James Brooke

James Brooke ( born April 29, 1803 in Bath, † June 11, 1868 ) was an English adventurer and the first White Raja of Sarawak in northern Borneo.

Life

The path to the first white Raja

1817 Brooke joined the army of the East India Company. As a cadet, he fought in the 1823-1825 campaign of Assam. There he was wounded as leader of a native cavalry unit in the attack on a fort. After his sick leave in England, he returned back to Asia in 1830. After the death of his father and the thus acquired Heritage ( £ 30,000 ) he bought the armed schooner The Royalist and traveled with him in 1839 the coastal waters of North Borneo. He helped Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II of Brunei in pacifying a revolt of the indigenous Bidayuh. The pacification of the rebellion succeeded Brooke without one single sacrifice: He called the chiefs of the rebel tribes together, demonstrating to them the firepower of his ship. Then it came to a peace agreement on the Sarawak River in the area of today's capital Kuching. The Sultan made ​​him for it on 24 September 1841, the Raja to his vassal, and gave him a huge area of personal management. For this he had to pay £ 500 a year to the Sultan.

Government

James Brooke, his domain to be released from the suzerainty of the Sultan, and to be sovereign succeeded. He founded the ruling until 1946 in three generations Brooke dynasty of the white rajas. The area of his rule is largely identical to the present-day Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah. Brooke reformed the administration of the country and led 1843-1849, together with the late Admiral Sir Henry Keppel several expeditions to suppress piracy by the tribe of the Iban.

From Queen Victoria, he was awarded in 1847 during a stay in England with the Bathorden. He also became British Consul-General in Borneo. 1857 Brooke was temporarily driven from his capital of Kuching, but was able to return with the help of his nephew and later successor, Charles Johnson Brooke, originally Charles Anthoni Johnson. As James Brooke had no children, he named his first nephew John, the brother of Charles, his successor. Later he took this decision but back again, so that was appointed to succeed him in 1865 Charles when Charles Brooke. In the same year he supported the expedition of ODOARDO Beccari to Borneo.

Heritage

After his death in 1868, his nephew Charles Johnson Brooke took control and made Sarawak 1888 a protectorate of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. His son and successor, Charles Vyner Brooke, the third and final White Raja was in 1942 sold by the Japanese army during World War II in 1945 and returned back to Sarawak. 1946 ended the reign of the White Rajas of Borneo, when Charles Vyner Brooke rule the British handed over, the Sarawak until 1963 administered as a colony before it became part of Malaysia today.

Others

The carnivorous plant Nepenthes rajah and the Raja - scops owl ( Otus brookii ) were named after Brooke.

In the published from 1895 adventure books of Italian author Emilio Salgari James Brooke is the opponent of the hero Sandokan.