Maluka
Maluka (or Maluko) was a small independent state located around the Sungei Maluka, southeast of Bandjermassin on the island of Borneo .[1] It was established in a land concession acquired by an English adventurer Alexander Hare from the Sultan of Banjarmassin in 1812 and lasted 4 years until 1816.[2]
Maluka | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1812–1816 | |||||||||
| Capital | Maluka | ||||||||
| Government | Absolute monarchy | ||||||||
| Rajah | |||||||||
| Historical era | New Imperialism | ||||||||
• Established | 1812 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 1816 | ||||||||
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| Today part of |  | ||||||||
History
After the successful British invasion of the then previously French territory of Java and the establishment of a British colony the Lieutenant-Governor Stamford Raffles sent Hare to the region and appointed him Resident of Banjarmasin and Commissioner of the Island of Borneo when Dutch control briefly passed to Britain (1811–16).
Hare then acquired 1,400 square miles of land from the Sultan of Bandjermasin and established it as an independent state which he ran as a private fiefdom, with the style of Rajah of Maluka and issued his own coinage.[3] Thus he can be called the first White Rajah in Borneo, 30 years before James Brooke established his own White Rajahs dynasty in Sarawak.
His importation of convicts as slave labour, especially female, became infamous and he was known to have set up a harem.[4] An inquiry was carried out by William Boggie, the British Resident in Samarang in 1837 to uncovered how he had operated what had become known as the Bandjemassing Enormity[1] or the Banjermasin Outrage[4]
The state cease to exist when the Dutch returned in 1816 and Hare and his harem of 40 Malay women[5] and others were forced to leave.[6]
References
- De man die vrouwen verzamelde; Een koloniale geschiedenis van de Kokos-eilanden by Joop van den Berg (‘s-Gravenhage 1998)
- Gibson-Hill, C.A. (1952). "Documents Relating to John Clunies Ross, Alexander Hare and the establishment of the Colony on the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 25, parts 4 and 5".
- "Coin - Doit, Maluka, Indonesia, 1813". Museums Victoria Collections. Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
- "Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde van Neêrlands Indië". Nijhoff. 6 August 2017. Retrieved 6 August 2017 – via Google Books.
- Wright, Tony (1 November 2014). "A battle and an odyssey from Cocos remembered". Retrieved 6 August 2017 – via The Sydney Morning Herald.
- Far East and Australasia 2003. Routledge. 2002. p. 145. ISBN 1-85743-133-2.