Colliding Discourses: Western Land Laws and Native Customary Rights in North Borneo, 1881-1918

Our readers are so well acquainted with the outlines of the enterprise which has been entered into by the (Company)...that it is unnecessary to recapitulate the struggles for possession, the difficulties of planting a young Government firmly on its feet, and the endeavours to introduce usages, laws and institutions of a civilised nation into a country which tradition tells us was formerly only a happy hunting ground for pirates and the orang utan. (1) This article explores the early days of colonial rule in present-day Sabah under the North Borneo Chartered Company (hereafter referred to as 'the Company'), focusing on the imposition of Western-based land laws as a source of colonial power and legitimisation over local society. Although colonial power as expressed through the land laws was fragmentary and open to contestation -- both within and outside the Company -- there is no denying the impact of these laws and policies on the landscape and the lives of the natives who inhabited it. Native rights to land were incrementally reduced with each new colonial law and policy, while European rights to land were increasingly privileged. These events occurred as the Company endeavoured to transform the land into a marketable commodity based on plantation agriculture. The article investigates some of the problems that arose from the imposition of Western legal principles concerning land ownership in North Borneo. This analysis is divided into two sections. First, drawing primarily on administrative reports and diaries of Company administrators, the key conflicts that arose from the introduction of the new land laws are detailed. Next, tobacco plantations will serve as a case study within North Borneo to illustrate the discursive and political strategies through which the Company administrators and the European planters justified their intervention in native land matters and articulated their vision of 'appropriate' land management. The aim of this analysis is to throw light on the ideological foundations of official attitudes and discourses towards native customary law and land use systems in North Borneo, using archival data to demonstrate how law was a primary site of colonial control and power over local people. At the theoretical level, this analysis illustrates how the invention of knowledge is a powerful form of state rule. It must be emphasised that native peoples and their laws, customs and land use practices are explored here through the views of the administrators, as it was the latter rather than the former who wrote the voluminous minutes, memorandums and reports. Seen through the eyes of administrators, the natives represented consumers of natural resources and actual or potential taxpayers and were viewed within the framework of law and order. (2) There is only fragmentary evidence that rarely gives a clear picture of how Company policies were received at the local level during the period prior to World War Two. As a resul t, this article is primarily a study of the attitudes and policies of the Company in North Borneo. The beginnings of the North Borneo Chartered Company, 1877-81 In 1877 the acquisition of North Borneo by the Chartered Company was negotiated on two fronts. The Sultan of Brunei controlled the western areas of North Borneo, while the Sultan of Sulu claimed ownership of the eastern side (see Map 1). Both Sultanates had been long-time participants in the lucrative trade with China, but by the late nineteenth century they were suffering from weakened authority and were impoverished as a result of European commercial competition. The Brunei Sultan and his Court were largely bankrupt, lacking the necessary revenue to pay retainers and maintain their influence over the territory. (4) On 29 December 1877 Baron von Overbeck, an Austrian businessman from Hong Kong, met with Brunei's Sultan Abdul Mumin and one of his chief ministers, the Pengiran Temonggong. …