Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur: The traitor who wasn’t (Part 1)

Heritage Snippets of Sarawak by FoSM

Heritage Snippets of Sarawak

By J. H. Walker

Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur is unique in Sarawak’s history for having been exiled for derhaka (treason) not once, but twice. He is also unique in the history of the entire Malay world for not having been executed for his crime, which was considered so heinous that anyone who committed it, all of their relatives, all of their descendants, their houses and even the soil on which their houses stood, were to be expunged from this earth of mankind. As Sultan Hussain of Singapore explained to Raffles, anyone guilty of derhaka should be killed, “together with his family and relations to the last man, his house uprooted, roof to the ground, pillars uppermost and the soil on which it stands thrown into the sea”. It is fortunate for Sarawak that this did not happen to Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur. Our Premier, Abang Johari, is his great-great-grandson.

Prior to the arrival in Sarawak from Brunei of Pengiran Indera Makhota in 1826, the Government of the Sarawak River and Lundu areas was under four Malay Abang-abang, who bore the title, Datu. They were the Datu Patinggi Ali, his son-in-law, Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur, Datu Bandar Ranca and Datu Tumanggong Mersal. Although Abdul Gapur was closely associated with the other Sarawak and Lundu Abang-abang, being both the son of Datu Patinggi Ali’s second cousin, Dayang Truan, and married to Ali’s daughter, Dayang Inda, he was not, unlike the other Datus and Abang-abang of the area, a male-line descendant of Datu Merpati.

Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur’s grandfather in the male line, Bilal Abdul Latif, had migrated to the Sarawak River area from Brunei in the early nineteenth century. The circumstances surrounding his migration are not clear. He might have left Brunei to escape political conflicts at the Royal Court, fleeing to the far periphery to evade his enemies. But it is also possible that, rather than fleeing Brunei, he was dispatched by the Sultan to bolster Brunei’s position in the Sarawak River area against the ever-present ambitions of the Sultan of Sambas.

For four centuries prior to James Brooke’s arrival in Sarawak, control over the Lundu and Sarawak River areas had been contested, with Sambas sometimes ruling areas of what is now Sarawak for extended periods of time, as far north as the sago producing towns (Bruit, Mato, Igan, Oya and Mukah) in and around the Rajang delta. These periods of Sambas rule are reflected in the salsilahs of the Pengiran families in some of the sago towns, families whose descent, according to Ann Appleton, can be traced directly back to the Sambas royal family rather than to that of Brunei. These periods have also left an intriguing culinary record. Bubur pedas, for example, is found only in Sambas and Sarawak, and not, according to Karen Shepherd’s research, elsewhere in the Malay world, reflecting the long historical association of the two areas.

Abdul Latif’s title, ‘Bilal’, denotes religious leadership, and so he enjoyed sufficient status to integrate himself into the ruling Abang-abang, with his son, Abdul Kabar, not only marrying a Dayang, but also assuming the title, ‘Abang’. Bilal Abdul Latif’s lineage achieved its greatest success, prior to the formation of Malaysia, when Abang Abdul Kabar’s son, Abang Abdul Gapur, was appointed Datu Patinggi. Although the circumstances surrounding Abdul Gapur’s appointment are obscure, of one thing we can be sure—it was contentious, since Abdul Gapur was not a male-line descendant of Datu Merpati and there was already a Datu Patinggi, named Ali, who was.

The title ‘Datu Patinggi’ indicates ‘the highest’ or ‘the most senior’ Datu and, traditionally, it should only have been borne by one Datu in an area at any time. And yet Sarawak in 1841 had two. Whether one Patinggi had been appointed by Sambas and one by Brunei or whether they had both been appointed by the same Royal Court, the second appointment intended, perhaps, to replace or override the earlier (for whatever reason), we do not know. But, after their revolt against Brunei collapsed, Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur withdrew to the protection of the Court at Sambas, while Datu Patinggi Ali found refuge with Datu Patinggi Abdul Rahman of Sarikei, who was, at least nominally, still associated with Brunei. Perhaps from this we can assume that Abdul Gapur was closer to Sambas than was Datu Patinggi Ali.

On securing the rulership of Sarawak, James Brooke moved quickly to recall the exiled Datus to join his Government. Despite Datu Patinggi Ali’s genealogical seniority, and his seniority in years and kinship terms (he was, after all, Abdul Gapur’s father-in-law), Rajah James accorded seniority to Abdul Gapur, favouring him over Ali in the allocation of areas and communities to administer.

Datu Patinggi Ali’s traditional base was Leda Tanah, at the junction of the kanan (west) and kiri (east) branches of the Sarawak River, and the kanan (western) tributary, itself. In spite of this, James allocated to Abdul Gapur responsibility for the area running from Leda Tanah up the western branch to Bau, an area both rich in gold and well-populated by Hakka miners and farmers. The eastern branch, which was more densely populated with Bidayuh than was the western branch, was also placed under Abdul Gapur, whose control of most of Sarawak’s Bidayuh population and of the strategically important gold-mining district confirmed him as James’s pre-eminent official.

His resources limited to the revenues that he could raise from the Bidayuh populations upriver from Bau, Datu Patinggi Ali was, to some extent, compensated by his son, Abang Mohammed Lana (Molana), being created Datu Bandar on the death, not long after James’s securing government, of Datu Bandar Ranca. But the European records do not record that resources were accorded to Molana to maintain himself as Datu Bandar. Consequently, it seems that Datu Patinggi Ali had to fund his son’s enhanced status from within his own revenues. Although Molana’s appointment increased his family’s standing and nama, it is also likely to have stretched its resources, which had to support the dignity of two Datus rather than one.

In addition to administering the areas allocated to them, the four Datus, Patinggis Ali and Abdul Gapur, Tumanggong Mersal (who had resumed authority over the coast and islands from Santubong to Sematan) and Bandar Molana sat as judges in the law courts that the Rajah established, although European observers noted that they were reluctant to convict their own followers, whatever the evidence. Additionally, they and their followers participated in the Rajah’s campaigns against Saribas (1843) and Skrang (1844), in the latter of which Datu Patinggi Ali lost his life.

Patinggi Ali’s death provided opportunities for Patinggi Abdul Gapur to expand further his already pre-eminent role in the Rajah’s government. Far less experienced politically than his father, Datu Bandar Molana was easily marginalised by Abdul Gapur who, as Patinggi, also formally outranked him. Molana played a negligible role in a diplomatic mission in which he was included in 1845. He was treated by the other members of the mission and by the dignitaries whom they visited as a person of little consequence, even being excluded from the important discussions. His situation in Kuching following the death of his father was no better. Hugh Low reported that he did “not interfere much with the affairs of the state: though he regularly attends the court, he always defers his opinions to the more experienced patingi”.

With Tumanggong Mersal little interested in the details of government, and discouraged by the Rajah (who doubted his loyalty) from involving himself closely, the only noble who seems to have tried to contain Abdul Gapur’s ambition was Sherif Moksain, who was a member of the al-Aidirus family who ruled the small state, Kubu, to the south of Pontianak. Charles Grant reported that the two men were openly jealous of each other, with Moksain opposing Abdul Gapur whenever he could.

Sherif Moksain’s efforts appear not to have been successful, however, with Rajah James further expanding Abdul Gapur’s pre-eminence even beyond the borders of Sarawak. After the Rajah succeeded in expelling Sherif Sahib from Sadong in 1844, he appointed a follower of Abdul Gapur, Abang Kassim, to govern the river with the title, Datu Bandar of Sadong. Datu Bandar Kassim’s wife was the daughter of Abang Durop, Abdul Gapur’s brother. When, in 1848, Rajah James removed Kassim from office because of accusations of misgovernment, he appointed instead Kassim’s brother, Abang Leman, who was married Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur’s own daughter, so that Abdul Gapur’s influence over the Sadong, with its valuable surpluses of padi, was assured. After only a short period, the Rajah restored Datu Bandar Kassim to power in Sadong, only to remove him permanently in 1850, handing the area over to Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur to govern directly.

Just as the Rajah’s interests quickly extended beyond the formal boundaries of Sarawak, so Datu Patinggi Abdul Gapur’s ambitions began also to expand, matching those of the Rajah. The valuable trade in sago from the Rajang delta and adjacent coast had begun to engage the Rajah’s ambitions. In 1851, Abdul Gapur married his daughter, Dayang Fatima, to Sherif Bujang, whose brother, Sherif Masahor, ruled the sago-rich town, Igan, as well as Sarikei and the lower Rajang, both areas in which Rajah James had begun to show a marked interest. Abdul Gapur spared no expense for his daughter’s wedding, using the occasion to signal his status as Sarawak’s leading Malay. Spenser St John recorded, “For days every house was covered with flags, and cannon fired from dawn to sunset; free tables for all friends were prepared, and the amount consumed per day was a never-ending subject of conversation.” Abdul Gapur’s expenditure on the wedding exhausted his own resources, so that the Government had to lend him money to help him pay for it.

In Kuching, beyond demonstrations of his hospitality, Abdul Gapur continued to find ways to increase and demonstrate his pre-eminence. For example, although Datu Bandar Molana had instigated the construction of the first state mosque in Kuching, raising funds and enforcing stricter Muslim observance among the Kuching Malays, upon its completion in 1852, Abdul Gapur, rather than Molana, took control, becoming its first Imam.

The Rajah was well aware of these tensions among his own followers, commenting that the “three native Datus or Chiefs are from position naturally jealous each of the other, and though perfectly friendly look to the European chief Govt as their proper and only balance”. The Rajah significantly overestimated the extent to which the Datus were “perfectly friendly”, however, and Abdul Gapur’s extravagance over his daughter’s wedding provided a context in which Datu Bandar Molana and Abdul Gapur’s other rivals, such as Sherif Moksain, might undermine him.

From 1851, Rajah James began to receive reports that Abdul Gapur was oppressing the Dayaks under his authority with taxes and other exactions. Abdul Gapur’s accusers expected the Rajah to take such charges seriously. After all, he had twice removed Bandar Kassim from the government of Sadong because of accusations of misgovernment. They underestimated the Rajah’s faith in the Patinggi, however, and it is clear that the Rajah did not believe their charges. His confidence in Abdul Gapur remaining unshaken, he further expanded the Patinggi’s importance by appointing his brother, Abang Durop, to command a new fort established beyond the borders of Sarawak, at Kanowit. Abang Durop’s appointment might even have been intended to mollify Abdul Gapur, who cannot have been pleased that Sherif Moksain had earlier been appointed, however briefly, to the command of the fort at Skrang.

Having continued to receive reports of Abdul Gapur abusing his authority and oppressing the Dayaks under his administration, the Rajah sent his nephew, Brooke Brooke, to investigate the situation at Samarahan, which was also under the Patinggi. Spenser St. John reported, however, that Brooke found the area prosperous, heavily populated with thousands of recent immigrants. Far from being oppressed by Abdul Gapur, Brooke discovered that the population was successfully evading taxes and other legitimate imposts that the Patinggi was attempting to collect on the Rajah’s behalf.

With the Rajah’s faith in the Patinggi’s integrity and administrative abilities apparently unshakeable, his rivals had to find another way to undermine him. They began to murmur to the Rajah vaguely, but darkly, about plots, about treason.

In Part 2 of this essay, Dr John will explore the evidence on which Patinggi Abdul Gapur was convicted and exiled, twice, for treason.

Dr J. H. Walker is the author of Power and Prowess: The Origins of Brooke Kingship in Sarawak. He has published widely on Sarawak history and Malay political culture.

“Heritage Snippets of Sarawak” is a fortnightly column.

— DayakDaily