Part Two: The Family That Stole Malaysia

there's there's it's it's there's there's something. You know. There's a power in just screaming the name Hitler to introduce the podcast. There's a reason why I've done it so many times. It gets attention. It gets attention, It gets attention. People pay attention when you just shout the name Hitler into their ears as they're driving to work in the morning. This is of course Behind the Bastards. Bad people talk

about him. Uh. Sometimes we introduced it by shouting Hitler, but this time we introduced it with a meandering discussion about how bad I am at introducing the show. My guest again, it's Dr Kvehda of the House of Pod podcast, which deals with a whole bunch of cool medical stuff are our friend of the pod. Garrison Davis was on it recently to talk about gun violence. Right That's Rights. Had him on with a gun. We had him on to ask questions of a gun violence researcher named Dr

Amy barn Horse. That was a really fun episode. Good good, Yeah. I mean, I'm actually holding a bullet. Speak it's just one of my desk bullets, the dust bullets. Sophie's holding up blood orange cake. You know. I just got a crate of two and fifty tracer rounds of three oh eight, which is fun because you can light things on fire with them. So I'm excited to find some things to light on fire when I when I got shooting next.

Sometimes if you hit a tree stump because of all the sap and there, it'll light the whole stump on fire. It's a hoot. Oh, that's a hoot. As long as it's wet enough outside. You don't want to do it during the dry summer day. So we're in the last couple of months where I can light a stump on

fire and not burn down the forest. There's gonna be like doctors who are gonna you know, who follow our show, who are going to be listening to this for the first time and they're just gonna be like, wait, wait, hold on, what's going on? What's going on? He talked about Hitler in guns and what what has happened to

Cave And that's okay, I'm okay, it's okay. Speaking of what's happened to what's about to happen to Cave is that he's about to hear about what happens next to James Brooke literally left off had just kind of at gunpoint made himself into the governor of a sizeable chunk of Brunei or Malaysia, whatever you want to call it. Borneo. Um so he has. He has gotten himself declared governor at gunpoint, which is the way to do it. You know, I've I've considered that for a while. I would like

to be a governor. I think I'd be a good one, Gonna open up whatever state I'm in or lock it down, depending on wherever it is. I'll do the opposite of whatever they were doing before. It's a safe bet for governors. Change. Change. That's what people want, is change, whether or not it's good change or reasonable change or change. People have asked for just change things. Yes, Sophie, that doesn't sound like something I do anyway. Uh So, yeah, James had threatened

himself into being a governor. Uh and this this obviously the actual leaders in in Brunei at the time, like the different royal people. Uh, most of them were not super happy with it. So the Sultan of Brunei doesn't like that he's been forced at gunpoint to make this

guy a governor. Now, there is a chunk of royals, as there are kind of anywhere there's British imperialism, there's a chunk of the ruling class that likes what's happening, right, And in James's case, it's Prince Badrudine, the guy that he's got the hots for, and Russia hashim Um, and both of these guys kind of warded him because even though he was super problematic and kind of disrespectful, he also had a bunch of modern canons and they were

more worried about their local rivals than they were about this British guy who they assumed was going to leave eventually. They were like, we'll put up with this guy. I mean, Badine, I think really loved him, but Raja Hashim is more like, we'll put up with this guy and he'll use his cannons to help us against our rivals, and that'll be a good deal for us. And for a while this worked pretty well. Um, But the whole time James was

kind of solidifying his hold on Sarawak. His rivals, who included Prince Makota and one of the sons of the Sultan and brune I, were working behind the scenes to take back their land from this usurper. And obviously it's worth noting that none of the people fighting over sarah Wak had a good moral claim to the land right. The Sultan and Brunei and his kin are all bad people.

They let raiders bribe them to rob and murder their citizens. James, meanwhile, wanted to rule sarah Walk for the sake of his ego and to live out his boyhood dreams of Eastern adventure. Nobody's nobody in charges, As is generally the case in history, nobody in charges is a good person or particularly righteous. This is often how colonial dramas would play out. You've got a shitty local leader, You've got differently shitty foreign imperialist interlopers, and you've got a bunch of normal people

caught in the middle. That's kind of the story of imperialism and part of why it. Part of why imperialists get traction in places is because a decent number of locals are always willing to sign on with the imperialist because like, well, but our current leaders sucked too, you know, like that's the thing that happens a lot, which is great. Uh So, James had a decent amount of support among

some folks in the area. A lot of Malay and Dyak people who rebelled against the Sultan liked him because even if he had won the war against them, he'd spared their lives and he'd done it against the wishes of some of the local powers. Meanwhile, a number of folks in the interior liked him because he'd gotten the Rash to call off that big Dyak raid. So the point is he had a bunch of local support. He was not like, it was not just him imposing his

will on the local people for guns. Because of things he did. A decent number of people who lived in sarah Wak and didn't like the leaders in Brunei supported him. And honestly, if you were living in sarah Walk at the time. Given the options, especially if you're one of the people who was about to get rated by these diets, you might have supported James Brooke too, right, because it's just like the Sultans ship too, you know. And and

these people aren't dumb. They get a sense of this guy, and clearly everything he's done up to this point would lead you to believe that he's probably gonna get tired at some point and go back to England and leave them alone. You would think that's what's going to happen. I think that would be a reasonable assumption. Yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of what's happening. They're like, everything he's done isn't shitty. He's helped us out in a couple of things we don't like about our leaders. He's

a white dude. He's not going to stay here forever. He's a rich white boy. He's gonna go home at some point. Let's use him while he's here, you know. I think that's the bet a lot of people make now. At the point in which he became kind of total ruler of his own little country, James Brooke was thirty eight years old. He started using the title Raja, which was not strictly legal because he was not royal in any way, shape or form. He had been made a

governor um. But he starts calling himself the Rajah. The locals called him twine Bassar, which means big lord, which is kind of a rad nickname. Again, and he started off his reign pretty well by releasing a bunch of hostages who had been taken during the civil war, so again kind of ingratiating himself with the local people. Not a bad move. Um. Now he'd come to power by defending the cooching Malaise, who were the folks in the interior that were about to get rated from their rulers

in Brunei. But his territory had an equal population of Dyaks, and they were not as friendly to him on the whole because he had stopped some of them from raiding these cootching Malaise. So James knew that if he was going to hold on power, he already had the cootching people like kind of on his back. He needed to win over these Dyaks to his side, and in order to do that, he took a leaf out of the

British Empire's playbook. As he later wrote, quote divide and govern is the motto, I must govern each by the other. So do you understand what that means? This again what the British Empire does in in we talked about in the in the idi Amine episode, and there were certain tribal groups that they would support an arm to control other tribal groups. Right, that's the same thing the Belgians do. Yeah, he's he's learning. That's what he figures out he's going

to do. So his first step was to demolish an old system set up by both Bruneyan and Malay aristocrats called the Sarah. This gave those nobles the right to legally take any diac property they happened to. Like if they saw a diet boat they fancied, they could cut a gouge in the top and that was a legally binding signal that the boat was now their property. Nobles were also given the right to set prices for produce

that they bought from peasant farmers and gatherers. So like you gather a bunch of food, or farmer a bunch of food, and the rich people get to decide what they pay you for it, which is not a great deal for the actual people making the food, you know. Um So, if these little people didn't produce sufficient quantities of food stuff, their children and spouses could be sold into slavery. So the Surah is an unpopular their system among the Dyaks, and James Brooke abolishes it as soon

as he comes to power. Again, not a bad call so far. He's pretty much to two in my book, you know. Um So, he also decided early on not to mess with a local religion. I should clarify. He decided not to mess with the religious beliefs of the local Malays who were Muslim. So he sees that like a lot of the population are Muslim, in kind of an uncommon move for a British imperial ruler in this period.

He decides, I'm not going to let like missionaries come in and funk with the Muslims because I think people have the right to their own religion and that's great. However, the di Acts were animists, right, so they have kind of a more not it's they were. They have a religion, but it's not a Judeo Christian religion, and thus it's

not a religion that James Brooke recognizes as a religion. Um, and so he is willing to let evangelists go kind of proselytize to them because he doesn't think they have a religion, because he doesn't understand exactly he's been to Islam because all the time the Indian subcontinent, So it's not foreign to him. This whatever I mean, I don't know what they were following. Yeah, totally foreign to him. Yeah, he doesn't know what it is, and so he thinks

they have no religion. His biographer writes that he considered the Diets to be quote children of nature without true religion, since their most cherished beliefs were dismissed in the eyes of civilization as mere childlike superstition. So again, not your worst case for an imperialist overlord because he respects some of the local beliefs under gentler imperialist slightly yeah to some people, I guess now. In all, Brooke championed what he considered to be a hands off approach to rulership.

He didn't want to engage in the kind of full scale colonialism that he had seen in India. Instead, he only wanted to bring in a few Europeans, and he saw himself as assisting the native leaders, giving them the benefit of his big European brain, rather than taking over. He felt that this tactic had quote never been fairly tried, and it appears to me in some respects more desirable

than the actual possession of a foreign nation. For if successful, the native prince finds greater advantages, and if a failure, the European government is not committed. Above all, it ensures the independence of the native princes and may advance the inhabitants further in the scale of civilization by means of the very independence that can be done when a government is a foreign one and their natural freedom sacrificed. So

that's his attitude here. I'm struck well, he writes, and this is kind of some like US and Vietnam style thinking, where it's like, we can't invade this country to declare war, but we can send in advisors and that way if we if it goes badly, we're not committed, which didn't work in Vietnam and spoilers great here. But like that's the that's the thought process that he has. So critics will point out that Brooke was regularly heavy handed in

his leadership, although he wouldn't admit to this personally. His years in power included numerous rebellions and brutal crackdowns on insurgent campaigns. They will also note that his enlightened colonialism may have been preferable to him because it was cheaper. James Brooke definitely had dreams of exploiting the mineral wealth of sarah Walk, but he never ever gained any kind of competence at trade or business. The land he conquered was also not rich in the kind of gyms and

precious metals he wanted. He just did send back one stone that his laborers found, which he called the Brook Diamond. He sent this to like England to try to drum up like enthusiasm for his reign, but when it was appraised in London, it was found to be a worthless opal. Now, yeah, the Brook Diamond. I wonder what if that's why I thought the name Brooke was related to diamonds. I wonder if I'd ever heard that before. I don't know. I don't know. They may have a cookie company, yes, but

not so much of the diamonds. Not so much of the diamonds. So the irony is that the land he'd stumbled into controlling held a tremendous amount of crude oil. That's why the Sultan of Brunei today as a billionaire. Right, Like, there's actually it's very very valuable land to control, but at the time crude oil was kind of useless. There were plenty of valuable commodities though with in sarah Wak, but through financial incompetence, James Brooke repeatedly failed to capitalize

on them. When he took power in like he kind of estimated the revenue of his country at about five thousand pounds per year um and although even this sum was inflated, but as time went on, Like he would never make a profit out of this. He would eventually go broke running sarah Wak um because he just like had no head for actual business. It would not be fair to say that his motive in sarah Wak was pure, pure venal profit seeking, but neither was he particularly pure hearted.

For James, ruling was about stature. He didn't want to get rich off of the wealth of sarah Wak. He wanted to be a big man who had to be respected because he was the governor of like he was the king basically of an entire country. Right to that end, he started sending home excerpts from his diary and inflated stories about the rebellion and his campaign's fighting pirates in

the area. These started to pick up a leadership, in part because he had an agent back and like he has like a like a press agent who he sends back his diaries to and who pumped him up in the imagination of the local people in England. We'll just not done. He started to pick up a readership. But James was incensed because, like, while his stories were popular, the Queen didn't automatically knight him, and he wrote back to the British government, who still had not acknowledged his reign,

asking for an eight barrel. So he gets frustrated, like he does all the time, this like work to puff himself up, and the British Government's like, I don't think we should recognize this guy. This seems like this might go bad, Like let's let's just let's just kind of keep quiet for now. Um. This makes him angry and he writes back to Britain being like, you guys have to support me. I'm doing the right thing in this country.

I'm trying to civilize them. And by the way, would you send me an eight barreled cannon, because I I think I'm gonna have to kill more of these people to civilize them properly, so I need a beggar gun. He's sad he's not immediately knighted, so he's like, can't have a cannon? And I have a cannon. Yeah, an eight barreled cannon. I mean that makes sense. One barrel is not enough to clip Clinton mother. So James's letters

home this period evince a distinct sense of insecurity. After taking power, he took actions against pirates, often with the late aid of a local British naval captain and his ship, but the lack of formal recognition of his own government rankled alongside the fact that his status as governor had only been confirmed by the words of the Rajah. There was nothing written by the Sultan of Brunei that made

his position clear. As the new, unchecked ruler of sarah Wak, James inherited a number of things, most notably a five year old Diak boy named Stu. This kid was a prisoner of the war that he had just fought, and in his writings, James's care for Settu comes across as genuine and frankly somewhat heroic. He wrote, quote, the gift causes me vexation because I know not what to do with the poor innocent, and yet I shrink from the

responsibility of adopting him. My first wish is to return him to his parents and his tribe, and I find I cannot do that, and if I fight, I cannot do this. I believe it will be better to carry him with me than leave him to become a slave of a slave, for should I send him back, such will probably be his fate. So for a time he keeps this five year old boy. Uh. And James later wrote that he was able to make Situ content and happy um by giving him a bunch of tobacco. So

that's like his to give him cigarettes. Kids love cigarettes. This will make him happy. Um. Now, Brooke did write regularly about wanting to find and return this boy to his parents, but as Nigel Barley writes, it's not easy to tell how honest he was about wanting this quote. His relations with Stu are cast in exactly the same terms of chest beating morality as his relations with the

whole of poor suffering sarah Wak. He will take in the devastated orphan province, protect it, train it up, give it the means to earn a living, if only as a servant, and give it back at self respect, regardless of the cost to himself. Above all, he will give it love, And the greatest of these is love. No wonder then that it becomes a matter of deep concern whether Settu and other boys were, as claimed objects of selfless love or active lust. To James Brooke, to debauch

Situ would be to metaphorically debauch innocent sarah Wak. In general, he would no longer be the founder and protector of a model state, but the abuser of innocent trust Sarawak. Indeed, is like a foundling at which you first protect with hesitation and doubt, but which foundling afterwards repays you your

cost and your trouble. We will never know whether, as Rasha, James boyled daily and the clammy sheets of unrequited lust, engaged in a little vague scout masterly fumbling, sublimate a desire under a stiff rictus of a buncular benevolence, or reached a sensible standing arrangement with wondering more of his young men. So again, we don't know if he was sexually abusing this young child or if he was just like because of kind of the way things are written,

it's possible that he was. He was possible that he was like engaged in perfectly consensual sexual relationships with other adult men and men that were considered adult at the time. It's also possible he's abusing this kid. And we don't really know which is going on, but Nigel Barley considers the idea that he may have been male sting this child. It's kind of symbolic of his relationship with Sarah Wak

in general. So he's both portraying himself as honestly and kind of heroically taking this this boy and this province under his wing, trying to help it, trying to raise it up, and the possible reality lurking under the surfaces that he's abusing both of them like that that might be what's happening. It's definitely what's happening with Sarah walk We don't know if it's what's happening with the boy or not, but it's kind of hard I get why Barley kind of draws a comparison between the two. Yeah,

that's tough. I mean, actually, this guy in general is not the most bastardly bastard you've covered. It's not so I kind of want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I don't feel like that's the smart play I feel. I don't think it is something very bad, and it may not have been with Situ. It may have been that his sexual relationships were all with people.

We would call it pedophilia still, but fifteen year olds are kind of legally adults at this point, right, which I'm not saying makes it right, But if they like it's they're like lieutenants the military and stuff. That might be what he can find. We don't really know. Or he may have been molesting this five year old boy. We don't know. I do like the phrase vague scout, masterly fumboy. Yeah. So, as ruler, James took responsibility for

enforcing the law on himself. He had a house constructed to his own specifications, and he used it as both his home and the only law court in sarah Wak. His subjects would attend mainly to gamble on the results of the proceedings. A fact James seemed largely unaware of. So like he starts he becomes like I am the law, I'll rule on all cases, and like an industry, starts

up gambling on how he's going to decide. Is it because he's just so haphazard that like, yeah, because I imagine if he really was a good ruler, there wouldn't be much, you know, much don't much gambling in there. If if he was a good ruler, there might be actual professional judges. James also attempted to broke your peace with the local pirates. To this end, he held us

summit with several of their leaders. He seems to have fallen in love with them, describing one pirate chief as as fine a young man as the eye would really wish to rest upon, straight elegantly, let's yet strongly made, with a chest in a neck and a head and set upon them which might serve Apollo legs far better than that of his belvidere, and a countenance mild and intelligence.

He meets with these pirates because there's a pirate problem in his domain, and he's just like his thirsty as buck over these young great I don't know everyone's complaining about these guys are snacks, what's going on there? He writes repeatedly about the fact that these young pirate kings didn't cover their thighs or their torsos, which again profoundly thirsty.

The pirates realized that the white Rajah was kind of hot for them, and they tried to use his attraction to them to push him to allow them to go head hunting in his domain. Brooks own writings relate to how one of these conversations went between him and a sexy young pirate named Matari. Quote, and this is Matari speaking, You will give me, your friend leave to steal a few heads occasionally, No, I replied, you cannot take a

single head, you cannot enter the country. And if you were your countrymen, do I have a hundred scrying, I will have a hundred scring that's the name of these pirate people heads for everyone you take here. He recurred to this request several times, just to steal one or two as a schoolboy asks for apples. That's how James describes as pirate asking to the head people. At what point do you think like his mother was reading these letters and was like, he's really focusing on the thighs

of pirates. I mean, I'm not gonna get grandkids, Yeah, I don't. I don't think I'm gonna have grandkids out of this one. Talking a lot about the thighs of these sexy pirate boys. Paragraphs on his quads. Something's really a quad man definitely a quad man. Um. And this is part of why I think it might be less likely that he was molesting that little kid, because most of his obsession is with like his he. I mean, there's a lot of them are teenagers, but older teenagers.

I don't know, you can decide how you what, like what you think about James Brooke. Clearly something sketchy is going on. Um, just because a lot of these relationships are there's a huge power in balance. Like outside of the fact that some of these people are teenagers, he's also like now the governor king of the province and

not just a bunch of these young local teenagers. But later on he starts bringing in young young British boys who are legally again legally adults, but are also he's taking like these fifteen and sixteen year olds into the country and like giving them positions and highly problematic problematic, you would say, yeah, but you know who won't try to molest young pirate chieftains. I really don't like where you're going here, but continue the products and services that

support this podcast. I did not like that one. Well they won't, Sophie. Yeah, I think we can safely say that Audible has never thirsted angrily over a pirate attempting to take heads in their domain. Never doubt Bezos, man, I you are right, No, I don't know. We know what Jeff. We've seen Jeff Bezos's sects. We know what he's into, and it's weirder than liking a pirate kings squads. Yeah, have you not run into this? Oh my god, Google Jeff and all you at home who don't know what

I'm talking about. Google Jeff Bezos alive girl? Oh boy, yeah, go go check into that. Will you listen to these ads? We're back talking about talking about James brook By eighty three, it had become clear that negotiation was not going to bring a conclusion to Sarah Wak's piracy pro them. James Brooke decided he had no choice but to go to war. Lucky for him, an East India Company warship that Diana

had just sailed into the area at the time. Again, this is like the second one of these coincidences that happens. James had attempted to enlist the company's warships in his military campaigns before, with mixed success. But the captain this time was a fellow named Henry Keppel, who was a very similar sort of person like James, he had been raised on a steady diet of imperialist popular fiction, and

he too dreamed of fighting pirates in the Far East. Now, Keppel's actual job in the area was to fight against a group of raiders who are harassing company shipping nearby. He was not there to travel around the waters in Sarawak and fight pirates. But James made a series of very effective arguments. First, he pointed out that since water was the primary means of transport around uh Borneo, any criminals who were sailing on the water were by definition pirates.

So if the company had been sent here to fight raiders who were using waters nearby, pirates are the same thing as raiders. That means that your job is also to fight the pirates and sarah Wak you could justify it this way. Now, he also pointed out that it would be profitable for the company because at the time the British Parliament offered generous bounties to officers and men

who killed or captured pirates. This law was a holdover from the eighteen twenties, when the British government had declared a crusade against slavery and human trafficking. Pirates were a big part of the slave trade, and by monetizing the murder of pirates, Parliament created an underground economy based around liberating slaves. Now, of course, those freed slaves were left destitute without any kind of restitation, restitution or compensation UM

and the people who killed the pirates got rich. So it was again kind of a fucked up situation, but hey, what are you gonna do? So James Brooke basically argued that the the raiders Kepple had been tasked to fight by the company UM and the rebels and pirates threatening James's rule in sarah Wak were one and the same. And again James frames, all of this is fighting pirates.

Some of them are actual pirates, some of them are rebels who were fighting for other Brunei and princes in the area, Like He just kind of lumps them all because they're all on boats. They're all pirates to him, even though some of them are political dissidents who were fighting against his regime. For you could argue justified reasons. Um. He also points out to Keppel that if the company lets these pirate havens and sarah Wak exist, the rating

of company ships will continue. Eventually, he had made like a good enough argument that this guy Keppel was like, yeah, okay, I'll come fight pirates with you. And this gives James Brook access to an army of Company soldiers, one he would repeatedly used to butcher pirates and rebels. Now, best of all, the company helped him avoid maintaining a standing army or navy. This was very fortunate too, because it let him save money. Sarah Wak didn't have a formal

military force. He would occasionally like raise up militaries. But that ship's expensive. If the company's coming in and fighting pirates on his behalf, and they're being paid by the British government, and he's maybe being able to argue these political dissidents are pirates, that means the British government is paying for the army. That's helping him cement his rule. Right,

that kind of makes sense what he's doing here. So after working out this arrangement, James Brooke had the Company land men at his capital, where he was able to show them off to his people as a sort of veiled threat. Now in actuality, the Company soldiers spent more time traveling around Brooks new domain and showing off their

guns than they did actually fighting. There were several encounters with pirates, but since any locals and boats who had weapons were to find as pirates, we don't know if most, or even any of the people killed by Company soldiers in this period were pirates. The violence quickly escalated, though

largely because Brooke wanted it to escalate. Though their initial raids had led to a marked drop in pirate activity, Brooke had Pence, Prince Bodredine, and other local leaders sent him letters begging for British help with the pirate menace. This paper trail helped brook And and Kepple justify their escalating use of force. Soon he had gathered a force of more than a thousand local troops and Company soldiers. He marched them deep into the jungle, burning villages as

they went. What had started as an anti pirate campaign quickly became something akin to a light ethnic cleansing. James promised his local Malay fighters the right to loot the villages of their enemies. He promised his diet soldiers the right right the right to take heads, which they stole both from corpses of the slain and from ransacked graves.

We'll never know how many people were killed in this anti pirate crusade, or how many of them were actually pirates, but it did serve to kind of wipe out any resistance to him, because, among other things, first he's killing a bunch of the people who don't want him to be Raja. And second, everyone who might resist him sees, oh, this guy can command a company military anytime he wants. I don't want to fight funk with that. I guess I'm a little surprised that he even needed a paper trail.

I feel like no one would care if he did it from the you know, the English side. That's actually not true, And this is one of the things that I think when we talk about anti imperialism is not mentioned enough. It's often kind of I think people tend to think like everyone in England was okay with this sort of stuff. They were not a lot of people recognized at the time how immoral this was, um, how

fucked up all of it was. And there was there were even within Parliament there was a significant anti imperial parliamentary faction and we'll talk about that later. Here he goes on trial for some of this stuff. So there was actually a reason for him to make a paper trail, and it's because he knows there are people back whom we don't support of the imperialism happening. Yeah, this is it's a little reassuring. Actually, that makes me feel a

little bit better. It's this and they're never successful. Really. It's the same thing with like when we talked about King Leopold in Belgium, right, there was an anti imperial movement that four years was fighting against what he was doing. They didn't succeed in stopping the genocide until it had killed thirteen million people. But I think it is important to note that they exist in part because it means this is not a everyone at the time thought it

was fine. No, a lot of a lot of elected leaders in England at the time, we're like, it's bad what we're doing, right, we're committing crimes against humanity. We

ought to stop um and that's important. It's the same thing as like there were Founding fathers who were abolitionists and record nice that slavery was a tremendous evil, and unlike Thomas Jefferson didn't own slaves while talking about slavery, as guys like Thomas Paine, and I think you you need to highlight those folks because it makes it clear how immoral everyone else was. Yeah, good to know, good

to know. So after this quick brutal little war, Kepple sailed on Um and another company vessel entered into the area soon after his departure, and in a very another wildly lucky like strike for Um, uh for James Brooke, this next company ship that sails into Sarah Wax strikes a rock and capsizes. Now the crew and captain are rescued and James gets to take them into his care in his capital while he waits for company reinforcements. And the company sends an entire fleet of ships to pick

up these guys. And this is really lucky for James because for all of the locals know for massive warships sail into Borneo and as far as they know he has some power over these ships. They're not like he doesn't make it clear to his the locals, like they're just here to pick up a crew of a boat. That's something like. It looks like, oh look, now there's a whole fleet of military ships at his beck and call.

So James takes advantage of the opportunity and he convinces all of these company warships to sail with him to Brunei, which is the capital of the region where the Sultan lives. And he goes ashore to meet again with the Sultan and asked him for an official declaration confirming his appointment as governor of sarah Wak and now granting him the powers of governor. Uh, not just to him, but to

his peirs, his heirs on into perpetuity. Right. So this declaration also guaranteed in writing that the Sultan could not dismiss him from his throne for any reason. This is a bad deal for the Sultan, But the Sultan signs. When I guess why he signs because there's massive warships pointing in the capital. Yeah, and he literally James has these four warships trained dozens of cannons on the Sultan's home.

It is not settled. This guy like, well, he's presented with this offer and he looks out of his window and there are dozens of massive artillery guns pointed at his house. Yeah, sultan had Nope, there you go again, blitzing and every play this is this is by this time it's working. Yeah, I am not again. The Sultan is a bad person too, as pretty much all sultans in history have been. But you can't consent when someone's pointing dozens of cannons at your home. I think it's

fair to say that is not like free consent, you know. Um, this is basically armed robbery. That's how he gets Sarah walks. This is a mugging, you know. Yeah, yeah, very fortunate. Um yeah, so uh the Sultan signs this declaration, um and yeah. One historian Stephen Luscomb states that Brooke quote gave the distinct impression that he could seize the entire kingdom for himself if he was so disposed to do so, and that's why the Sultan like gives him Sarah wak

basically so most people. Again, we had talked about there's resistance to this, there's people who who see what James is doing is immoral. It is also important to note most people back in England see him as a hero

for this right he like. He's continuing to send his diaries and dispatches back, his agent is putting them into the popular press, and he becomes wildly popular for what he's done, and most people credulously accept his version of events that the people of sarah Wak had basically demanded he take rules and uses enlightened white wisdom to fix their country. And for the next several years, Brooks settled into a pattern engaging in intermittent battle with local princes.

He always described them as pirates, but their local leaders who don't like his him being in charge. Right again, these antipo He does also fight pirates, but a lot of the people he calls pirates are just local leaders that don't want him to be in charge. Yeah, um yeah. The East India Company took his words at face value. Whenever he said someone was a pirate, they assumed he

was telling the truth. Uh. In eighteen forty four, they helped him depose a local Bruneian prince and annexed that prince's former territory so the the agreement he'd signed with the Sultan had included a promise that he would not act outside the borders of sarah Wak. And like a year later he conquers a bunch of land outside of Sarah Walk and annexes him. Because he doesn't like he doesn't feel like he has to actually abide by this.

He sees this this agreement as like limiting the Sultan's power, but he doesn't see any of the limitations he agreed to his binding in any way. Um Now, whenever he would conquer that he does it a few times where he'll fight a war against some local leader, calling them a pirate. He'll conquer their land, and in order to make it seem legitimate, he'll arrange what he calls a conference where local leaders will come out in view of company representatives. So he has witnesses who are white and

ask him to take control of the territory. His friend, it's a whole show, it's a whole thing. Yeah, he knows what he's doing, and his friend, Captain Keppel, wrote about one such encounter. On this occasion, I had the satisfaction of witnessing what must have been from the effect I observed it to have produced on the hearers a splendid piece of oratory delivered by Mr Brooke in the native tongue with a degree of fluency I had never witnessed before, even in a Malay. Again, he's saying, oh,

he speaks better than the natives. That's what this guy, who doesn't speak the local language thinks. He hears this guy saying words he doesn't understand. Was like, this guy is better at speaking their language than they are. Of course I don't speak their language. But was he actually was there any evidence that he actually spoke the language or was this just like I think he did. I mean, he ruled the country, who lived there for most he should.

I believe he didn't gain a fluency, but I don't know if it's more fluent like neither and neither does this guy right, because he doesn't know that it's a splendid piece of oratory. He says that he thinks it is because of the effect it has on the people hearing,

but he doesn't know what they're saying. It's just this is like this this guy is Captain Keppel's speech here is like unbel like the peakest white man ever of like, well, he I can tell by the way they're reacting that he must be better at speaking their language than they are.

It's amazing um from these people. Many assurances were received of their anxiety and willingness to cooperate with us and our laudable undertaking, and one and all where like urgent that the government of their river should be transferred to the English. So again he doesn't speak the language, but he assumes like, oh, they all really are, they are all on lockstep that we should take over this area.

How can we not They all clearly assume I'm being told by other white men that this is what they're saying to speak a little bit of another a little bit. This is all you need is a little bit, a little bit. Yeah. Now. In this manner, James Brooke was able to portray his gradual conquest of more and more Bruneian territory is entirely legal, and not just legal, but driven by the demand of the locals. In eighteen forty five, James executed a plan that, if successful, would have given

him command of the Sultan of Brunei himself. He started by sending Prince Hashim away from sarah Wak and back to the capital along with his beloved Prince Badrudine. The idea was that Badrudine would keep an eye on Hashim and that they would back each other her up because Hashim was now second in lyne to the throne of Brunei and the Sultan was an old man, so basically

he was his men in the capital. So that when the Sultan diet, Hashim can take power and James can kind of carry out a soft coup because he sees Hashim and bad Rudin is basically they'll do anything I say. So if I can put this guy on the throne and this guy next to him, all be in control of all of Malaysia basically, like that's it or all of at this point it's brune I. But that's his plan here, and this also would have been legal, right

because Hashim is the legal heir. So if I can get this guy on the throne who will do everything I say, I'll be I'll be writing pretty you know. That's his that's his idea. I should note here that James sending bad Rudine away was practical because he trusted the prince and he wanted him to help him, like take over this country. But it also fit part of a pattern that Brooke had with the young men he

fell in love with. The Brook The book White Braja describes this pattern quote the flattering attention, the seeking out of the company of the new young find, the selfless, selfless bestowal of patronage, a concern with his education and development, the breathy descriptions of his qualities and letters to others, and usually finally, the emotional retirement of the loved one

to become a sarah Wak official. So this is kind of his pattern that when he gets over a crush, he sends them off to like control, some to take up a little would with them, and then he sends them off. Yeah, and several of these guys die doing the jobs he gives them after he sends them off. Spoilers. But before we get into that, you know who never sends off their former lovers to die in Malaysia the products or services that support this podcast. All right, we

are we are in fact back. So unfortunately for Prince Badru Deine, playing a part in the scheme of James Brooke to take power would cost him his life. The Sultan of Brunei was not a dumb man, and he was fully sick of English adventurers taking over larger and

larger portions of his territory. He was also quite understand Annibalie still erked about the time Brooke aimed dozens of cannons at his house, so he started to plot alongside one of his younger sons about how to rid themselves of the Brook supporters in their own court, Princess Hashim and Bodredine. Now they did this in the bloodiest way possible. One night, when Boderdine and Hashim were apart from each other in their own separate apartments, the sultan dispatched several

bands of armed men who attacked both brothers simultaneously. Now,

Buderdine was a fucking badass. And this guy like he's got like four different retainers slash bodyguards with him, and they get attacked by like fifty men and all of his friends get killed, and bad Renine is like fighting standing in his doorway with a dagger alone, stabs a bunch of people, fights them off for quite a while until one of them shoots him in the hand and he has to flee and retreat um and he like runs back into his inner apartments and locks himself in

with his um, his sister, and his favorite concubine UM and a favorite slave boy UM and they're all kind of sheltering together from this attack, and bodreu Deine tells the slave boy to go run down and grab a barrel of gunpowder, and he then tells the boy to like like save yourself basically, and he gathers his Bodrian gathers his sister and his concubine to him. He spreads gunpowder around them, and then he blows them all up. As these guys are like banging down, he's like suicide

bombs his house basically. And that's yeah, I mean it's a it's a it's a flex like he's a he very much goes down as kind of the like and I guess, you know, have questionably moral to take your your girlfriend and wife or your sister with you whatever, but like, right, I don't know if they were so into that plan, but it's a storybook death though, right, it's like one of those like like he he goes out kind of like the way you're supposed to go

in the legends or whatever, you know, fighting until you're two wounded too, and then blowing yourself up with gunpowder. Um. Prince Hashim tries to do the same thing, but fox up and kills everyone in the room but himself, so he has to shoot himself in the head um in order to once it becomes clear that he's going to

be captured. So these guys get killed a lot with a couple of other Brook supporters in the capital um, and the news eventually reaches Sarah Wak and James Brooke is said to have gone nearly insane with grief when he realizes what's happened. He writes at the time quote, violent passions and sleepless nights are hard to bear. I lay no blame on anyone. I look forward as much as I can, and backward as little. But I ought not and cannot forget my poor friends who lie in

their bloody graves. Oh how great is my grief and rage. But the British government will surely act, And if not, then let me remember I am still at war with this traitor and murderer. One more determined struggle, one last conclusive effort, and if it fail, borneo and all for which I have so long earnestly labored must be abandoned. It's very dramatic about this um, and he desperately wants

the British government to intervene and punish the Sultan. But the British government this is for them a step too far, because again there is a veneer of legality to this. And as long as it's like, I want you to fight pirates, this guy wants us to fight pirates. He's got letters from the local leaders asking us to help fight pirates. We have this whole crusade against slaving pirates.

We can justify that. But when he's like, the Sultan has under his legal powers executed two men, I want you to murder him, the British government is like, that's that's a little bit much for us, right, like where you might draw us into a war in Brunei and

we really don't necessarily want to do that. So it takes him about six months of pleading to get the British to send a fleet, and they do send a fleet eventually, which sails up to the capital and demands entrant entrance to talk about what had happened, and in a very and another stroke of luck for Brooke, the Sultan's men get kind of trigger happy and fire on the British fleet, which gives them the legal justification to burn down all of the defenses and sail into Brunei.

So the Sultan flees during the fighting, and the British are able to put a puppet, Hashim's brother Mohammed, on the throne, and this is the start of the of Brunei becoming a protectorate of the British Empire. Right. That's how this happens is because there's this failed coup that the Sultan cracks down, the British senden ships to talk about the fact that he's murdered, James books his friends, and then the Sultan's men fire on the British and

that lets them depose the Sultan. They had considered just making James Brooke the Sultan of Brunei, but they decided that would be a step too far even for the British Empire, and the fact that they've got a puppet sultan on the throne works out better for them because it seems more legitimate. But they're able to convince this guy to give the British Empire an island full of coal nearby that they can use as a refueling station, and the whole situation makes James Brooke and national hero again.

His rule over sarah Wak was now absolutely written in stone, and all local resistance had been broken. There's no more authorities in the area who have any sort of resistance to him being in power. And so now that he's got his kind of rule settled for the first time in eighteen forty seven, he decides to travel back home to the land of his birth to bask in the glory of his fame. The Times of London, working with his agent, published a fawning piece on him just as

he arrived in town. Quote much as we go, oh to guns and grape shot, we are indebted still more to the peaceful and meritorious exertions of one man for the advances which have happily been made towards civilization in peace amongst the Malay people of whom we speak. England owes a debt of obligation to Mr Brooke, Rajah of sarah Wak, which she will not easily repay. Wow. Journalism was not not fantastic at the time. They were really impressed with how peacefully he had burned down all of

those diligious in the interior. What a peaceful series of wars. He's delightful. Look at him. This guy is hailed as a hero. When he arrives back home, Oxford gives him an honorary doctorate. The school he'd run away from as a boy, which had refused to take him back, announced as a dinner in his honor. He was even given

a personal meeting with the Queen herself. After six months or so, though, he'd had phil his fill of the home country, and he booked passage home on a ship commanded by his friend Kepple and stalked with a significant number of teenage boys new officers. I have one request, couple, let me look at one request. How many boys will there be? Uh? And again? These these boys are all simultaneously old enough to command troops in battle and young

enough that I think we should continue to call them boys. Right. These are children that said their children who are given command of army. Sometimes it's a weird time. So James is got to s this. This, this voyage back to the East, is a blissful period of his life. He gets to spend months locked on a boat with a bunch of young boys. One of his friends, who was present on the voyage, later wrote he had a nephew on board, Charles Johnson, a staid sub lieutenant who endeavored

to preserve order, but it was of little avail. The noisy ones were in the ascendant, led by a laughing, bright faced lad who, when he was a midshipman on the Agincourt in eighty seven, had become acquainted with Mr Brooke, and whose fondness for cherry brandy was only equalled by his love of fun. No place in the cabin was respected. Six or seven would throw themselves on the bed, careless of whether Mr Brooke was there or not, and skylock over his body as if he were one of themselves.

In fact, he was as full of play as any of them. This is, of course, in reality, what's happening is there's probably a bunch of these guys there that just have no choice, but the fond over him because he has so much power over them. And this guy is this quote this he's quomoing it at this point, you know, yeah, it is. Also there are references made in his biography and other books at the time of like if you were a young British boy on a boat,

like a naval aid or one of these things. You got molested, that was and in some cases it would be like because obviously some portion of these these folks like that that they wind up being into it, which doesn't mean it's not abusive, it's complicated. The navy is kind of one of those few places where people who are homosexual, like you can have gay relationships in the navy and they're kind of there. No one considers it gay because you're on a boat, you know, Like that

is that is a factor in all this. That said, James is also clearly he is the powerful young he has the power for king, like a rich king, and he like these are not you can't really be consensual relationship. There's a lot going on here. These are the complicated relationships that Herman Melville left out of Billy Bud in Moby Dick. You know. Yeah, and this is like again like the cabin boy gets buggered, right, that's the that's the fact of naval life in this period of time.

And it does kind of seem though, like what goes on in this voyage is beyond what naval men are familiar with, and naval men have a lot of tolerance for this kind of thing, because again it's that's how the Navy works at the time. But they like other officers,

like people who are on board. Note that there's a lot of coolness from the older officers to James Brooke because of his relationship with these boys, because it's so scandalous and so shameless, right, there's an expectation of some buggery. He's like cavorting with a half dozen young men in his room loudly at all hours of the night, and

that's not considered to be okay. Um. And James was noted as being particul reularly friendly with Charles Grant, a boy he had met at age fourteen and immediately showered with expensive weapons, clothing, and jewelry. James wrote an erotic poem for this boy, which he framed as it's it's about sex, but literally the poem is about a bunch of young boys eating a plum pudding. Um, I'm gonna read you. I'm gonna read you. An excerpt from this

rotic pudding poem. So stands Doe Citadel, a virgin post and captured, though begirt with many a host like other virgin places that I want and captured. Yet because a sailed not smoking, it stands and seems to dare the worst the storm of strife, not Cara when it burst. And youthful Dottie Dotty is his nickname for this boy fairly firmly stands his ground, unflinching. Still he's swallowed full of pound. What I like about this poem is how subtle. It is, very subtle, very subtle, No, not at all.

One of the things that's tough here is it's very hard to define when you're talking about a lot of the relationships in this period. A lot of them are profoundly abuse of A lot of them would be considered pedophilia today. There's also a lot of these young men for whom like they consider this to be like kind of their homosexual and this is like the only kind of relationship they get they get to have that is

that is not going to get them in trouble. So it's really fucking complex, Like the dynamics of sexuality in the British Navy in this period is a complex story that we're not doing enough justice too. I think it is fair to say that it definitely seems James Brooke is more on the pedophile end of things, right, he is.

He has a marked preference for fourteen to seventeen year old boys, and while they may be considered adults at the time, there's a massive power and balance and what he's doing is very sketchy and I would heart you abusive, although a number of these boys right very positively about him, which is not unheard of an abusive situations, especially given the socio dynamics at the time, and he's grooming all these kids, you know, he's grooming exactly very complicated situations.

But I do think it's fair to say it seems likely he was sexually and emotionally abusing these kids, even if some of them went on to think fondly of him because he showered them with gifts. You know, I'm starting to think he's not a great guy. Yeah, scout, masterly fumbling, you know that that's what's going on here. James dedicated another poem entirely to Charlie's pimple's um and actively it's pretty bad. I'm wanna put this to a song. I want to I want to hear the lyrics. I'm

gonna I wanna make a song out of it. I did not come across that poem, and I don't really want to. The pudding one was uncomfortable enough. Um. He encouraged the boy to join him in Sarah Wakin serve in the colonial government, and Charlie did eventually do this. To try and win over Charlie's parents, James Brooke gave his mother a golden bracelet and his father promises that he would put away five thousand pounds in a trust

for the boy. He never actually did this, but Charlie went to join him in the administration of Sarah Wak Corneyway didn't do it. He's such a fucking piece of ship. Is a giant piece of ship. For the next twenty years, James Brook faced few threats to his sovereignty. One of the most serious was a parliamentary inquiry and a trial conducted in Singapore over the massacre of pirates during his

his his rule. And the story here is complex because the specific series of events, the specific massacre of pirates that James has tried for, is actually one of the cases which he was probably justified. He and he and his men are attacked by pirates. They killed like a hundred of them, but they let the rest go and choose not to capture or massacre them because he doesn't

want to. He knows that that will like incite more of an insurgency against him, which is in the broad strokes of his time ruling Sarah Wak one of the less unethical things he did. Um. But a group of kind of anti colonial activists in the Parliament decided to try him for this and basically claim that he was massacurring civilians and in the guys of fighting piracy, which he absolutely did in his career, but probably not in

the specific case they tried him over. Right. It's a very it's a frustrating situation of like, you're right about this man, you picked the wrong specific incident to get angry about him over you know, um, And yeah, uh it was, And a lot of it's mixed up also in there's genuine anti colonialists who rightly see James Brooke as immoral and what he's doing as immoral and want

to fight him. There's also a lot of selfish people involved, like he he fires his agent at some point and his agent gets involved in the campaign against him to like get revenge against him. So it's there's a lot going on here and his his fired agent creates something called the Aborigines Protection Society to drum up public outrage about James Brooks crimes and a lot of what this says our lies, but their lies that are like, he's making up things that James Brooke did for real and

they just didn't get evidence of over there. So it's again, it's very messy. It's like the Project Lincoln of the time. Yeah, exactly, it's yeah, it's that's exactly the the Lincoln project of colonialism that you guys aren't wrong. You're also not doing this for the right reason. Yeah, and one of you was probably also a pedophile, as was the case with the Project Lincoln guy. So James survived the trial and was eventually acquitted, but the process was brutal and savaged

his reputation back home. It seems fair to say that both the specifics of the outrages he was accused of in Parliament were often inaccurate and unfair, and that the actual terrible things he did and wasn't tried for more than justified the public outrage he he finally received. So I guess that's good. I don't know, I don't know

how to classify that public turns against him for a while. Yeah, yes they do, um so, But this doesn't he he doesn't get convicted and the last great challenge to Brooke rule in sarah Wak would finally turn the public back on his side. Unfortunately it came in eighteen fifty six. As I noted last episode, James had always hated Chinese people, but he had recognized at they had a lot like

they He brought them in. He encouraged their immigration into sarah Walk, which fundamentally changed the ethnic dynamics of the country. Because he wanted them to improve the local economy, he wanted to tax them, and he knew that they would like if he invited these Chinese people who owned businesses and wanted to set up trading businesses in his country,

it would improve his tax base. Um And, because he was so constantly short on money, even though he was very racist against the Chinese, James came to rely on them entirely for his like the taxing that funded his reign.

He mainly did this by taxing opium heavily, which led to the smuggling of opium into sarah Walk, which led to a thriving population of the Triads and sarah Wak, so he creates the space for organized crime by bringing all these people in and then taxing opium heavily, which creates a market for untaxed i legal opium, which brings gangs in, you know, like that. Like that, that's the

process that occurs here. Unrest built and built, and since by the geopolitical situation at the time, there's a bunch of conflicts between the British and Chinese government rents and the fact that a British man is governing and sarah Wak makes a lot of these particularly these Chinese folks who connected the Triads angry, and eventually a plan starts to form within a segment of the Chinese community to murder the Rajah and his officers and to take control

of sarah Wak for themselves. And part of why they think they can do this is they watch James do it, you know, like it doesn't seem like give me that hard to kill you, like you don't have a standing mill. They we can just kill you take power like you did. Uh. Now, Brooks had an intelligence agency basically had like people keeping an ear to the ground, and they hear about this

plan to coop him before it could be executed. He's actually away um in in a Brunei at the time when they find evidence of this plot, and one of his officers orders the garrison called up, gets like a bunch of soldiers called into action, hands out guns to them, and man's a bunch of forts around the capital and for a little while, this forces the plotters to delay taking action because they don't want to attack a bunch

of fully armed forts and stuff. So James comes back from Brunei in eighteen fifty seven and he finds all of these four manned and his soldiers on high alert, and this makes him furious because it's expensive to keep a garrison active, and he basically yells at his officer, what the funk are you doing? This Chinese threats thing sounds like bullshit. Send these guys home and lock their guns back up. As soon as this happens, six hundred armed Chinese rebels attack, so his luck finally ran out.

H Yeah, and this makes it clear that it had been more luck than brilliance, because this is a bad call. So the rebels came in the night, and when the attack started, James panicked and hid in his room. A servant who realized that like they were under attack, tried to rescue him, and James strangled the man. Then he watched through the window while one of the eighteen year old boys he'd collected and made an officer. This is an English boy that he liked, you know, one of

his boys who he brought to Sarah with him. They the Chinese catch this kid and mistake him for James, and he watches from his room while this kid beheaded and has his head shoved on a pike in the front yard of his of his capital. So James abandons his servant and everyone else and escapes through his bathroom window and runs away to go hide in the jungle. The insurrection was initially successful. Chinese fighters took over the courthouse and most of the capital. They butchered many of

Brooks officers and local loyal leaders. James Brooke hid terrified, well, a brave gup group of his Malay followers fought back, launching an insurgent campaign against the Chinese occupiers. European writers would later give James Brooke credit for this, saying he inspired the resistance even though he was again hiding in the jungle. At this point of time. The truth is that he did nothing. Were an alliance of Malays Di

x and some European evangelists. There's like a church leader who picks up a bunch of guns and goes to fight against this. Uh insurrection actually fought back and forced the Chinese forces out of the capital. A general massacre followed, and this was probably incensed by a lot of the racism that James Brooke had inculcated against the Chinese during his reign, and about fifteen hundred of sarah four thousand Chinese citizens were massacred in an orgy of blood letting

in thievery. So that's cool. Yeah, Well I don't cool. I mean it's not great. It's not great. Not great. Um. So, this insurrection didn't succeed in destroying Brooke ragin over Sarah Walk, but it did break James. The experience aged him rapidly, and within a few years he was all but unable to handle the demands of Raja hood. In eighteen sixty three, James handed over formal control of Sarah Walk, who his

adopted heir, a guy named Charles Brooke. Now Charles was not actually James's son, as James had little interest in breeding, but he this is the young boy basically starts as a young boy who he gives control over two and and James or Charles adopts the name Brooke and becomes like his adopted son. Um. James would technically remain the White Raja for the last five years of his life, but in reality he fled sarah Wak for England, where he lived out his last days doing the thing he

did best, obsessing over young boys. Nigel bar Early writes quote in eighteen sixty six, he read in the newspaper of a thirteen year old youth, Samuel Bray, who had saved a friend from drowning in Devonport, and he became unhealthily excited. He traced the lad sent him half a sovereign and tried to open a correspondence with him. Oh man, he never never gives up. God, this guy he just

you know what it does. He does the stuff that like, you know, that cramping feeling you get in your gut when you hear or see something so douchey, like these douche cramps. Like that's like what I get from a lot of this guy's actions. It's just like he's just goes a little extra and he's just such a creep with these young guys. He's a he's real creep. It's not good. It is what happens. Um on Christmas Eve, this is the best part. In Christmas Eve of eighteen

sixty seven, James Brooke has a stroke. Uh. This leads to a series of strokes which ends his life in June of eighteen sixty eight. So that's good. That's the first thing he's done that I fully approved of. I'm torn is a radical doctor. I never approve of strokes, but I mean, if you're you know this in this case, and it's not the worst stroke, that the worst stroke. How old was he? Jesus, he would have been like sixty's for the age just a long time. And especially

considering the ship. This guy gets wounded a bunch of times, he said, the tropics. You know, he gets a bunch of illnesses. Um. So this is the end of James Brooke, but not, of course, the end of the Brook dynasty. Charlie Brooke, otherwise known as Raja Charles, lost no time in going to war to expand brooke control of brune I. He justified his conquests as a crusade to end the

barbaric practice of head hunting. Now, if you remember, James Brooke, his predecessor, had encouraged head hunting and had used like he had paid his diet soldier by being like, you guys can take as many heads as you want, because like having access to a bunch of heads like you would like give them off in marriages and stuff. They're a symbol of your virility in this culture. So James takes advantage of that so he doesn't have to pay

them in money. And Charlie then uses like, there's all these head hunters here for some reason, we have to fight a bunch of wars to get rid of the head on Dinga and that's how he expands his domain. So weird, this thing happens over and over in the British and you'll find people today who will kind of whitewash British crimes of imperialism with stuff like, well, but they stopped the barbaric practice of women throwing themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands in India, which is

a horrible thing. It's bad for it to be the norm for women to commit suicide when their husbands die. I would agree. The British weren't fighting that because it was the right thing to do. It was used as a justification for power graps, just like head hunting is used by Charles, and just like the anti slavery crusades, where uses the justification for a bunch of fucked up shit. Um. So, Charles blamed head hunting on the local women because it was kind of a sign of your virility if you

captured heads. So he uses that to blame the women for basically what he he He not only conquers a bunch of land to stop headhunting, he orders sexual violence against Dyak women in order to punish them for like supporting head hunting. Yeah, he's He's worse. He's much worse. He's very bad. In his last years of ruling, after the Chinese Insurrection, Rasha James had repeatedly attempted to convince the British government to annex sarah Wak and incorporated into

the Empire. Officially, the government had never quite bitten on this offer, and once Rossa Charles took power, he made it clear that the Brook dynasty had no further desire to sell out to the Motherland. Instead, Charles pursued expansion at the expense of the Sultan of Brunei, which is again now a British protectorate. This led to a conflict with the newly established British North Borneo Company, which was kind of running Brunei and was not interested in letting

the Brooks take over. Now through a series of military campaigns, Raja Charles took over a region called the Limbang in eighteen ninety, but he failed to conquer Brunei itself because of the British, like the north Borneo Company um. And this really frustrated Charles because he wanted to control Brunei.

He wanted to conquer everything, but he can't because of this British company and the fact that the British north Borneo Company had stopped him from taking Brunei leads Charles, who was an imperialist Raja of a conquered land, to become an anti imperialism crusader. Rebranding Yeah, he publishes well he is again the White Raja of Sarah. He publishes a pamphlet um titled Queries Past, Present in Future, in which he critiques the specific sort of imperialism that ran

counter to the kind of imperialism he supported. It's a remarkable document because in eighteen ninety this guy, who literally ruled a conquered Asian nation based on the power of Western guns, accurately diagnoses the problems of imperialism. Quote. It is something dreadful to contemplate, and yet too true that nearly, if not all, of our magnificently built colonial towns and colonial developments of every description have their foundations upon the

bones of the aborigines of the soil. One asks if the benefits bestowed upon their success are sufficient to justify such sacrifices. I am fully aware that there are many occasions when bloodshed cannot be avoided, and that a certain amount of severity is necessary in governing all races, white or dark. But as we rule at present, I fail to see any hope of improvement respecting the real elevation

of the natives by intellectual culture. If we look upon the sad side of the picture of the making of our immense empire, we should pause a moment and ask if there will not be a day of reckoning in the near far and the not far off future. Do all them yet so like that, that's not unreasoned, that's very accurate. Actually he doesn't see that, you're just as much a part of this as the British North Thornio Company.

But it's accurate. Russia. Charles goes on to list British imperial possessions that had been won by conquest and aptly diagnosed the evils perpetuated, perpetuated in those places, quote New Zealand, years of warfare to subdue as finer races ever on trod God's Earth. What are they now? Australia Mostly he's talking about the Aboriginals here Australia mostly killed off by native police raised for this purpose, the Aborigines being found

somewhat dangerous to Europeans gold workers and farmers. India, frequent collisions and battles occur, the interior still being much unsubdued, and its inhabitants very strong, Burma fighting occasional battles, and the natives put to the sword when the country was annexed. So he's again very accurately calling out the genocides of

Aboriginal people, thing about this, that's weird. Yeah, while order ordering campaigns of sexual violence against the women of the country in order to stop a cultural practice that his direct successor had. Man, I want this to have I shouldn't say this as a doctor, but I want him to stroke too. Yeah, yeah, you do, you do? You want them all kind of a couple of more Strokes

could have really handled things well from Malaysia here. So, after again very accurately describing the evils of imperialism Russia, Charles botched the diagnosis of their cause in a profoundly self lagrandizing way. The problem, he said, was not imperialism, it was the fact that quote, the right men to deal with the natives are not chosen, and such men should be very carefully picked. So Charles Brooke was not against white men ruling foreign lands for profit, but they

had to be the right white men him. He got that from James. From James, Yeah, yeah, he did. Now. Raja Charles replaced the courtroom chairs his adopted father had set up with an iron bench, which he considered a symbol of the immutable power of his law. And he was, in general a more toxic version of everything his adopted father had been. And while Raja James had failed to actually spawn, and he recognized descendants Russia. Charles took seriously

his royal imperative to make heirs to the throne. Three of his children survived to adulthood, including a man who would succeed him as the third Brook, Raja Charles Viner Brook and I'm gonna quote from the Daily Beast here. In nineteen eleven, Charles's son Viner married Sylvia Brett, who would eventually embraced the crude title. One headline writer gave her the Queen of the head Hunters. When Sylvia first arrived in sarah Walk with her brother, he found the

place very different from what I had anticipated. Far safer, far more advanced, far happier, far more civilized, a very happy country, guided by European brained, but untouched by European vulgarity. The magic of it all possessed me. Sylvia would recall sites sounded sense there was in this abundant land everything which my heart had yearned for. Now. Eventually, Sylvia's self dramatizing streak eclipsed her aesthetic sense, playing up in eleven

books and countless headlines. The exotic anomaly of these British blokes running a jungle kingdom, The rainy Sylvia ended up downplaying the progress that Rasha's in their country made. She and her husband had also had numerous affairs and encouraged

their daughters to be equally libertine. The three princesses, Leonora, Elizabeth and Nancy, nicknamed Gold Pearl and Baba by reporters, dressed like quote tarts, had flamboyant escapades with numerous men and married eight times, including to a band leader and a boxer. Thank God I haven't had four daughters, Byner claimed, what a family? So yeah. One of his daughters, Mary's a jazz musician, the other Mary's a wrestler, um and

the daughter who marries a wrestler. Princess Baba travels to Hollywood to try and sell screenplay based on the life of James Brooke. Princess Baba also repeatedly floated a plan to buy land next to the Sarah Walk and turn it into a rival kingdom called Baba Land. Fun people. Yeah. The Brooks of the twentieth century enjoyed little of the positive pr that had turned James Brooke into a celebrity. Much of this had to do with their libertine natures.

They're kind of sucking around and getting wasted constantly. At one point, Rainey Sylvia was found dancing with two prostitutes in a nightclub and then taking them back to her palace to have their portraits painted. A visiting MP from Westminster wrote that, quote a more undignified woman, it would be hard to find. It was obvious to even casual observers that the Brooks had turned sarah Wak, a land with more than half a million citizens, into their private playground.

One critic noted with disgusted that quote everything in this obscure little country bears the stamp of slackness and hopeless disorder. The brook dynasty's end began with World War Two. One of the benefits of being ruled over by the Brooks was supposed to be the fact that sarah walk would

received the protection of the English Crown. British ships and soldiers had regularly fought in sarah Wak to put down internal rebellions and fight pirates, after all, but as soon as the country was menaced by a real foreign threat the Japanese Empire, British guns were nowhere to be seen. When sarah Wak was liberated at the start of the war. The destruction it had suffered was too extensive for the

Brook family to afford to rebuild. They finally handed over control of their domain to Great Britain, who paid the family two hundred thousand pounds for the Kingdom Sarah Wak would mark the very last colonial acquisition of the British Empire. The country finally received its independence in nineteen sixty three and joined a federation with Malaya, North Borneo and Singapore. The last white Rajah and Rainey had an uncomfortable retirement

in England. Sylvia hated being quote short of our glory and faced with the necessity of adjusting to a world in which we were no longer emperors but merely two ordinary, aging people, two misfits in the changing pattern of modern times. Oh my god, this family sucks. They suck, and they would rule from more than a century god well into based on dumb luck. So annoying. Yeah, all this stuff with this family, I mean, has this has this guy

been popularized? The original James Brooke? Was he ever popularized in like popular culture? Was there movies made of him or anything? I'm assuming still to this day people probably only the more common popular cultures speaks of him. Well right, yeah, I think so. I mean, even like the stuff you'll find written recently, articles will point out that like he was a relatively benevolent ruler and he did this and he did that, um, which I don't think is fair.

You could argue more benevolent than the East India Trading Company, which perpetuated a genocide that killed thirty million people. Yes, yeah, a very low bar. Oh there is um. Edge of the World stars Hollywood actor John Rice Myers as Brooke, Dominic Monahan as Colonel Arthur Crookshank and Hong Kong actress Josie Hoe as Brooks, former of Madeline Limb. So yeah, the movie Raja. Oh I guess Raj is the movie?

Um god? Oh it was retitled The Edge of the World. Okay, oh this is being made in Oh my god, this is yeah, that that February. This is not Oh my god, what are you people doing? Stop? They've given they made a Hong Kong actress his his love interest, the love interest of a man who was almost undeniably at least engaged in questionable sexual relationships with teenagers. And it worst a a straight up pedophile predator, like desperate for they had to go to this, I mean the hot God

damn it. Wait wait, god damn who who's starring? Is him? What's his name? Dominic Monahan, John Rice Myers, John Rice Meyers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's yeah, I mean they made him hot. God damn it. I'll put I'll put a picture in here. Fucking hell. Why did they they did this? I mean, it was okay when they did this for um, for um David Koresh because he was hot. But this is just No one questions that, No one questions, No one questions how hot David Koresh was. But I guarantee you fucking James

Brooke was not this hot. Look at it, look at and they get hired an Irish actor when in reality, yeah, yeah, that's not fair. Oh no, God damn it. They okay. The synopsis on IMDb is at the epic tale of Sir James Brooke, the British adventurer who became King of sarah Look in the eighteen forties and embarked on a lifelong crusade to in piracy and head hunting. This is going to be awesome. Can we just get together, Let's let's do that. Fuck this movie and fuck James Brooke

the British Empire. Yeah, agreed. Also check out the song Fuck the British Army if you're if you're feeling feeling more of those vibes. Um, oh, there's some good news. The family of George Floyd reached a twenty seven million dollar settlement with the City of Minneapolis in a wrongful death suit. All right, that does kind of speak well for what I hope will happen to Derek Chauvin in the trial. Um, well, got it. You've got some plug

doubles to plug before we write out. Yeah, I should promote our show a little bit better than I did last time, or my co host will hurt me. So we have a podcast called The House of Pod. It's like a medical podcast, but it's like pretty relatable and it's not just for doctors. So, um, we talk we cover medical topics, but we also talk about things, um like you know, systemic racism and medicine, sexual harassment in medicine.

We try to cover a lot of different topics that we think are important, and we have guests ranging from like the world expert physicians, like the best doctors in the world, to you know, Robert Evans so you should check it out. I think you'll like it. Um find this at the House of Pod, at Twitter and anywhere you do your podcasting. Yeah, check it out. Um Uh, yell at the people making the movie about James Brooke, um,

because it seems like a bad idea. What the world needs now is for us all to idolize a man who conquered an entire country for his own self aggrandizement, paid his mercenary local soldiers in the heads of their enemies, and then gained a reputation as fighting head hunting. Um that's great. I mean he did, like he had a couple of anti head hunting like crusades and stuff throughout his career, But when he needed the people who were head hunting to fight for him, he paid them in heads.

So I don't I'm not gonna call him an opponent of head hunting. Um. I just I just don't see how in this day and age, people are still buying the story. You know, Yeah, you know it's because, like funck Man, I I it's hard. Not like I was raised on a lot of impre like I read a

lot like King Solomon's minds and stuff. I've talked about this someone episode, these books about like the the age of exploration and adventure, and like there's always been like I've made some of the decisions I've made in my life because I wanted to have, you know, adventures in places that that seemed exotic and strange and unfamiliar to me. It's a powerful impulse, particularly within our culture. So you there's a lot of desire for these guys to have

actually been heroes for what they did do have been heroic. Um. And in part because it justifies further colonial adventures, and in part because just people like a good adventure story. But I think it's pretty harmful. I think it's pretty harmful. Yeah. You know, I'm not mad at everyone who contributes in a tiny ways to Orientalism, you know. I mean sometimes it leads to people learning more about these cultures and you know, more about like you know, Iron for example.

So it's not always bad, um, but it kind of gets it does get so easy for it to go bad. Yeah, I mean, it can in some cases be so of the seed that leads someone to an actual nuanced understanding of both like a different culture and and that can be positive. Um. But more often I think it leads to James brook You know James Brooke. Um, yeah, it's not great. He's not great, but yeah he's not hot, not as hot as they're making him, not nearly as

hot as David Karrett. Um. So yeah, I guess if I'm going to ask my listeners to do anything, it's think about David Koresh's unbelievably cut abs, just shredded abs. Then check out the House of hod Um, or do both at the same time. You can do both at the same time. We may talk about his abs on the show. We may talk about his abs. Abs are an important part of health um And here's at the end of the show.