From "Empire" To State, A Popular History

The year 1906 constitutes a watershed in the history of Brunei. By the simple act of signing the 1905-1906 Supplementary Agreement (to the Brunei-UK Protectorate Treaty of 1888), the ailing but wily Sultan Hashim Jalilul Alam gave a new lease of life to Brunei.

Without this Agreement, the kingdom would not have survived its internal dissension and external enemies.

The year 1906 also marked the beginning of official British presence in Brunei, when the British Residency Rule was introduced. It ended in September 1959 when Brunei promulgated its first written constitution. Other vestiges of British authority ceased to exist once Brunei Darussalam resumed full independence in 1984.

The Supplementary Agreement came with a price. In exchange for British protection key elements of royal sovereignty had to be surrendered.

The treaty paved the way for the British Residents to exercise overriding powers and deprive the Sultans of their traditional responsibilities. If so, what was the de facto status of Brunei under British protection?

Was Brunei colonised?

If so, to what degree?

Among the Southeast Asian countries it was only Thailand that remained free of colonial rule. In contrast, Brunei's position remained ambiguous due to variant interpretations of what constituted a colonial protectorate. Under British Protectorate rule, the sovereign powers of the Brunei Sultans were restricted.

However, the Sultans remained independent and in fact, they enjoyed elevated status under British protection than they ever did under the traditional system. Britain was always regarded as a true friend of Brunei.

Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddin III especially underscored this point at the height of the turbulent politics spearheaded by the People's Party of Brunei (PRB) in the 1950s and 1960s. Apparently, the party thrived on an anti-colonial agenda by emulating the struggle of Indonesian nationalists, and preferred to acknowledge Brunei as a British colony.

By the middle of the 19th century, Brunei had entered a period of terminal decline from having been a regional empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Illustrious Brunei shrank into a minor riverine state exacerbated by internal strife, dynastic politics, civil wars, piracy and above all - the intrusion of Western colonial powers.

Brunei Darussalam is a tiny sultanate situated on the north coast of the island of Borneo (between 114° 04' and 115° 22' of eastern longitude and between 4° 00' and 50 03' of northern latitude).

Its present total land area is approximately 5,765 sq km covering an anomalous shape of two enclaves (Brunei-Muara, Tutong and Belait on the one side and Temburong on the other side) - each enclave surrounded on the land side by Sarawak, Malaysia.

As a new nation but an ancient country, Brunei Darussalam is arguably one of the oldest sultanates in Southeast Asia. Some scholars acknowledge that references in Chinese sources to a kingdom called P'o-ni (which existed in the first millennium of the Common Era), may be referring to ancient Brunei, a state that maintained tributary relations with the Chinese Empire and later, with the Majapahit Empire.

Also the references to Vijayapura and Bun Lai in the region may also point to the very early origins of the Bruneian kingdom. Whatever the case may be, Brunei's early history is shrouded in mystery, and scholarly efforts to unravel toponyms in the multitude of foreign literary sources (especially references in Chinese annals), have not yet yielded many clues.

Brunei's official history dates the establishment of the Muslim sultanate to the middle of the 14th century. Local legends and literary sources lend support to the Islamic origins of the kingdom. Archaeological excavations, however, have demonstrated that Bruneian civilisation could have begun much earlier, at least from the 7th century CE onwards.

An extensive sea-trade linked Brunei from Johor (in the Malay Peninsula) in the south to the Vietnamese coasts to the north, and further on into China. No details have emerged as to the political and religious systems of that era.
Like many other Southeast Asian states, Brunei seemed to have embraced Indianised Brahmanic values and practices, especially in respect of kingship institutions, although no names of pre-Islamic rulers have come to light so far.

Originally a small cog in the early Southeast Asian trading network, during the 16th century Brunei reached its zenith by gaining an impressive level of opulence, largely due to her participation in the sea-borne trade.

The Bruneian Sultanate maintained close commercial ties with the Portuguese based in Melaka. Once Melaka fell in 1511, the Muslim traders fled to other port cities in the region.

Apparently, Brunei benefited from this exodus, which possibly increased its population substantially (roughly 25,000 households). This was estimated in 1521 by the Italian traveller Antonio Pigafetta who, as a member of Magellan's fleet, visited Brunei Town and left a most authentic and vivid description of the kingdom.

At that time, Brunei achieved pre-eminence among other Bornean sultanates (such as Sambas), and its hegemony is said to have extended from the southern Philippines to western Borneo.

Brunei's coast line extended close to 700 miles long and its land area stretched to about 150 miles. Brunei assumed the role of an Islamic missionary state, spreading and reinforcing Islamic practices, perhaps as far as the Philippines.

However, in the face of strong Christian powers - in particular Spain, which was on the way to becoming a dominant force in the region -Brunei's role remained restricted.

The number of Spaniards in the Philippines was just enough (the actual number of Spanish military men in 1584 at Manila was only about 329, while in the Philippines it did not exceed 713 as estimated by Henry Kamen, a modern authority) to easily overpower Brunei.

Sultan Saiful Rijal in August 1578 tried to enlist Portuguese support when one of their galleons visited Brunei on its way from Melaka to the Moluccas, but they declined because of their close Catholic ties with the Spanish.

With the spread of European entrepộts in Southeast Asia, Brunei also began to shrink in economic importance. Conflicts with the Spanish power based in Manila sapped the energy of Brunei, causing further loss of wealth and territories. The Spaniards tried to subdue Brunei by naval attacks in 1578 and 1579.

The biggest blow to Brunei's prestige and empire status occurred during the civil war in the late 17th century (probably between 1661 to 1673 CE) when the Sulus, their subordinate in the southern part of the Philippine islands, not only asserted their independence but also claimed a large chunk of Brunei's territories on the north of Borneo. For Brunei, the 17th century was a time of great mayhem. Internal political strife led further to the weakening of its hold on its dwindling empire.

Brunei's decline took place gradually. Even towards the end of the 18th century, despite its weak status, Brunei still maintained its hold on regional trade and remained a thriving commercial centre and cosmopolitan city.

An account by an English navigator, Thomas Forrest, who visited Brunei in 1776, left an interesting description of ship-building and trading junks that plied the routes between Brunei and China 'somewhat like the trade from Europe to America."

In order to safeguard the trade, Brunei seems to have been actively courting foreign assistance, especially from the visiting British, and perhaps also as a counterweight to Sulu dominance. But the 19th century spelled doom for Brunei. On the eve of British intervention in Borneo, Brunei had lost its lustre and vibrancy, and was increasingly portrayed in foreign accounts as a moribund.

About The Author:

Dr Hussainmiya is a well-known author of books on Brunei History and his research articles have appeared in many international and local journals. His books Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and Britain: The Making of Brunei Darussalam, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995, and The Brunei Constitution of 1959: An Inside History, Bandar Seri Begawan: Brunei Press 2000 (2"d Edition 2001) have enriched the historiography of Brunei. The author has also written extensively on Classical Malay Literature, the Sri Lankan Malay Community and military history of the Ceylon Rifle Regiment.