Searching for traces of the British Empire in Bengkulu, Sumatra
Originally published in the Jakarta Globe, 27/03/11
The
little hilltop is thick with vegetation. To the east the dark hills of the
Sumatran hinterland rise under banks of pearly cloud; to the west the
wind-chased expanse of the Indian Ocean rolls away towards an empty horizon.
I
scramble through the undergrowth, searching for some trace of the building that
once stood on this riverside hillock on the outskirts of Bengkulu. There are
fragments of brick and concrete, and here and there a chunk of rough-hewn limestone.
Mosquitoes needle at my ankles and I beat a retreat to the bright sunlight.
A
bulky middle-aged woman waddles across from a nearby house to ask what I’m
looking for. Her name is Eni, and she tells me that the remnants of something
do indeed stand on this overgrown hill in the Pasar Bengkulu district.
“Something
from the Japanese era, or maybe from the Dutch era,” she says. The fragments of
brick and concrete suggest that she might be right on both counts, but long
before those foreign occupiers another nation flew its flag over the river
here. This spot was the site of Fort York, the first British outpost in
Bengkulu.
Bengkulu,
occupying a little knuckle of land and presiding over a 400-kilometre sliver of
coastal territory is modern Sumatra’s sleepiest provincial capital, but for 140
years was an anomalous pocket of British territory. Two centuries later I am
here to hunt down the traces of this forgotten episode in Indonesian history.
***
The
first servants of Britain’s East India Company reached Bengkulu in 1685 after
being kicked out of Java by the ascendant Dutch. They hoped that the place
would prove to be a honeypot – an essential stopover for China-bound shipping
and a fertile garden for lucrative pepper crops. Instead Bengkulu turned out to
be an unremitting economic black hole, losing the Company £100,000 a year. It
was the original Southeast Asian hardship posting.
The
Sumatran climate proved catastrophic to foreign constitutions, and Fort York,
the outpost that once stood on that little hillock, had a particularly
insalubrious location.
“Some
unusual malignity infests our air and strikes at all,” wrote the governor
Joseph Collet in 1713. In search of a better climate Collet abandoned Fort York
and had a new garrison built, a couple of kilometers further south. After
bidding goodbye to Eni, that’s where I head, following a coastal road beneath ranks
of tilted casuarina trees.
Much
more remains of Fort Marlborough than of its predecessor. Rising in hunks of
off-white masonry like slabs of mildewed wedding cake, it dominates the old
part of Bengkulu. Rusting cannons, stamped with English coats of arms, lie like
beached wales in the courtyard, and the ramshackle red roofs of the town sprawl
away inland. The views are fine for modern tourists, but for earlier
generations of foreigners with no chance of a quick escape this was a bleak and
lonely place. Many drowned their sorrows in drink. Governor Collet and his 19
assistants went through a staggering 900 bottles of claret a month, prompting
appalled company directors in Calcutta to declare that “It is a wonder to us
that any of you live six months.”
Not
all British residents of Bengkulu succumbed to drink and disease, however.
William Marsden, who was here in the 1770s, wrote The History of Sumatra, the
first major scholarly work in English on Indonesia. The most famous Englishman
to call Bengkulu home also made the most of his time here. Thomas Stamford
Raffles – famed as the founder of Singapore – was governor of Bengkulu for six
years.
On
arrival in 1818 Raffles declared that “This is without exception the most
wretched place I ever beheld”. The buildings were collapsing, and most of the
officials were drunk – or dead. During his term Raffles did his best to reform
Bengkulu.
A
hundred meters from Fort Marlborough I find one of his civic works. It is a
chunky neoclassical monument which Raffles erected to Thomas Parr, an earlier
governor who was beheaded in his bedroom by disgruntled locals. From here I
wander on along sleepy streets half-swamped in tropical vegetation. At many of
the junctions stand concrete models of tabot, a Bengkulu icon. Once a year
these tottering wood-and-paper models are paraded through the streets and
toppled into the sea. The tabot ceremony falls 9 Muharram, a date usually
commemorated by Shia Muslims. The celebrations in Sunni-majority Bengkulu are
usually attributed to the British influence – the soldiers of the East India
Company were mostly Indians, many of who were indeed Shia. But the ceremonies
also show a link to earlier Hindu traditions.
Passing
another British monument – to Captain Robert Hamilton who died in 1793 – I come
to the great sweep of Pantai Panjang, Bengkulu’s “Long Beach”. Choppy waves are
surging onto the sand and the sun is dropping west across an achingly empty
ocean. I cut back northwest through the lanes to the European cemetery, the
place where all too many of Bengkulu’s British residents ended up. Pale
headstones stand at crooked angles and barefoot children are using the tombs as
goalposts for a football match.
Hundreds
of British soldiers and civilians – including Raffles’ four young children –
were buried here. Today it is a strangely tranquil place. Many of the
inscriptions have vanished over the years, while others were replaced with
amateurish replicas during an ill-considered refurbishment in the 1990s. But
there are still traces of small tragedies. One hulking vault outside the main
cemetery is the resting place of a 10-day old child and of his mother, who died
five years later at the age of 25. Another commemorating Captain Thomas Tapson
who died in 1816 was “erected to his Memory by his much afflicted friend Nonah
Jessmina”, hinting at a cross-cultural love affair.
As
I wander around, scribbling notes and taking photos, the gang of children drift
away from their ballgame to follow me. They come here to play football most
afternoons, they tell me, but they know nothing about the tombs. No one has
ever explained to them about the history of their hometown, and they do not
even know the nationality of the people buried here.
Once
I start to explain they quickly take an interest, and they drag me around the
marked tombs demanding to know exactly who is buried where. They take a
particular delight in the graves of small children, though they assure me that
none of them have ever seen a ghost here.
Having
done my small bit for historical awareness I head back to Fort Marlborough to
watch the sunset. The British departed Bengkulu in 1824 when they organized a
territorial trade-off with their Dutch rivals, swopping the town for the Malay
port of Melaka. The fort remained a garrison for Dutch troops but the place was
so remote and insignificant that it was chosen as a suitably far-flung exile
for Sukarno during the years of anti-colonialist agitation.
As
I clamber back onto the ramparts and look out towards a fiery western sky a
young woman sitting with her friends on one of the parapets calls me over and
we fall into conversation. Her name is Riani and she has recently returned to
Bengkulu after several years in Jakarta. She comes from village 200 kilometers
to the south on the old frontier of British territory. To my astonishment, she
tells me that in that part of the province the local Malay dialect still
contains a few English words: blanket, school, pocket and try. Almost two
centuries after the Union Jack and the red standard of the East India Company
flapped down the flagpole here for the last time, it seems that something still
remains…
© Tim Hannigan 2011
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