Heritage Snippets of Sarawak
J. H. Walker
Read Part 1 here: https://dayakdaily.com/datu-patinggi-abdul-gapur-the-traitor-who-wasnt-part-1/
DATU Patinggi Abdul Gapur’s financial difficulties following his extravagance over Dayang Fatimah’s wedding provided the Rajah with the opportunity to take the government of the Bidayuh directly in to his own hands, compensating the Datus for their loss of revenue-raising by paying them salaries from the Government’s revenues. This had been a long-standing ambition of the Rajah. In October 1853, therefore, he was happy to be able to report that the Patinggi “is delighted to receive $100 a month”. This was a very generous settlement, compensating the Patinggi for his lost revenues and paying him an additional premium for his trading rights with the Bidayuh, while allowing him also to continue to trade with them.
But it was also at about this time that relations between Abdul Gapur and the Rajah began to sour, with the Rajah writing that he was angered by the Patinggi “abusing his power and raising his head high at the expense of the government and the finer classes”. Notwithstanding his previous faith in Abdul Gapur, the Rajah publicly rebuked him and fined him for his alleged transgressions. The Rajah’s claim the Abdul Gapur was “raising his head high at the expense of the government” indicates that the nature of the accusations against Abdul Gapur’s had shifted, from suggestions that he mistreated Dayaks to claims that began to cast doubt on his loyalty to the Government.
It is not clear what evidence, if any, was offered against Abdul Gapur by his accusers, or why the Rajah, whose faith in the Patinggi’s integrity had seemed so firm, was moved to action against him. But it is worth noting that Rajah James had almost died of smallpox in May 1853, and the person who had nursed him selflessly through the long the days of illness to recovery was the Patinggi’s most determined enemy, Sherif Moksain.
These accusations came to a head in early 1854. While Rajah James and Brooke Brooke, the Tuan Besar, were away with Patinggi Abdul Gapur, Datu Tumanggong Mersal’s son, Abang Patah, went to Spenser St. John to claim that Abdul Gapur had suggested to the other Datus that they overthrow the Rajah and expel his followers from the country. St. John immediately dispatched a boat to warn the Rajah, who, he later claimed, had noticed “some very odd proceedings on the part of the Patinggi”. It appears, however, that the Rajah did not believe these claims, since he failed to take any preventative actions against Abdul Gapur — and the very idea that the Patinggi would have approached Datu Bandar Molana and Datu Tumanggong Mersal with the suggestion that they overthrow the Rajah is absurd — they were his bitter rivals for the Rajah’s favour.
In June 1854, as part of his municipal reforms, the Rajah appointed a number of prominent Malays to head the various Malay kampungs of Kuching. Abdul Gapur’s rank was already diminished by the Rajah’s public rebuke of him and his special relationship with the Rajah, which had been the source of his pre-eminence for more than a decade, was tarnished. Only his status as senior Datu established his authority among Kuching’s Malay population over whom Datu Bandar Molana and the other more popular leaders would otherwise have exercised influence. In a grave misjudgement, Abdul Gapur summoned the newly appointed headmen (tua kampong) to his house and confiscated their commissions.
Abdul Gapur’s rash action was a profound miscalculation. Although the Patinggi was under pressure from his rivals, the Rajah had not believed their accusations of treason (derhaka). But Abdul Gapur’s confiscation of the surat kuasa that the Rajah has issued appointing the tua kampung was a provocation that James was not prepared to overlook. His own authority so publicly challenged, James was persuaded by the Patinggi’s rivals to depose him. The Patinggi appears to have been unaware of the crisis confronting him until, at an assembly in the court, the Rajah suddenly accused him of mis-government and treason. Molana, Mersal and their followers quickly fetched Abdul Gapur’s cannons, muskets and ammunition into the court. Although the Rajah was urged to condemn the Patinggi to death, in accordance with Malay adat, he refused to do so, ruling, instead, that Abdul Gapur undertake the haj.
Abdul Gapur’s fall permitted a redistribution of resources to his enemies. Abang Patah extended his operations from Talang Talang to include the rich fisheries of Sematan, along the coast from Lundu, but no-one benefited more than Datu Bandar Molana. A decade after the death of his father, Datu Patinggi Ali, Bandar Molana finally achieved the pre-eminence that he considered to be his birth-right. As Spenser St. John’s described it, the “next in rank, the Bandar, now succeeded to the chief influence among the Malays; and his brother, as Datu Imaum, was added to the list of trusty counsellors”.
The so-called “Malay Plot” of 1853-54 was not directed by Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur against the government of Rajah James, as so many historians have suggested. It represented, instead, the culmination of intense rivalry between Abdul Gapur, on the one hand, and the other members of the Kuching Malay elite, led by Datu Bandar Molana, Sherif Moksain, Datu Tumanggong Mersal and his son, Abang Patah, on the other, who carried stories to the Government calculated to destroy the Rajah’s confidence in the Patinggi. Twice during key episodes in the collapse of relations between the Rajah and Abdul Gapur, the Rajah alluded to complaints by the other Malay leaders. At the assembly at which Abdul Gapur was fined for his alleged excesses, the Rajah was angered by his “raising his head high at the expense of… the finer classes”, and in exiling Abdul Gapur from Sarawak, the Rajah accused him of “threatening the better class of Sarawak people”. With his objectivity compromised by his gratitude for Sherif Moksain’s nursing, the Rajah’s relations with Abdul Gapur were damaged by these allegations. But the issue that allowed Molana and his allies finally to persuade the Rajah to act against Abdul Gapur was the latter’s foolish defiance of the Rajah in the appointment of the tua kampung. Yet, although Abdul Gapur had opposed a reform, he had not sought the Government’s overthrow. There was a Malay ‘Plot’ in 1853-54, but Datu Bandar Molana, Sherif Moksain, Datu Tumanggong Mersal and Abang Patah were the plotters, Abdul Gapur the victim.
The plotters would not be secure in their power if Abdul Gapur were to regain the Rajah’s confidence. They urged, therefore, that the Rajah execute him, they opposed the leniency with which the Rajah dispatched him to Mecca, and they welcomed rumours that they heard in 1856 that he had died: “his relatives take it very coolly and the general feeling in the country is satisfaction”, the Rajah reported.
Abdul Gapur had not died in Mecca, however, and on his completion of the haj proposed returning to Sarawak. How the Datus and Sherif Moksain must have panicked. The Supreme Council deliberated for four days about whether he should be allowed back. The Rajah seems to have supported his return. It was the Malay members who repudiated him. Although the Rajah eventually succumbed to the Malays’ determination to continue Abdul Gapur’s exile, he allowed him $300 and a monthly stipend of $30. The pension was conditional on Abdul Gapur’s living at Malacca or Penang, and the Rajah reported that the “Bandar etc as well as all the chief people are highly pleased with the whole arrangement”.
As someone who has come to admire Abdul Gapur for his administrative competence and integrity, I am pleased to report that the pleasure that “the chief people” derived from his exile was short-lived! Prior to the Rajah’s taking over the government of the Bidayuh directly in 1853, most of them had been under the Patinggi’s administration, and he was popular among them. For evidence of the fairness and justice of his administration we have only to look to Spenser St. John’s observation that the Samarahan under the Patinggi was prosperous and well-populated with recent immigrants. So much loved among the Bidayuh was Abdul Gapur that, following the Chinese Revolt of 1857, the Rajah was constrained to recall him to Sarawak, in St. John’s words, “by the wish of the people”. But the Rajah’s other actions suggest that he was himself pleased to invite his old friend to return. He awarded Abdul Gapur a title commensurate with his former seniority, “Datu Haji”, and granted him an allowance from Government revenues of $25 a month. Although Datu Haji, as we must now call him, did not have a formal position in the Government, the Rajah ensured that his dignity was maintained, a strange consideration to have shown to man whom historians believe had plotted James’s death. Since the allowance for the Datu Imam Buassan (Bandar Molana’s brother) was $30 a month, the Rajah also ensured that their relative positions were ambiguous, encouraging Datu Haji’s inevitable ambition that he might recover his former pre-eminence when an opportunity to do so arose, and setting him up as a rival for rank and preferment with Datu Imam Buassan.
Read Part 1 here: https://dayakdaily.com/datu-patinggi-abdul-gapur-the-traitor-who-wasnt-part-1/
In Part 3 of this essay, Dr John will explore the circumstances in which Datu Haji Abdul Gapur was convicted and exiled, again, for a treason that he did not commit.
Dr J. H. Walker is the author of Power and Prowess: The Origins of Brooke Kingship in Sarawak. He has published widely on Sarawak history and Malay political culture.
“Heritage Snippets of Sarawak” is a fortnightly column.
— DayakDaily
