Sulu ‘heirs’ relying on false narative
Published on: Sunday, August 07, 2022
By: Avtar Singh and Shari Jeffri
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Credit: optilingo.com
This was because in January 1876 they had acquired from Joseph William Torrey for a sum of $15,000 the concessionaire rights of the American Trading Company of Borneo to territories in northern Borneo conditional on the successful renewal of the concession from the Sultan of Brunei.
This formation of the partnership was made eight and a half months before any agreements were signed with the Sultanate of Brunei or Sulu.
In December 1877, Colonial Administrator Treacher of Labuan accompanied both Baron Von Overbeck and Alfred Dent to Brunei to acquire all of Sabah (east coast and west coast of Sabah) from Brunei rule.
It was not a decision made in 1876 but months earlier because they had in their minds a business idea that involved either an investment from investors to develop Sabah or to rule it as Brooke had done with Sarawak.
There was never any afterthought of a lease but rather the acquisition of Sabah without external interferences once an agreement had been reached on terms and payments made to acquire the territory from the Sultanate of Brunei in December 1877 and Sultan of Sulu in January 1878.
As such, when the agreements of cession were signed with both Sultanates in December 1877 and subsequently in January 1878, the grants were under the ownership of the Overbeck and Dent Association (ODA).
We state this historical narrative because it is crucial in understanding the true intentions of the Europeans with regards to the agreements of cession of 1877 and 1878.
When we then look at precedence of agreements signed between Sultanates who had overlapping claims of ownership over Sabah, we must look towards the Sultanate of Brunei who signed no less than forty (40) agreements with the ODA, British North Borneo Company and the Britain before and after 1878.
The 1878 grant is not the sole and exclusive documents of the claim on Sabah. Precedents had already taken place whereby the British formally recognized Brunei as the ruler over Sabah and North Borneo.
We can also refer to an agreement signed with the Sultan of Borneo (Brunei Sultanate) on 27th May 1847.
It is clear in the minds of the British that Brunei is the territorial owner of Sabah going back at least two centuries of interaction and trade in Sabah and throughout Borneo.
Historical documents and observations kept over a period of a thousand years of interaction between China and Brunei tell us that Brunei ruled Sabah along the coast and on the islands in Sabah.
Based on Brunei historiography, diplomats from the ancient Ye Po Ti kingdom as well as subsequent kingdoms that evolved from the Ye Po Ti Kingdom that include Po Li, Po Ni, Bru Ni (the old Brunei kingdom) starting from possibly the period of 200-410 AD visited China on many occasions and offered tributes and offers of friendship with the various Chinese emperors.
So, historical precedence with regards to the Brunei sphere of influence over Sabah coastline and islands goes back a whopping 1360 years until the Agreement of Cession is signed in 1877 with Brunei to end its ownership over the territory.
Brunei rule over the Sabah coastline and in the Kinabatangan River on the East Coast are also recognized by the Srivijaya and Majapahit Empires as Brunei becomes a vassal to both empires.
Brunei had a centre of administration as well as a palace in North Borneo and a system of administration which included tax collection along the Sabah coastline at all major rivers unlike the Sulu Sultanate.
Historically, there existed no palaces nor centres of administration in Sabah nor any towns or cities that were built or represented the Sulu Sultanate.
What the Sulu Sultanate did for over 100 years was to bring terror and misery upon the natives of Sabah by working together with Iranun and Balangingi pirates to commit acts of piracy, kidnapping and slave trading of natives of North Borneo which then begs the question; why would any ruler who claimed to rule over a territory kidnap native from his own kingdom to be sold as slaves?
The Sulu Sultanate have now gone to a Court of arbitration, and it seems are now completely ignoring historical precedence as well as any and all agreements signed before 1878 between the British as well as the ODA and the Brunei Sultanate.
Since 1704, the Sulu claim over Sabah was never recognized by the Brunei Sultanate and there was no documentation nor agreement to support such claims of transfer of sovereignty.
Why are they doing this?
We believe this is being done as they do not want historical precedence to be introduced and do not want the correct historical narrative to be shared with a court room or a Court of Arbitration.
We also believe it is an attempt to circumvent previous court rulings against the Sulu Sultanate by jumping from one country to another hoping for a favourable outcome that would force the Malaysian government to the bargaining table to negotiate a sizeable settlement rather than to drag the matter any longer.
What is clear to Overbeck and Dent in 1877 is that the war against the Spanish was not going well for the Sulu Sultanate in any respect and they were on the verge of total defeat.
In September 1877, the Sultan of Sulu wrote to his friend, the Colonial Administrator of Labuan, William Hood Treacher requesting him and the British Crown to intervene and to negotiate a peace with the Spanish on his behalf and to save his Sultanate.
Sulu had lost many battles between 1875 and 1877 and were financially
ruined, had lost most of their men and ships between 1875 and 1877 in battles against the Spanish and were on the brink of total defeat as they could no longer continue to wage war unless there was a change in the situation for them.
The Sultan had in January 1878 the opportunity to decide his fate; to continue the war against the Spanish or to escape to a “safe haven” with his family and to be paid $5000 per annum for life by the ODA.
The historical narrative we are putting forward suggests that the Sultan could have signed the agreement of cession as a prelude to escape in the event of defeat and this narrative should not be dismissed outright without due consideration.
This narrative that an “escape to a safe haven” is further supported in the agreement where it is stated “…if we, his Highness the Sultan Muhammad Jamaluladzam and our heirs and successors should meet with any trouble hereafter, Gustavus De Overbeck and his company promise to assist in giving us counsel and advice to the utmost of their power.”
What this paragraph in the Agreement of Cession suggests is that ‘if’ the ODA were to suggest to the Sultan to escape to Sabah in the event of defeat of the Sultanate and to avoid capture, they would and could offer “counsel and advice” to do just that and so this possibility should not be discounted.
This may explain why the sultan was agreeable to signing the agreement of cession so willingly at the time.
However, in the end, the sultan decided to continue the war against the Spanish and thus also received two shiploads of guns and ammunition as part of the deal to cede Sabah to the ODA.
The critical issue everyone is therefore asking: lease or cessation?
If indeed this was a ‘lease’ agreement as the Sulu claim it is, why does the agreement favour the ODA and not the Sultan in such a one-sided manner?
The agreement is forever. The agreement is non-negotiable. The yearly payments are fixed at $5000 per year forever. There are no penalties for late payment. There are no avenues for exiting such an agreement if there was a failure on the part of the ODA to fulfil their yearly obligations.
It was an agreement that only favoured the ODA and never the Sultan, if indeed it was a lease agreement.
We believe the rationale behind the terms and conditions of such an agreement was that it was indeed a disposal of a property that was not belong by him at the first place and that it is what it is: an agreement of cession over territories in Sabah claimed by the Sulu Sultan.
The ODA, we believe, were of the opinion at the time that it was important to ensure the security of the east coast of Sabah in particular by securing the favour and goodwill of the Sultan of Sulu and to ensure there would be no further acts of piracy in Sabah moving forward.
The ODA did not need to sign any agreement of cession with the Sultan of Sulu but did so to ensure peace and harmony once they had started to bring investors into Sabah and to begin developing the territory.
This is the correct Sabah historical narrative that we believe was in the minds of the ODA when they travelled to Jolo Island to meet with the Sultan in January 1878.
So why was there no upfront payment made in full by the ODA upon signing of the agreement of 1878?
We believe this may have been due to the fact the ODA needed investors to participate in the venture to develop Sabah for commercial purposes and they did not want unnecessary threats once investors had been found and development and investment had been made in Sabah by the ODA and its investors.
Safety and stability was crucial on the east coast against acts of piracy, kidnapping and loss of goods due to pirates under the Sulu Sultanate.
So how and when did the historical narrative change from cession to lease in the minds of the Sulu Sultanate?
The “false” Sulu and Philippine historical narrative begins in 1704 claim over Sabah with no documents proof of any concession treaty from the Sultan of Brunei to the Sultan of Sulu. Brunei denies the cession occurred until today.
Then continues under the rule of Sultan Jamalul Kiram II when he changed the narrative from ‘cession’ to ‘lease’ and claimed his father never “sold’ Sabah to Overbeck and Dent but merely leased it to them.
The Sulu Sultanate have consistently shown they did not respect treaties and agreements signed in the past and continued to ignore the significance of these legal documents and have created their own historical narratives with regards to ‘lease’ over ‘cessation.’
This false historical narrative can be attributed to the Sulu Sultanate’s unwillingness to honour and respect treaties signed with the Spanish going back to the 1600s.
Peace treaties were signed no less than seven (7) times after the Sulu were defeated in many battles with the Spanish but in every instance, they (the Sulu) ignored the peace treaties after the Spanish had departed and went back to doing what they did best: raiding native villages in Sabah and the Philippines and kidnapping civilians to be sold as slaves as well as raiding trading ships for profit.
Examples of this would be treaties of the capitulation in 1640, 1725, 1737, 1742, 1744, 1836 and 1851.
Jamalul Kiram II, the last true descendent of the Sulu Sultanate who died in 1936 lived a life of luxury with many wives and acquired property in Singapore.
He also had a consistent habit of overspending and had to keep asking for cession payments to be paid in advance to maintain his expensive lifestyle.
When the North Borneo Chartered Company refused, the Sultan would then resort to taking loans from various businessmen in Sandakan to meet his expensive lifestyle and overspending habits as a “poor” Sultan.
But what we do know is that when Sultan Jamalul Kiram II died, the next person who ascended to the throne was not a direct descendent of the Kiram family but the husband to a niece of the deceased Sultan.
And so, began the dubious claims by many pretenders to the throne of the Sulu Sultanate.
- Shari Jeffri is a Senior Banker by occupation with over 30 years working experience and a consummate freelance researcher of Sabah (or North Borneo as it was known before) history and owned a private library and digital repository of North Borneo historical documents who writes regularly under the pen name Kumis Kumis in social media. He has also been invited on several occasions to public forums to give his insights on topics related to Sabah History before and after Sabah's modern history of the year 1881. - Avtar is a blogger.
- The views expressed here are the views of the writer Avtar Singh and Shari Jeffri, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Express.
- If you have something to share, write to us at: [email protected]
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