WEBVTT - Part Two: The Family That Stole Malaysia 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:11.039 M what's colonizing my sop? Help me out here? How 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:15.360 do I introduce the podcast? I'm Robert Evans and this 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.040 is Behind the Bastards, podcast about the worst people from 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.079 history and today. And my guest is that doesn't sound 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.880 like me. No one's gonna buy that. Sophie, we gotta okay, okay? 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.600 Can I try? Can I try to get okay? Ready? Hitler? 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.800 I'm Robert Evans. See you know, Sophie, you gotta admit 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.600 there's there's it's it's there's there's something. You know. There's 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.240 a power in just screaming the name Hitler to introduce 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.640 the podcast. There's a reason why I've done it so 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.640 many times. It gets attention. It gets attention, It gets attention. 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:48.800 People pay attention when you just shout the name Hitler 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.040 into their ears as they're driving to work in the morning. 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.200 This is of course Behind the Bastards. Bad people talk 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.920 about him. Uh. Sometimes we introduced it by shouting Hitler, 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.920 but this time we introduced it with a meandering discussion 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.240 about how bad I am at introducing the show. My 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.960 guest again, it's Dr Kvehda of the House of Pod podcast, 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.000 which deals with a whole bunch of cool medical stuff 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.200 are our friend of the pod. Garrison Davis was on 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.919 it recently to talk about gun violence. Right That's Rights. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.520 Had him on with a gun. We had him on 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.600 to ask questions of a gun violence researcher named Dr 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:32.080 Amy barn Horse. That was a really fun episode. Good good, Yeah. 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:39.280 I mean, I'm actually holding a bullet. Speak it's just 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:46.160 one of my desk bullets, the dust bullets. Sophie's holding 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.040 up blood orange cake. You know. I just got a 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.080 crate of two and fifty tracer rounds of three oh eight, 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:54.960 which is fun because you can light things on fire 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.040 with them. So I'm excited to find some things to 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.480 light on fire when I when I got shooting next. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.320 Sometimes if you hit a tree stump because of all 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.560 the sap and there, it'll light the whole stump on fire. 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:07.960 It's a hoot. Oh, that's a hoot. As long as 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:09.760 it's wet enough outside. You don't want to do it 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:11.679 during the dry summer day. So we're in the last 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:13.320 couple of months where I can light a stump on 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.800 fire and not burn down the forest. There's gonna be 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.000 like doctors who are gonna you know, who follow our show, 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:20.359 who are going to be listening to this for the 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.639 first time and they're just gonna be like, wait, wait, 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.519 hold on, what's going on? What's going on? He talked 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:29.080 about Hitler in guns and what what has happened to 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:33.960 Cave And that's okay, I'm okay, it's okay. Speaking of 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.840 what's happened to what's about to happen to Cave is 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:39.720 that he's about to hear about what happens next to 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:44.440 James Brooke literally left off had just kind of at 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.840 gunpoint made himself into the governor of a sizeable chunk 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.720 of Brunei or Malaysia, whatever you want to call it. Borneo. 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.640 Um so he has. He has gotten himself declared governor 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.839 at gunpoint, which is the way to do it. You know, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.880 I've I've considered that for a while. I would like 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:02.639 to be a governor. I think I'd be a good one, 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.560 Gonna open up whatever state I'm in or lock it down, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.480 depending on wherever it is. I'll do the opposite of 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:14.000 whatever they were doing before. It's a safe bet for governors. Change. Change. 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.280 That's what people want, is change, whether or not it's 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.680 good change or reasonable change or change. People have asked 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:26.480 for just change things. Yes, Sophie, that doesn't sound like 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.720 something I do anyway. Uh So, yeah, James had threatened 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.560 himself into being a governor. Uh and this this obviously 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.480 the actual leaders in in Brunei at the time, like 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.880 the different royal people. Uh, most of them were not 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.680 super happy with it. So the Sultan of Brunei doesn't 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:44.560 like that he's been forced at gunpoint to make this 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.200 guy a governor. Now, there is a chunk of royals, 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.880 as there are kind of anywhere there's British imperialism, there's 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.920 a chunk of the ruling class that likes what's happening, right, 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.680 And in James's case, it's Prince Badrudine, the guy that 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.760 he's got the hots for, and Russia hashim Um, and 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.440 both of these guys kind of warded him because even 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.960 though he was super problematic and kind of disrespectful, he 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.960 also had a bunch of modern canons and they were 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.520 more worried about their local rivals than they were about 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.200 this British guy who they assumed was going to leave eventually. 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.320 They were like, we'll put up with this guy. I mean, Badine, 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.520 I think really loved him, but Raja Hashim is more like, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.240 we'll put up with this guy and he'll use his 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.600 cannons to help us against our rivals, and that'll be 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.320 a good deal for us. And for a while this 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.640 worked pretty well. Um, But the whole time James was 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.720 kind of solidifying his hold on Sarawak. His rivals, who 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:34.800 included Prince Makota and one of the sons of the 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.640 Sultan and brune I, were working behind the scenes to 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.720 take back their land from this usurper. And obviously it's 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.440 worth noting that none of the people fighting over sarah 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.960 Wak had a good moral claim to the land right. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.880 The Sultan and Brunei and his kin are all bad people. 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.680 They let raiders bribe them to rob and murder their citizens. James, meanwhile, 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:55.880 wanted to rule sarah Walk for the sake of his 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.160 ego and to live out his boyhood dreams of Eastern adventure. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.320 Nobody's nobody in charges, As is generally the case in history, 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.800 nobody in charges is a good person or particularly righteous. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.720 This is often how colonial dramas would play out. You've 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.839 got a shitty local leader, You've got differently shitty foreign 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.200 imperialist interlopers, and you've got a bunch of normal people 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.080 caught in the middle. That's kind of the story of 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.719 imperialism and part of why it. Part of why imperialists 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.279 get traction in places is because a decent number of 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.000 locals are always willing to sign on with the imperialist 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.159 because like, well, but our current leaders sucked too, you know, 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.840 like that's the thing that happens a lot, which is great. 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.800 Uh So, James had a decent amount of support among 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.279 some folks in the area. A lot of Malay and 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.640 Dyak people who rebelled against the Sultan liked him because 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.119 even if he had won the war against them, he'd 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.760 spared their lives and he'd done it against the wishes 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.520 of some of the local powers. Meanwhile, a number of 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.840 folks in the interior liked him because he'd gotten the 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.640 Rash to call off that big Dyak raid. So the 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.080 point is he had a bunch of local support. He 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.200 was not like, it was not just him imposing his 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:00.800 will on the local people for guns. Because of things 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.120 he did. A decent number of people who lived in 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.800 sarah Wak and didn't like the leaders in Brunei supported him. 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.280 And honestly, if you were living in sarah Walk at 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.159 the time. Given the options, especially if you're one of 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.520 the people who was about to get rated by these diets, 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.279 you might have supported James Brooke too, right, because it's 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.200 just like the Sultans ship too, you know. And and 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:22.920 these people aren't dumb. They get a sense of this guy, 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.960 and clearly everything he's done up to this point would 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.680 lead you to believe that he's probably gonna get tired 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:30.320 at some point and go back to England and leave 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.400 them alone. You would think that's what's going to happen. 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.800 I think that would be a reasonable assumption. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.239 I think that's kind of what's happening. They're like, everything 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:38.960 he's done isn't shitty. He's helped us out in a 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.360 couple of things we don't like about our leaders. He's 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.080 a white dude. He's not going to stay here forever. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:44.800 He's a rich white boy. He's gonna go home at 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.240 some point. Let's use him while he's here, you know. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.919 I think that's the bet a lot of people make now. 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.480 At the point in which he became kind of total 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.119 ruler of his own little country, James Brooke was thirty 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.200 eight years old. He started using the title Raja, which 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:01.800 was not strictly legal because he was not royal in 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:03.640 any way, shape or form. He had been made a 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.719 governor um. But he starts calling himself the Rajah. The 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.640 locals called him twine Bassar, which means big lord, which 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.160 is kind of a rad nickname. Again, and he started 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.720 off his reign pretty well by releasing a bunch of 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.120 hostages who had been taken during the civil war, so 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.040 again kind of ingratiating himself with the local people. Not 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.160 a bad move. Um. Now he'd come to power by 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.560 defending the cooching Malaise, who were the folks in the 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.239 interior that were about to get rated from their rulers 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.800 in Brunei. But his territory had an equal population of Dyaks, 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:35.960 and they were not as friendly to him on the 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.400 whole because he had stopped some of them from raiding 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.120 these cootching Malaise. So James knew that if he was 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.560 going to hold on power, he already had the cootching 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.040 people like kind of on his back. He needed to 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.480 win over these Dyaks to his side, and in order 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:50.000 to do that, he took a leaf out of the 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.360 British Empire's playbook. As he later wrote, quote divide and 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.560 govern is the motto, I must govern each by the other. 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:00.080 So do you understand what that means? This again what 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.600 the British Empire does in in we talked about in 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.800 the in the idi Amine episode, and there were certain 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.440 tribal groups that they would support an arm to control 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.200 other tribal groups. Right, that's the same thing the Belgians do. Yeah, 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.400 he's he's learning. That's what he figures out he's going 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.000 to do. So his first step was to demolish an 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.600 old system set up by both Bruneyan and Malay aristocrats 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.000 called the Sarah. This gave those nobles the right to 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.240 legally take any diac property they happened to. Like if 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:30.600 they saw a diet boat they fancied, they could cut 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:32.720 a gouge in the top and that was a legally 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.000 binding signal that the boat was now their property. Nobles 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.439 were also given the right to set prices for produce 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.200 that they bought from peasant farmers and gatherers. So like 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:43.160 you gather a bunch of food, or farmer a bunch 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.160 of food, and the rich people get to decide what 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:47.520 they pay you for it, which is not a great 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.240 deal for the actual people making the food, you know. 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.559 Um So, if these little people didn't produce sufficient quantities 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.319 of food stuff, their children and spouses could be sold 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:00.600 into slavery. So the Surah is an unpopular their system 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.559 among the Dyaks, and James Brooke abolishes it as soon 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.120 as he comes to power. Again, not a bad call 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.439 so far. He's pretty much to two in my book, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.080 you know. Um So, he also decided early on not 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.720 to mess with a local religion. I should clarify. He 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.320 decided not to mess with the religious beliefs of the 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.600 local Malays who were Muslim. So he sees that like 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.640 a lot of the population are Muslim, in kind of 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.920 an uncommon move for a British imperial ruler in this period. 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.760 He decides, I'm not going to let like missionaries come 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.040 in and funk with the Muslims because I think people 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.000 have the right to their own religion and that's great. However, 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.839 the di Acts were animists, right, so they have kind 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.360 of a more not it's they were. They have a religion, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.640 but it's not a Judeo Christian religion, and thus it's 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:51.120 not a religion that James Brooke recognizes as a religion. Um, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.760 and so he is willing to let evangelists go kind 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.360 of proselytize to them because he doesn't think they have 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:03.440 a religion, because he doesn't understand exactly he's been to 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:07.080 Islam because all the time the Indian subcontinent, So it's 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:08.960 not foreign to him. This whatever I mean, I don't 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:13.560 know what they were following. Yeah, totally foreign to him. Yeah, 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.160 he doesn't know what it is, and so he thinks 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.200 they have no religion. His biographer writes that he considered 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.640 the Diets to be quote children of nature without true religion, 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.240 since their most cherished beliefs were dismissed in the eyes 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:30.959 of civilization as mere childlike superstition. So again, not your 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.280 worst case for an imperialist overlord because he respects some 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:39.840 of the local beliefs under gentler imperialist slightly yeah to 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.280 some people, I guess now. In all, Brooke championed what 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.200 he considered to be a hands off approach to rulership. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:49.400 He didn't want to engage in the kind of full 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.800 scale colonialism that he had seen in India. Instead, he 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.040 only wanted to bring in a few Europeans, and he 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.800 saw himself as assisting the native leaders, giving them the 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.080 benefit of his big European brain, rather than taking over. 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.520 He felt that this tactic had quote never been fairly tried, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.920 and it appears to me in some respects more desirable 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.200 than the actual possession of a foreign nation. For if successful, 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.200 the native prince finds greater advantages, and if a failure, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.480 the European government is not committed. Above all, it ensures 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.800 the independence of the native princes and may advance the 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.040 inhabitants further in the scale of civilization by means of 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.319 the very independence that can be done when a government 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.480 is a foreign one and their natural freedom sacrificed. So 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:33.560 that's his attitude here. I'm struck well, he writes, and 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.679 this is kind of some like US and Vietnam style thinking, 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.480 where it's like, we can't invade this country to declare war, 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.000 but we can send in advisors and that way if 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.600 we if it goes badly, we're not committed, which didn't 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.200 work in Vietnam and spoilers great here. But like that's 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.720 the that's the thought process that he has. So critics 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.280 will point out that Brooke was regularly heavy handed in 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.240 his leadership, although he wouldn't admit to this personally. His 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.559 years in power included numerous rebellions and brutal crackdowns on 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.840 insurgent campaigns. They will also note that his enlightened colonialism 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.120 may have been preferable to him because it was cheaper. 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.280 James Brooke definitely had dreams of exploiting the mineral wealth 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.760 of sarah Walk, but he never ever gained any kind 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.640 of competence at trade or business. The land he conquered 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:17.560 was also not rich in the kind of gyms and 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.880 precious metals he wanted. He just did send back one 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.760 stone that his laborers found, which he called the Brook Diamond. 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:25.600 He sent this to like England to try to drum 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.520 up like enthusiasm for his reign, but when it was 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.560 appraised in London, it was found to be a worthless opal. Now, yeah, 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:34.640 the Brook Diamond. I wonder what if that's why I 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.640 thought the name Brooke was related to diamonds. I wonder 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:38.680 if I'd ever heard that before. I don't know. I 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.520 don't know. They may have a cookie company, yes, but 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.400 not so much of the diamonds. Not so much of 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.360 the diamonds. So the irony is that the land he'd 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.600 stumbled into controlling held a tremendous amount of crude oil. 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.320 That's why the Sultan of Brunei today as a billionaire. Right, Like, 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.880 there's actually it's very very valuable land to control, but 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.160 at the time crude oil was kind of useless. There 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.680 were plenty of valuable commodities though with in sarah Wak, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:04.880 but through financial incompetence, James Brooke repeatedly failed to capitalize 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.319 on them. When he took power in like he kind 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.880 of estimated the revenue of his country at about five 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.960 thousand pounds per year um and although even this sum 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.720 was inflated, but as time went on, Like he would 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:18.760 never make a profit out of this. He would eventually 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.080 go broke running sarah Wak um because he just like 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.400 had no head for actual business. It would not be 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.720 fair to say that his motive in sarah Wak was pure, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.600 pure venal profit seeking, but neither was he particularly pure hearted. 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.839 For James, ruling was about stature. He didn't want to 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.120 get rich off of the wealth of sarah Wak. He 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:40.000 wanted to be a big man who had to be 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.520 respected because he was the governor of like he was 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.720 the king basically of an entire country. Right to that end, 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.679 he started sending home excerpts from his diary and inflated 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.640 stories about the rebellion and his campaign's fighting pirates in 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.959 the area. These started to pick up a leadership, in 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:55.760 part because he had an agent back and like he 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.160 has like a like a press agent who he sends 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.440 back his diaries to and who pumped him up in 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.120 the imagination of the local people in England. We'll just 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.320 not done. He started to pick up a readership. But 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.560 James was incensed because, like, while his stories were popular, 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.800 the Queen didn't automatically knight him, and he wrote back 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.720 to the British government, who still had not acknowledged his reign, 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:19.040 asking for an eight barrel. So he gets frustrated, like 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.320 he does all the time, this like work to puff 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.560 himself up, and the British Government's like, I don't think 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.760 we should recognize this guy. This seems like this might 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:27.840 go bad, Like let's let's just let's just kind of 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.760 keep quiet for now. Um. This makes him angry and 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:32.560 he writes back to Britain being like, you guys have 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.320 to support me. I'm doing the right thing in this country. 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.720 I'm trying to civilize them. And by the way, would 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.040 you send me an eight barreled cannon, because I I 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:42.720 think I'm gonna have to kill more of these people 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.840 to civilize them properly, so I need a beggar gun. 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.640 He's sad he's not immediately knighted, so he's like, can't 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.760 have a cannon? And I have a cannon. Yeah, an 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.960 eight barreled cannon. I mean that makes sense. One barrel 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:03.000 is not enough to clip Clinton mother. So James's letters 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.480 home this period evince a distinct sense of insecurity. After 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.240 taking power, he took actions against pirates, often with the 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:11.880 late aid of a local British naval captain and his ship, 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.600 but the lack of formal recognition of his own government 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.360 rankled alongside the fact that his status as governor had 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.040 only been confirmed by the words of the Rajah. There 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.400 was nothing written by the Sultan of Brunei that made 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.240 his position clear. As the new, unchecked ruler of sarah Wak, 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.240 James inherited a number of things, most notably a five 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.120 year old Diak boy named Stu. This kid was a 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.240 prisoner of the war that he had just fought, and 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.880 in his writings, James's care for Settu comes across as 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:41.360 genuine and frankly somewhat heroic. He wrote, quote, the gift 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.680 causes me vexation because I know not what to do 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.000 with the poor innocent, and yet I shrink from the 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.040 responsibility of adopting him. My first wish is to return 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.120 him to his parents and his tribe, and I find 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.000 I cannot do that, and if I fight, I cannot 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:54.800 do this. I believe it will be better to carry 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:56.720 him with me than leave him to become a slave 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.160 of a slave, for should I send him back, such 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.320 will probably be his fate. So for a time he 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.440 keeps this five year old boy. Uh. And James later 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.760 wrote that he was able to make Situ content and 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.440 happy um by giving him a bunch of tobacco. So 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:16.360 that's like his to give him cigarettes. Kids love cigarettes. 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.480 This will make him happy. Um. Now, Brooke did write 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:23.960 regularly about wanting to find and return this boy to 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.360 his parents, but as Nigel Barley writes, it's not easy 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.400 to tell how honest he was about wanting this quote. 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.560 His relations with Stu are cast in exactly the same 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.360 terms of chest beating morality as his relations with the 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.040 whole of poor suffering sarah Wak. He will take in 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.880 the devastated orphan province, protect it, train it up, give 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:43.640 it the means to earn a living, if only as 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.479 a servant, and give it back at self respect, regardless 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.920 of the cost to himself. Above all, he will give 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.560 it love, And the greatest of these is love. No 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.040 wonder then that it becomes a matter of deep concern 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.160 whether Settu and other boys were, as claimed objects of 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.840 selfless love or active lust. To James Brooke, to debauch 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.360 Situ would be to metaphorically debauch innocent sarah Wak. In general, 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:06.600 he would no longer be the founder and protector of 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.360 a model state, but the abuser of innocent trust Sarawak. Indeed, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:12.520 is like a foundling at which you first protect with 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.920 hesitation and doubt, but which foundling afterwards repays you your 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.119 cost and your trouble. We will never know whether, as Rasha, 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.200 James boyled daily and the clammy sheets of unrequited lust, 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:26.199 engaged in a little vague scout masterly fumbling, sublimate a 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.280 desire under a stiff rictus of a buncular benevolence, or 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.919 reached a sensible standing arrangement with wondering more of his 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.080 young men. So again, we don't know if he was 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:39.080 sexually abusing this young child or if he was just 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.439 like because of kind of the way things are written, 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.240 it's possible that he was. He was possible that he 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.040 was like engaged in perfectly consensual sexual relationships with other 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.760 adult men and men that were considered adult at the time. 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.040 It's also possible he's abusing this kid. And we don't 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:58.320 really know which is going on, but Nigel Barley considers 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.640 the idea that he may have been male sting this child. 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.320 It's kind of symbolic of his relationship with Sarah Wak 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:08.600 in general. So he's both portraying himself as honestly and 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.760 kind of heroically taking this this boy and this province 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:13.680 under his wing, trying to help it, trying to raise 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.000 it up, and the possible reality lurking under the surfaces 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.240 that he's abusing both of them like that that might 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:21.960 be what's happening. It's definitely what's happening with Sarah walk 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:23.360 We don't know if it's what's happening with the boy 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:25.000 or not, but it's kind of hard I get why 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.959 Barley kind of draws a comparison between the two. Yeah, 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.280 that's tough. I mean, actually, this guy in general is 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.840 not the most bastardly bastard you've covered. It's not so 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:37.960 I kind of want to give him the benefit of 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.760 the doubt. But I don't feel like that's the smart 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.680 play I feel. I don't think it is something very bad, 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:46.480 and it may not have been with Situ. It may 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.440 have been that his sexual relationships were all with people. 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.720 We would call it pedophilia still, but fifteen year olds 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:55.800 are kind of legally adults at this point, right, which 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.040 I'm not saying makes it right, But if they like 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.640 it's they're like lieutenants the military and stuff. That might 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.159 be what he can find. We don't really know. Or 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.120 he may have been molesting this five year old boy. 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.159 We don't know. I do like the phrase vague scout, 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:19.040 masterly fumboy. Yeah. So, as ruler, James took responsibility for 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.679 enforcing the law on himself. He had a house constructed 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.000 to his own specifications, and he used it as both 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.320 his home and the only law court in sarah Wak. 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.199 His subjects would attend mainly to gamble on the results 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.119 of the proceedings. A fact James seemed largely unaware of. 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.000 So like he starts he becomes like I am the law, 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.960 I'll rule on all cases, and like an industry, starts 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.480 up gambling on how he's going to decide. Is it 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.000 because he's just so haphazard that like, yeah, because I 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.359 imagine if he really was a good ruler, there wouldn't 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.640 be much, you know, much don't much gambling in there. 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.520 If if he was a good ruler, there might be 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:57.880 actual professional judges. James also attempted to broke your peace 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.000 with the local pirates. To this end, he held us 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.320 summit with several of their leaders. He seems to have 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.920 fallen in love with them, describing one pirate chief as 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.120 as fine a young man as the eye would really 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.920