Brooke Raj

Brooke Raj, (1841–1946), dynasty of British rajas that ruled Sarawak (now a state in Malaysia) on the island of Borneo for a century.

Sir James Brooke (b. April 29, 1803, Secrore, near Benares, India—d. June 11, 1868, Burrator, Devon, Eng.), first visited the Eastern Archipelago on an unsuccessful trading trip in 1834, after an early career that included military service with the British East India Company and participation in the first Anglo-Burmese war (1825). Intent on furthering European settlement in the East, he purchased and fitted out an armed schooner with the fortune left to him by his father, and sailed again for the Indies in 1838. At Singapore (founded 20 years earlier by Sir Stamford Raffles), Brooke learned that Pengiran Muda Hassim, chief minister of the sultanate of Brunei, was engaged in war with several rebel Iban (Sea Dayak) tribes in neighbouring Sarawak, nominally under Brunei control. The rebellion was crushed with Brooke’s aid, and as a reward for his services the title of raja of Sarawak was conferred upon him in 1841, confirmed in perpetuity by the sultan of Brunei in 1846. For the next 17 years Brooke and a handful of English assistants made expeditions into the interior of Sarawak, partially suppressed the prevalence of headhunting, and established a secure government. He was knighted in 1848. Returning to England in 1863, he left the government of Sarawak in the hands of a nephew, who, on the death of Sir James in 1868, succeeded him.

Sir Charles Anthony Johnson Brooke (b. June 3, 1829, Berrow, Somerset, Eng.—d. May 17, 1917, Cirencester, Gloucestershire), who adopted the surname Brooke, became the second raja. The government of Charles Brooke has been described as a benevolent autocracy. Charles himself had spent much of his life among the Iban people of Sarawak, knew their language, and respected their beliefs and customs. He made extensive use of down-river Malay chiefs as administrators, and encouraged selective immigration of Chinese agriculturalists, while the dominant indigenous group, the Ibans, were employed in military service. In general, social and economic changes were limited in impact, shielding the inhabitants from both the benefits and the hardships of Western-style development. He was knighted in 1888. The second raja was succeeded upon his death by his eldest son, Charles.

Sir Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke (b. Sept. 26, 1874, London—d. May 9, 1963, London) was the third and last “white raja” (1917–46). He joined the Sarawak administration in 1897. After World War I, a boom in rubber and oil drew Sarawak further into the world economy, and for that and other reasons the state embarked on gradual modernization of its institutions. Public services were developed, a Sarawak penal code modelled on that of British India was introduced in 1924, and there was some extension of educational opportunity. Brooke was knighted in 1927. In September 1941, on the centenary of Brooke rule, the third raja proclaimed a constitution designed to establish self-government for Sarawak, but shortly afterward the state fell to the Japanese. When World War II was over, Vyner Brooke decided that Sarawak should be ceded to Great Britain, and, after a bitter family feud, he formally terminated Brooke rule on July 1, 1946.