Profit seeking companies have a pretty poor track record running colonies. See here https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/07/imperial-british-east-africa-company-1890-another-company-fails-to-administer-a-colony/ or here https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/28/mozambique-company-1937-taking-credit-where-none-was-due/ . This one is a little different as the descendants of a white adventurer were ruling Malayans after being given the land by the Sultan of Brunei. Until it was time to write a big check and the White Rajah instead puts in a call to the colonial office. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp is from after the bailout but before the area passed to independent Malaysia. These type stamps often show the local industry and this issue does show local basket weavers. No oil industry stamp though, instead exotic animals and plants. Britain had been accused of colonizing Sarawak post war to get their hands on the oil resources. So no stamp of the industry to make the locals point.
Todays stamp is issue A23, a two cent stamp issued by the British Crown Colony of Sarawak in 1955. It was part of a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents.
Charles Viner Brooke was the last in the line of 3 Brookes that had been white rulers of Sarawak. During their time the area was not a British colony. The people of Sarawak were Malayan. Brooke had taken over in 1917. Over time the area became more prosperous as oil was discovered. Brooke had followed the common British practice in colonial areas in turning over much of the interactions with locals to a council of tribesman. Brooke agreed to their request of banning Christian missionaries and in turn the tribesman had banned the local practice of cannibalism. In 1941, a new constitution was passed for Sarawak that would gradually shift more power to locals while leaving the Brookes in ceremonially as the Rajah. In return for signing off on this, the Sarawak treasury paid Brooke $200,000 that funded his exile in Sydney. The Japanese then invaded and the new constitution was not implemented. The Japanese held on to Sarawak till the end of the war and left most of the oil fields in wreckage.
Brooke returned to Sarawak in 1945 and was received in a friendly manner. He then informed the locals that he did not have the money needed to get the oil fields back into production and he contacted the British regarding a loan to Sarawak. The only way a British loan was possible was if Britain was named the colonial administrator. As part of the deal, Brooke would personally receive 1 million pounds, over 30 million dollars today. Many local tribesmen viewed this as a sellout as it would mean again that their constitution would not be implemented. They pointed out that Britain had done nothing to defend Sarawak from the Japanese. Neither or course had the tribesmen and how else could Britain guarantee repayment of the loan. It is worth pointing out that it was the British that had discovered the oil in Sarawak and neighboring Brunei and done the work of bringing it to market. It would not be them however to get rich from it. Britain readily passed Sarawak and it’s oil on to independent Malaysia.
The Brooke family was also not happy with the decision to turn the area over to the British ending the white Rajah. Anthony Brooke, the nephew and heir, actively opposed the turnover and was banned by the British from the now colony. Even Charles’s wife Sylvia opposed the turnover. She had ambitions that her daughter Lenora would be able to put Islamic law and rules of succession aside and become the next white Rajah. After Charles died, Sylvia wrote a book about her time as Queen Consort title “Sylvia of Sarawak, Queen of the Headhunters”.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Sylvia. She looks to be an expensive woman to keep happy, it is no wonder Charles felt the need to sell out Sarawak. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.