Trip Through North Borneo (Sabah) 1907

An advertisement for A Trip through British North Borneo in The Erain January 1907 offered some insights into the production history of the film. It referred to this new series ‘by courtesy of the British North Borneo Company’ and reported that ‘this unique and beautiful subject contains the best photographic results of two expeditions organised and conducted by the Charles Urban Trading Co. Ltd., and illustrates the quaint manners and strange customs of the natives of British North Borneo’. A number of the scenes listed within this film – for example ‘Panorama of the Padas River’ and ‘First Trading of Natives with White Man’ – had also appeared in an earlier Urban series released in 1904, and A Trip through British North Borneo appears largely, if not exclusively, to reuse this earlier material (The Era, 19 January 1907, 35).

In 1903 Harold Mease Lomas, a chemist-turned-amateur photographer, had led the ‘Urban Bioscope Expedition through Borneo’, which then travelled through Malay in 1904 (Iversen, 2001, 71). The Urban Films catalogue of June 1905 explained that ‘this expedition was started and equipped by us for the purpose of securing bioscopic records of native life and scenes in the interior of North Borneo’. It noted that the ‘unparalleled idea of taking the bioscope into an almost unknown district of the tropics’ was ‘enthusiastically supported by the Government’ and indeed the trip was financed by the British North Borneo Company, the imperial charter company that administered rule in the country between 1882 and 1946 (Herbert, 2000, 257). A report in the Daily Mail described this as an ‘excellent investment’, as, according to the Company’s managing director in 1904, the photographs and moving pictures ‘had been instrumental in helping the company to raise during the last few years over £500,000’ (The Times, 7 December 1904, 12).

Some of the films were shown at the annual dinner of the British North Borneo Company in December 1903 and again in 1904 (at which ‘guests smoke North Borneo cigars and drink North Borneo coffee’).The Era noted that the films were ‘extremely instructive’ in introducing and explaining the company’s work in an ‘entertaining’ way, while one of the speakers at the dinner in 1904 praised them for highlighting the beautiful scenery and commercial value of the country without ‘the boredom attaching [sic] to long speeches’ (Herbert, 2000, 264). Commenting in January 1904 on the films, The Straits Times noted their appeal to ‘stay at home folk’ who now had the opportunity to behold ‘the descendants of ferocious pirates walking along the iron way’. ‘In the cut-throat days of not long ago they would either have run away or tried to wreck that train’, it continued, ‘Experience has taught them that the native shares in the benefits of British enterprise’. The paper further noted the scenes of local labour ‘under the eyes of Europeans’, which it suggested showed that ‘the natives are eager to work for the British, and when allowed to do so are most zealous’ (Straits Times, 5 January 1904, 5).

Read more and watch the film here: http://colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1419

Shafie Apdal Do You Know Your History ?

Hantu Laut

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"....... George Santayana

Was Sabah invaded by the British?

If one were to relive history and bring us back to the colonial era of European domination of the world one would be surprised of the many different ways, the many different European nations gained control over most of Asia, Africa and the Americas.

They achieved global domination by sending their armies to conquer, or sending their merchants to trade, or gunboat diplomacy, or by sending their people to settle.

European imperialism and dominance controlled almost three-quarters of the world land mass and population in the nineteenth century and controlled much of the world's finance, commerce, intellectual life and military power. 

As they say "the sun never set in the British empire" as it covers the entire world's time zones where the sun rises in one and sets in another. The British Empire encircled the globe then. A good read on the British Empire is a book by Niall Ferguson titled "Empire:How Britain Made The Modern World"

Among the European colonialists, the British were probably the most temperate and civilised, most of her colonies are gained through trade, negotiation, or gunboat diplomacy. Unlike, the Spaniards and Portugese, who were true invaders with gun blazing in many of the countries they took, Britain seldom have to fire their guns to take a country. Only when they are set as colonial masters would they consider any uprising as rebellion and will quell it with armed forces as in the Indian Mutiny and other small and obscured uprisings in their other colonies.

It surprised me that the Federal Minister of Rural Development Shafie Apdal said in a news article that appeared on Page 5 of the Daily Express dated 9 March 2013 that when the British invaded Sabah the heirs to the Sultan Of Sulu whom he says had the rights but did not defend Sabah.

I am not sure which "Buku Sejarah" our minister read. 

The British never invaded Sabah as what the Sultan of Sulu is trying to do now with armed incursion.Not a single shot was fired by the British to take this land. 

The acquisition of Sabah by the British was a long drawn affair that started as a business by private individuals. It was governed by  private individuals and the Chartered Company for almost half a century before the Japanese invasion.

Sabah, was invaded by the Japanese in World War II and became a crown colony and part of the British Empire after being liberated by Britain after the war. 

The only country that ever invaded Sabah was Japan, not  Britain  as inferred by our honourable minister.

I will not delve further into the history book as most educated Sabahans would know the history, except our minister, who may have mistakenly equate the Sulu invasion an "casus belli" (act of war) as justification to regain a territory taken by force in the past.

Sabah was acquired from the Sultanate of Sulu by treaties who ceded the territory to the British by the then Sultan. The Sultan was not under any threat of war when his signed the cession treaty. Stupid, maybe, but certainly not under duress or threat of war.

Territory can be ceded for payment as in the Louisiana and Alaska Purchase. Louisiana was ceded by France to the US for a total sum of $15 million and Alaska ceded by the Russian at a cost of $7.2 million. 

Cession money can be paid in any form, in lump sum, by instalments or in perpetuity, up to the parties concerned to decide.

Cession is an act by which a personal claim is transferred from the assignor  to the assignee. Once the obligation is transferred the cession is entirely substituted and the assignor loses his right and the new concessionaire gains that right.

The Philippines government has refused to take criminal action against the Sultan and all those responsible for the death and destruction inflicted on our soil which make them complicit in the act of terror against our nation. 

Malaysia should claim damages from the Philippines government for losses suffered by the nation caused by the armed incursion of its citizens.

Najib, when this is all over we Sabahans demand that you seek compensation from the Philippines government for all losses and cost of the war against the Filipino terrorists.

The Old And New

Hantu Laut

An old map of of Borneo Island.North Borneo (Sabah) looked squashed.










Alferd Dent of British North Borneo Chartered Compnay (BNBCC) who provided Baron de Overbeck with 10,000 Pounds to purchase the whole of North Borneo.







Sir Charles Jessel, Vice Chairman of BNBCC after whom Jesselton was named.







Mat Salleh, now a hero and a legend, fought against the British and was killed in Tambunan where a memorial of him still stands.During my time in school, in the history book of North Borneo, he was considered a pirate and a rebel.






Jesselton in 1910 before World War I under the North Borneo Chartered Company.








The North Borneo Railway Headquarters.The only railway network on Borneo.









Sir William Goode, the last Governor,bidding farewell to Harris Salleh on his return to Great Britain.










Jesselton after World War II in the 1950s under British Crown Colony.







Merdeka ! Declaration of Independence on 16 Sept 1963 read out by Donald Stephens(Tun Fuad Stephens), Sabah's first Chief Minister witnesssed by Mustapha Harun the Head of State and Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein.






Kota Kinabalu (Jesselton) today.

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah