Colony of Sarawak

A private kingdom in Borneo ruled by an English family for a century, then handed to Britain over the objections of its own council. James Brooke, an adventurer with an armed schooner, helped the Sultan of Brunei suppress a revolt in 1841 and was rewarded with the governorship of Sarawak, making himself its rajah - a personal sovereignty with no company and no crown behind it. Three White Rajahs ruled in succession, expanding the territory at Brunei's expense until it was many times its original size. Their rule was paternalist and idiosyncratic: they suppressed headhunting and piracy, restricted European settlement and plantation agriculture deliberately, governed through Malay and Dayak chiefs, and kept the country deliberately underdeveloped by the standards of neighbouring colonies. Charles Brooke issued his own stamps and currency. Japan occupied Sarawak in 1941. The third rajah ceded it to Britain in 1946 amid a dispute over whether he could, which the Council Negri approved by a narrow margin and which prompted an anti-cession movement and the assassination of a British governor in 1949. It joined Malaysia in 1963. Kuching was the capital throughout. Sarawak covers about 124 thousand square kilometres, larger than the whole Malay peninsula. Its interior holds Iban, Bidayuh, Orang Ulu and other peoples alongside Malays and Chinese. Mulu's caves include the largest cave chamber in the world. The Brooke museum in Kuching is among the oldest in Southeast Asia. The state keeps special immigration powers within Malaysia to this day, controlling entry from the peninsula.

• Type: Polity
• Government: Colonial administration