with their
other colony in Borneo…
Sultanate of Brunei
As a protectorate under the Italian umbrella, Brunei was entitled to a few privileges. Islam remained the central faith of the sultanate, the Regia Marina became a permanent presence in Brunei Bay – a minimum of two gunboats at anchor for protection – and the royal court financed with a monthly stipend from Rome, freeing the sultanate from Kuching’s finances. An Italian Resident was also stationed in the city as a representative of the government, ensuring swift communication should any need arise.
At first, little changed; what few traders whom remained in the city quickly continued their businesses as usual. But soon, foreign prospectors began arriving to comb the nearby forests while Catholic missionaries were spotted travelling to the hinterlands to convert the Kadayan and Bisaya tribes. As more and more foreigners – and Bibles – are seen entering the city, the court became increasingly edgy and apprehensive. By July 1885, Brunei had enough; Sultan Hashim called for the Resident and demanded the missionaries leave, latter adding additional requests for further amendments to the sultanate’s protectorate status and a share of any wealth that might be found under Bruneian soil.
It was fruitless. As their financier and protector, Italy held leverage in all say. The subsequent negotiations of August 1885 reflected this new position: Christianity would be held in the same status as Islam and missionaries are not to be harmed in any way. Besides this, Italian companies would gain full access to almost every area of the sultanate while any profits from resource extraction be divided with the say of the companies that extract them. Finally, the Italian Resident was sanctioned by Sandakan to advise the Sultan in all economic matters from then on.
To say that Sultan Hashim was unsatisfied was an understatement, yet there was nothing he or the royal court could do in the face of the Regia Marina. With the pay of the remaining city soldiers also held by the royal court, and thus to Sandakan and Italy, a revolt would also be of little use. The monthly court stipend was increased as a consolation, though it was felt a hollow deal to those who remember the sultanate’s past economic prowess.
With their condition as it was, no one expected their fortunes to change. Three years later on July 1888, an unexpected proposal reached the ear of the Sultan. The administration at Sandakan, feeling sympathetic to the nobles, requested for several of them to represent the seafaring communities of Eastern Sabah. The coastal towns have been rudderless since the departure of Sulu, and it might do good to restore some semblance of royal authority to the region again. The administration would even pay any takers a small monthly fee.
In truth, it was simply another way for Rome and Sandakan to deflect blame, pinning local grievances to the nobles instead of the Italian officers. Sultan Hashim saw through the deal, as did most of his court. Several of the nobles, though, took the proposal seriously; they were rankled by the stagnation of Brunei and dreamed of holding some semblance of power and wealth. By October, around 5 nobles had defected to the idea and were placed, after some consultation with the locals, on several coastal towns up and down Eastern Sabah. As expected, a fair number of the populace took to them as regional leaders who could be consulted and represented. Many more held their new leaders with contempt and disdain.
In any case, Brunei by 1889 was a stagnated sultanate. There was no fear of annexation by neighbouring Sarawak, but it came at the loss of internal sovereignty. The royal court of Bandar Brunei was emptier than the year before, and Sultan Hashim watched helplessly as a noble or two slipped out every few years after, choosing life abroad instead of inaction and indolence at home…
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Notes:
1. You would be surprised at the number of negative descriptions about the Dayaks in 19th century tomes. All the descriptions of the Murut and Dusun peoples are based on British descriptions IOTL.
2. I deliberated for a while about writing the Bruneian portion, as this would take the sultanate to become involved in Eastern Sabah, whether willingly or unwillingly. But there were Bruneian nobles whom sided with the Brookes both IOTL and ITTL; it wouldn’t be hard to imagine one or two deciding to defect to the Italians.
3. Orang Sungei = River Peoples.
4. I noticed a mistake in the previous update and corrected it. Five points to whoever could catch it.
