CHINESE SOCIETY AND THE DUTCH TO THE FIRST KONGSI WAR

At its height Montrado, a town between Pontianak and Sambas, had an estimated Chinese population of 40,000. John Chin in “The Sarawak Chinese” said that Lo Fang Pai, a Kaiying Hakka scholar left China for “Nanyang” in 1772 and soon formed a group called the “Brotherhood of 18” comprising trusted members from the community.

“Kapitan” Liew Shan Bang

In 1775 Lo and his followers seized a gold mine at Mandor in the Sambas district which had been started by Taipu Hakkas and continued to pay taxes to the Sultan of Sambas. Lo gained power by helping the Sultan suppress several local uprisings. He declared himself as “President of Great China” and was recognized as the first Chinese “Rajah” of Western Borneo.

In 1799 when the Dutch took over authority of Borneo territories under the Dutch East India Company, they began to exert authority in West Borneo by signing separate treaties with the Sultans of Pontianak, Mempawah and Sambas to enable them to have better control of the Chinese kongsis.

The Chinese Kongsis rebelled starting a protracted war with the Dutch which lasted for 35 years. By 1820 the Ta Kong kongsi in Montrado had taken over from Lan Fang as the kingpins and posed a serious threat to the Dutch.

In the ensuing war against kongsis who had sided with the Dutch, Ta Kong took their revenge on the San Tiow Kou kongsi led by Liew Shan Pang (Liew 340 Shan Bang later led the Bau Chinese Insurrection of 1857) who fled across the border to Bau. Spenser St John in “Life in the Forests…” said that when Brooke first arrived in Kuching in 1848 there were about 600 Chinese under the protection of the “Santei Kiu” (San-tiao-Kou or “Twelve Company”) under the leadership of Liew Shang Pang (Liew had 11 partners in the Kongsi).

Liew, a Hakka from Pemangkat at the estuary of the Sambas River, was said to have migrated to Bau with a group comprising mainly agriculturalists. By the early 1850s more miners came to Sarawak in large numbers, either by sea or across the border at Lundu district, the nearest land entry point to Bau from Sambas.

With Bau as the “principal Chinese settlement” the Hakkas of “San Tiow Kou” spread out and established villages in Tondong and the Batu Kawa area and by 1856 had already opened up padi fields and vegetable gardens at Sungai Tengah, Matang. St John said that as the Hakka farmers of Sungai Tengah became wealthier, they were able to employ the poorer Bau gold miners as their labourers.

He added: “I must say that these Chinese are not the pure emigrants from China, but the half-breed descendants of the early settlers who obtained Malay and Dayak wives and are more warlike in their habits than the pure Chinese and many have the characteristics of the aborigines.”