Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 02-25-06 18:35
The arrival of Hakkas at Bau, Sarawak
As far back as to the mid 18th century in the West Borneo (Kalimantan 加
里曼丹) Island there were about thirty to forty thousand Hakka Chinese working as gold diggers. At that time Kalimantan was under the jurisdiction of the Sultan of Brunei. The Hakka Chinese organized themselves into companies or Kongsi (公司). The most famous ones were the Da Gang Kongsi (大港公司)﹐ San Tiao Gou Kongsi (三條溝公司), and the one founded in 1777 by the famous Mei Xian (梅縣) Hakka, Luo Fang Bo (羅芳伯) called Lan Fang Da Tang Zhi (蘭芳大唐制), and many others. According to the historical records there were about 150,000 Chinese in the whole of Borneo Island. About 90, 000 of them were in the gold mining regions in the Western part of Kalimantan and the majority of these 90,000 Chinese were Hakka Chinese.
Stamford Raffles worked for the East India Company. He convinced the company to establish a settlement in the Straits of Malacca. The settlement would serve as a port of call for the British ships en route from India to China. In 1819, Stamford Raffles landed on the tiny island of Singapore. Raffles established a trading post on the island. In 1824, Stamford succeeded in getting the Sultan of Johore to ceded Singapore outright to the British.
In the 1820s the Dutch Colonial Authorities in the Indonesian archipelago
began to penetrate into West Kalimantan. The Dutch implemented their famous policy of "To divide and rule". They instigated the Chinese to fight against the Chinese, Kongsi against Kongsi and creating antagonism between the natives and the Chinese. Many Hakkas gold-mine-workers, in order to avoid trouble, relocated themselves
to Bau (Shi Long Men 石隆門) in Sarawak and the present day Second Division of Sarawak to continue their mining and to undertake agricultural activities.
Liu Shan Bang (劉善邦) was from Lu Feng county (陸豐縣) in Guangdong province (廣東省). He was employed by Luo Fang Bo Kongsi. In 1830 he relocated himself to Bau. He established a company called Yi Xing Kongsi (義興公司) at Mao Shan (帽山) or Mao hill to mine for gold. Later he renamed Yi Xing Kongsi to Shi Er Kongsi (十二公司). During the period from 1840 to 1850 there were two relocations of workers from the San Tiao Gou Kongsi to Bau. Altogether there were more than 10,000 workers arrived at Bau and almost all of them ended up working in Shi Er Kongsi owned by Liu Shan Bang. They were Hakkas mostly from Mei Xian (梅縣), Hui Zhou (惠州), Xin An (新安), and Hopo (河婆).
In about 1850, the workers from the Da Gang Kongsi (大港公司) relocated
themselves to Ying Ji Li Li (英吉里利 ? in English) in the Second Division
of Sarawak. They established a company called Shi Wu Fen Kongsi (十五分公
司) or Fifteen Partners Company. The head of this company was Huang Cheng Ji (黃成際), a Hopo Hakka from Ma Tou (河婆馬頭人) in Guangdong province (廣東省). At one time the company employed more than 500 workers.
These Hakkas, relocated themselves from the three companies to the Fist
and Second Divisions of Sarawak, became the Hakka pioneers in Sarawak.
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan
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