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At first sight
Bengkulu seems an odd place for a trading post. It's situated on the
west coast of Sumatra, maybe three quarter of the way down the mammoth
island. Head due west and you won't hit landfall until north of Zanzibar
in West Africa. For the East India Company, that early London based
multi national looking east it seems a very strange choice indeed but in
the early 18th Century this small isoloated port in the whole of the
Spice Islands. They had retreated their with their tails between their
legs after the Dutch had kicked them out of
Banten
towards the end of the previous century.
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The British had been touching base here since the 1600's, buying
pepper and trying to offload Indian silks but cut off from the
main trading routes by first the Portuguese and then the Dutch.
They called it Fort York and they had some 300 kilometres of
relatively friendly coast to themselves. |
Additional Reading:
In The Footsteps of
Stamford Raffles - Nigel Barley
The Honourable Company - John Keay |
Hardly surprising of
course, Bengkulu was remote from the main spiceries but for decades the
British stubbornly plodded along there while looking for a way back into
the main area where they could link their India and China trade. They
would of course eventually find
Singapore
but that was a century away yet and would come only after other such
islands had been looked at, not least Penang. And of course the man who
is credited with founding Singapore, Stamford Raffles, spent several
years in this outpost bemoaning his fate and upsetting the Dutch. The
climate was malarial and the traffic was insufficient to lure the
smarter traders: it became a warehouse for the washed up and the
desparate.
One such individual was
appointed Joseph Collett who was appointed Governor in 1712. This guy
was a Baptist with a coterie of women and a knack of finding himself in
debt. So desperate the poor man must have been he scrimped and scrounged
the necessary money to secure the position (much as senior police
officers do today allegedly) but his dream came true and he became lord
over all he surveyed. Which wasn't a lot!
Still, he kept busy. He
replaced Fort York with a more sturdy Fort Marlborough and was even
showing a profit after a couple of years. This didn't stop him bemoaning
the 'quality' of people who were sent to the outpost. Mr. Ballard drank
himself to death within a few weeks of arriving there while some guy
called Eaton, no doubt upon hearing less than flowery accounts of his
new posting was arrested for mutiny, piracy and murder even before he'd
landed.
Collett must have
impressed his masters back in London for after seeing out 4 years he was
transferred to Madras, a more than suitable position for this one time
bankrupt. Bengkulu failed to prosper and within months head office was
bemoaning the lack of pepper shipments, its supposed raison d'etre.
There were tales of woe from the Bengkulu traders aplenty and matching
retorts from London: oh how those traders must have hated mail day! One
report stated trouble with the natives. There was no sympathy from
London; London replied that oppression 'though it lie and fester awhile
will at last break out into a dangerous if not incurable sore.' Promises
were made of fine new plantations being developed but as ship after ship
returned empty 'good words will no longer go down well with us' roared
across the oceans, the venom all too clear.
A particular target for
London, as if the lack of pepper wasn't enough, was the drinks bill,
something familiar no doubt to many a CEO today. Collett had boasted how
he's turned rampaging, beer guzzling delinquents into angelic cherubs
who never missed church services and were tucked up in bed by 10 pm. The
saintly Collett must have had some leaving do if the drinks consumed in
his final month is anything to go by. The total from this July 1716
bender far exceeded the export of pepper for the previous 12 months and
it is a no brainer to imagine the rage as the Finance Officer dictated
the following:
74 dozen and a half bottles of claret,
24 dozen and half Burton Ale and Pale beer, 2 pipes and 42 gallons of
Maderia wine, 6 flasks of Persian wine, 274 bottles of toddy, 3 Leaguers
and 3 quarters of Batavia arrack and 164 gallons of Goa toddy
by 19 people in one month!
Little wonder that the Company replied 'It is a wonder to us that any of
you live six months and that there has not been more quarrellings and
duelings amongst you'.
It seems the locals
weren't over enamoured by the activities of the bevying British and in
1619 they attacked and burnt the fort, killing some 30 as they headed
for the open seas to escape. A couple of years later after negotiations
with the local rulers the British, showing that dogged, tenacious spirit
of backing the underdog, returned and life carried on.
In 1760 the French seized
Bengkulu for a while as part of their efforts to raise their profile in
the region but the British soon returned again. In 1807 keeping up a
fine tradition the British Governor managed to upset the locals and was
beheaded for his troubles. They started getting serious about this time
though, looking for a more strategic base for their Asian trade and in
1786 hit upon Penang. Bengkulu's days were numbered. In the wake of the
Napoleonic defeat in Europe the English and Dutch realigned their Asian
territories and the Dutch handed over Melaka in exchange for Bengkulu
but before they did so Stamford raffles was transferred there after his
position in java had been rendered redundant by the British returning it
to the Dutch. Not really flavour of the month he was appointed Governor
and while he was not overly happy in the place, he lost several children
there, he set about the job with customary gusto explored the flora and
fauna in the district, discovering the world's largest flower among
other things as well as visiting the offshore islands such as Mentawi
and Nias. His eyes were always elsewhere though.
It was in Bengkulu he
ended his Asian days just after Singapore. Tragedy was to strike him in
the place where so much of his family had died. Weeks were spent loading
the ship with all he had collected from his travels. His voluminous
records, his botanical and anthropological notes, his stuffed animals.
Sadly the ship not far out of port went up in smoke and took all he had
to the bottom of the sea. A fitting end maybe to the money and lives
that were swallowed up here.
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