The First Two Sultans of Pontianak - article ; n°1 ; vol.56, pg 273-294

Mary Somersheidhues

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Archipel - Année 1998 - Volume 56 - Numéro 1 - Pages 273-294
22 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: ARCHIPEL0
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1998
• Nombre de lectures: 740
• Langue: English
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Mary Somers Heidhues
The First Two Sultans of Pontianak
In: Archipel. Volume 56, 1998. pp. 273-294.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Somers Heidhues Mary. The First Two Sultans of Pontianak. In: Archipel. Volume 56, 1998. pp. 273-294.
doi : 10.3406/arch.1998.3491
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/arch_0044-8613_1998_num_56_1_3491Somers HEIDHUES Mary
The First Two Sultans of Pontianak
Borneo's West Coast in the 18th Century
In the 18th century, the West Coast of Borneo (Kalimantan) was home to
a number of small coastal and riverine trading polities, most of them in
Muslim Malay hands. The most important of these was Sukadana [Map 1],
which stood in a loose tributary relationship to Banten and controlled much
of the Kapuas River trade. This river, over 1000 km long, drains an immense
territory inhabited mostly by non-Muslim peoples usually called "Dayak."
Its external trade usually followed a southern outlet to the sea, not far from
Sukadana, partly to be safer from coastal pirates. Landak, some distance
inland on the river of that name, controlled West Borneo's only source of
diamonds. Like Sukadana, Landak was a tributary of Banten.
Another riverine kingdom was Sanggau, far inland on the Kapuas ; at the
time, the Kapuas was sometimes called the Sanggau River. (!) Sanggau had
deposits of good-quality gold, West Borneo's second most valuable product.
Near the coast in the north, Sambas was the most important state ; it was a
former tributary of Brunei. Finally, Mempawah, also a coastal state, just
north of the Kapuas outlet, was something of a newcomer. A Bugis
adventurer, Daeng Menambun, one of the five Bugis brothers whose story is
and 1. J. Records, Bum, Manuscript European on Manuscripts Pontianak. Eur Papers E 109. relating "Mr. Burn's to Pontianak. account British of Pontianak, Library, 12 India February Office 1811 Library and
12 March 1811," pp. 14-15, says Sanggau is 230-250 miles (about 400 kilometres) from Pontianak,
judging by the travel time along the river that the Malays reported.
Archipel 56, Paris, 1998, pp. 273-294 274 Mary Somers Heidhues
MEM
Map 1. Malay principalities in West Borneo (in capitals), with principal rivers
Archipel 56, Paris, 1998 The First Two Sultans of Pontianak 275
told by the Tuhfat al-Nafis, married into its ruling family in the early 18th
century. (2) Another brother of this famous quintet, Daeng Pamase, found a
home in Sambas, also marrying into the royal house. The arrival of the Bugis
widened the relationships of the West Coast to include, beside Java, Brunei,
and Banjarmasin, the Bugis networks in Sulawesi, Riau, the Malayan
Peninsula, and elsewhere.
Bugis polities followed the pattern of other, Malay, principalities. These
early states lived for the most part from their domination of trade. Branson's
model of Malay port kingdoms holds for Kalimantan as well ; these ports
controlled the traffic of a rivershed and exercised authority over the
upstream or hulu peoples. (3) Unlike the ports of Sumatra, which also lived
from entrepôt trade (in Bronson's model), the Bornean principalities
depended almost entirely on exchange with the interior. The inland people
collected forest products or raised agricultural goods, marketing them
through the port. In exchange they acquired imported articles : cloth, iron,
tobacco, salt, and the much sought-after large Chinese earthenware jars,
called tempayan, from the ruler who controlled the port. Apart from gold
dust and diamonds, rattan, beeswax, and sago were important export
products in the 18th century, mostly for the Asian market. Naturally, the
rulers manipulated trade for their own profit, but the relationship was
essential to the existence of all participants, whether upstream or
downstream. An embargo from either side could seriously affect the other. (4)
The ruler, members of his family, and his retainers also held appanage
rights over the inland peoples. An appanage-holder could require his people
to pay certain taxes in kind, to provide corvée labor, and to deliver fighting
men and bearers in wartime.
One principality might gain hegemony over its neighbors, but such a
"system" was highly insecure, for neighbors might use force to escape
demands. In addition, the upstream-downstream relationship was unstable :
the hulu people might conspire to trade with another port by traveling
overland. They pick up and move away altogether. Instability
2. Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift (Tuhfat al-Nafis). Virginia Matheson and Barbara Watson Andaya,
trans. Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1982. For a comprehensive, edited edition of the Hikayat
Upu Daeng Menambun, see Fritz Schulze, Die Chroniken von Sambas und Mempawah : einheimische
Quellen zur Geschichte West-Kalimantans. Heidelberg, Groos, 1991.
3. Bennet Bronson, "Exchange at the Upstream and Downstream Ends : Notes toward a Functional
Model of the Coastal State in Southeast Asia, " in Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in
Southeast Asia. Karl L. Hutterer, ed. Ann Arbor, Michigan Papers on Southeast Asia, 1977, pp. 39-52.
4. Cf. Burn, p. 17, who points out that if there was a dispute with Pontianak, Sanggau could use a trade
embargo to force Pontianak to give in. This device worked in both directions.
Archipel 56, Paris, 1998 276 Mary Somers Heidhues
increased in West Borneo toward the end of the 18th century when Chinese
gold miners, brought in by the rulers of Sambas and Mempawah to work
their mines, escaped the appanage system and became independent of the
courts. They also began to control the trade and labor of the Dayaks, which
caused revenues of the ports to fall and appanage-holders to become
dissatisfied. (5)
These states also engaged in piracy. (6) Often the younger brothers of the
ruler, or his sons, were especially active in capturing ships, plundering
wrecks, and disposing of the crew members or selling them as slaves.
Toward the end of the 18th century, the Dutch and other Western nations
with interests in the area turned their attention more and more to the question
of suppressing what they saw as criminal acts, but what the local ruling
houses saw as a complement to trade.
The ability of rulers to increase their wealth and territory was a question
of luck and statecraft. The latter included finding allies who would support
their aspirations.
Pontianak had only recently been founded, on 23 October 1771,(7) by the
son of an Arab immigrant. The first Alkadri, Syarif Abdulrahman (r. 1771-
1808), and his son and successor, Syarif Kassim (r. 1808-1819) utilized the
trappings of Malay sultanates but put their own imprint on Malay statecraft,
and they used, in a way few of their peers could, their personal relations with
Westerners to both manipulate them and to hold them at a distance.
Abdulrahman and his successors enhanced their own power by drawing on
the influence of the Dutch. This was a " recurring theme " in the history of
native kingdoms, the " attraction between a powerful center and a state on its
periphery. "(8) Not only the Westerners, however, proved to be useful allies.
Pontianak
During the last years of the Dutch East India Company (VOC,
Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie), the Company established, or tried to
5. See Muhammed Gade Ismail, "Politik perdagangan Melayu di kesultanan Sambas, Kalimantan Barat;
masa akhir kesultanan 1808-1818". Unpublished MA thesis. Jakarta, Fakultas Pasca Sarjana, Universitas
Indonesia, 1985 and his "Trade and State Power : Sambas (West Borneo) in the Early Nineteenth
Century ", in State -and Trade in the Indonesian Archipelago. G.J. Schutte, ed. Leiden : KITLV Press,
Working Papers 13, 1994, pp. 141-149.
6. The reader will recall : Denys Lombard, "Regard nouveau sur les 'pirates Malais' première moitié du
XIXe siècle," Archipel 18 (1979), pp. 231-249.
7. Pontianak currently celebrates its founding on that date. Many sources give 1772 as the founding date.
8. J. van Goor, " Seapower, Trade and State-Formation : Pontianak and the Dutch, " in Trading
Companies in Asia, 1600-1830. J. Van Goor, ed. Utrecht : HES Uitgevers, 1986, pp. 83-106 (here pp. 83-
84). See also his "A Madman in the City of Ghosts : Nicolaas Kloek in Pontianak," Itinerario 1985 II,
pp. 196-211.
Archipel 56, Paris, 1998 The First Two Sultans of Pontianak 277
establish, relations with the rulers of West Borneo. In the 17th century, the
Company had had a station in Sukadana, to purchase diamonds and gold, but
abandoned it for lack of profit. In 1778, it made contact with Abdulrahman
and with Pontianak, located at the confluence of the two great rivers that
drain most of West Borneo, the Landak and the Kapuas (sometimes called
Kapuas Kecil or Little Kapuas, because the river divides into several arms at
its delta) [Map 2].
Pontianak's founder and first sultan was a individual of striking character
" perhaps the most unusual man that Borneo ever and, in the words of Veth,
produced". (9) Abdulrahman was in his mid-thirties when the VOC's
commission arrived, and its chief, Nicolaas Kloek, described his appea