Talk:James Brooke

Topics

Hello, maveric149. Thanks for your help making the new page conform to the proper look and feel.

I changed "was an Indian of English descent" to "was born in India to English parents". Saying he "was an Indian" implies something to me that is not the case since he wasn't an Indian ethnically or by citizenship.

I also just found your message from back when I first discovered wikipedia in August. Thanks for the welcome and encouragement. :)

Tom

Yep. Your wording is better. Your welcome. :) --mav

Anglo-Indian would be a better term to describe British citizens born and raised or living in India for extended periods. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.195.70 (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Brooke's birtplace

There seems to be some confusion on James Brooke's birthplace with some people giving an Indian birtplace. The 1911 Britanicca gives Coome Grove, near Bath as his birthplace. Could anyone wanting to change the place of birth please provide a reference? --Roisterer 22:15, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Scandal

The article mentions a scandal but doesn't provide any details. It may have been mentioned in my Malaysian history but I can't remember. It would be good if someone can provide details Nil Einne 12:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Move

I believe this article should be move, in line with Wikipedia standards, to Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak. Comments appreciated.--Couter-revolutionary 22:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The subject of the article was a recognised monarch (albeit of a particularly bizarre, and short lived, monarchy). --SandyDancer 02:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Right. It should be moved to James of Sarawak, any other suggestions?--Counter-revolutionary 10:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I liked your original suggestion more. "James of Sarawak" is not commonly used by academicians when describing Brooke.– Matthew A. Lockhart ^(talk) 19:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

His documented emotional involvements with boys to the exclusion of relationships with women

I noticed that the text appended below, posted on August 5th of this year, has been largely deleted, in favor of a homily on the lack of perceptivity of modern observers when faced with our quaint forefathers. Unless specific objections are raised to the sources on which this material is based, I do not see how it can be blocked from the article, nor do I see it as within our rights to preach here against modern gender studies work.

Throughout his life, Brooke's principal emotional bonds were with adolescent boys, while he exhibited a total lack of interest in women. Among his more notable relationships with boys was the one with Badruddin, a Sarawak prince, of whom he wrote, "my love for him was deeper than anyone I knew." Later, in 1848, Brooke fell in love with Charles Grant (grandson of the seventh Earl of Elgin), who had just been recruited, being sixteen at the time. His love was reciprocated by the boy.

Haiduc 11:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

It is however rather sad that in our sex obsessed day the word 'love' is invariably interpreted as having a sexual meaning. Also the existence of an acknowledged son would seem to indicate at least one female sexual liaison.216.120.218.232 (talk) 21:19, 10 September 2009 (UTC)Roxana

It was common at the time for people in Brooke's situation to take a common law 'native' wife, a practice which although not kept secret, would likely be frowned upon by genteel society, hence any such wife is not likely to be mentioned in many sources. For many a proper legal marriage recognized by both British and local societies was not possible due to the differing laws, religions, local customs, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.10.189 (talk) 08:25, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

British citizen?

What was his nationality, if not British he wouldn't be allowed to use the prefix sir but could use post nominals.--Counter-revolutionary (talk) 22:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The Governor of Labuan and British Counsel General of Borneo is not a British citizen? – Matthew A. Lockhart ^(talk) 09:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The question was really aimed more at his successors. Could they possibly have been British and Christian? --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 19:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Brooke would have been a British subject as would have been any of his successors born before Independence. The local 'natives' would have had their own local Sarawakian citizenship while within Sarawak itself but would likely have been classed as British Subjects when travelling abroad as they would be entitled to the protection of The Crown and it is unlikely a small state like Sarawak would have had its own passport-issuing office.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.10.189 (talk) 08:31, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

"LGBT"

There is really no need for this? Anyone agree? --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 21:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The article presently states that he "exhibited a total lack of interest in women". In spite of this he managed to sire a son. I think that there must have been at least some interest in women, but that of course does not preclude the LGBT label. Noel S McFerran (talk) 21:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course he was interested in women, he married the Sultan of Brunei's daughter! Besides, I think the LGBT thing a bit OTT. --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 22:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe there is sufficient evidence (in the article itself, already) that he was gay or bisexual. The LGBT category should stay in the article. Henq (talk) 22:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I added the tag for the following passages: "Brooke's principal emotional bonds were with adolescent boys", "a Sarawak prince, of whom he wrote, "my love for him was deeper than anyone I knew.", "in 1848, Brooke fell in love with 16 year old Charles Grant, grandson of the seventh Earl of Elgin, who reciprocated his love". Referenced. What is the objection? --Moni3 (talk) 23:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think he did have a son - read through the article. His successor was his sister's son. His lack of interest in women James Brooke (1803) had a son called Joseph Hunt Brooke. He married Eliza Ann Ranger and was the father of Laura Mary Brooke born 13/2/1857 who married Alfred Mark Dorman 13/10/1878 at Elham, Hythe Kent. plus his attraction to adolescents would argue for the LGBT cat and project. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 23:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.197.43 (talk) 21:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The article states that he had a son, but the only proof offered is the British census showing an individual of the right name; there is no reference to James acknowledging him. The article further states that he may have married a Muslim princess, but no proof is offered at all. The relationships with the boys are sourced, in that the historians cited have written about them. BrainyBabe (talk) 06:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps he was asexual? June 2010

Raja, not Rajah

I was discussing this article with my friend.

She said:
Rajah = Graph (or Figure/Tattoo)
Raja = King or governer

Since this article was about him in Malaysia, not India
And Borneo is in Malaysia, not india...
And me and my friend are malaysian who know malay...
— Preceding unsigned comment added by NGPriest (talk • contribs) 16:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I would recommend keeping the title without the footnote.

Short answer

------------

The Bruneians only wrote his title in Jawi. Even if we do follow the modern rules of spelling. Sovereigns are allowed to create their own titles, so once he became the sovereign of Sarawak any title he used for himself would have been "legal" and the spelling he chose would become his official title.

-------

Long answer

-------

If his title was actually bestowed upon him by the Bruneians you may have a good argument.

The problem with the etymology of his title, is that he most likely gave the title to himself, so it should probably stay within British / Indian tradition. He was very loose with who he called Rajah. He often used the phrase "the Sultan and Rajahs of Borneo" - using rajah as a catch all title for people with authority. He also referred to Pangeran Muda Hassim as 'the Rajah'. And consistently wrote his name as Rajah Muda Hassim.

Contrary to all the later summaries, Brooke didn't consider himself as an independent sovereign until 1846.

In 1845 he wrote to Wise "I hold Sarawak under the Crown of Borneo… I do not desire to hold Sarawak on any other terms ; for I cannot sport an independent monarchy, and the Rajahs of Borneo are a convenient shield."

But he, himself or people who knew him did refer to himself as Rajah of Sarawak before that point.

When the Expedition to Borneo in the HMS Dido book was first advertised in 1845 it referred to Brooke as the Rajah of Sarawak. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/392140257/?terms=Rajah%20%2BSarawak&match=1

There was discussion on the eve of publication between of the book whether they should use the title Rajah. Brooke left the editing decisions up to them.

I can't tell if they meant they should put it in - and didn't -- or if it was in - and they took it out. The final book does not mention the title Rajah - but the exact same journal passages published by Mundy in 1848 do have the title included. At first I thought Mundy may have elaborated the entries to match Brooke's new higher status, but I'm starting to suspect Keppel and his editors simplified the journal entries in HMS Dido.

Charles Grant wrote in a letter to his parents that Brooke was "a rajah". But this letter is written a few days after the capture of Brunei in 1846. So it's possible he didn't consider himself a Rajah until the death of Muda Hassim and Bedruddin.

Brooke's agreement he got in Aug 1846 essentially made him an independent sovereign because, the agreement states the Sultan has no right to interfere in the government of Sarawak.

As for what the Bruneians thought we have to look at the agreements between him and Brunei.

They consistently used his English name James Brooke Esq. in 1842, 1843, 1845 letter acknowledging his appointment as British agent. This letter is particulary interesting because the English translation literally calls him "Governor of Sarawak"

https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-806929774/view - there's no jawi version of this letter in the Trove archive :(

The first time rajah shows up in an agreement is in the translation of the 1846 Coal rights confirmation, Thomas Church didn't even capitalize it in the English translation so it gives the feeling that it was more of a general description instead of a title. They addressed him as Tuan Sir James Brooke Esq. rajah of Sarawak ... https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-806929774/view

The 1851 Treaty granting Brooke privileges to farm revenue in Samarrahan, Sadong, Lingga, Skrang, Saribas and Rejang calls him both Governor and Rajah https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-807821950/view

Then the translation of the 1853 Treaty by the new Sultan Mumin - addresses him as Rajah of Sarawak https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-808098693/view (By the way this agreement did NOT cede division 2 - this agreement only reconfirmed the 1846 agreement and promise to not interfere in Sarawak proper)

The 1855 Treaty is the one that mentions annual payments for the rivers first mentioned in 1851. The 1851 Treaty that gave permission for James to move in only mentions profit sharing.

The reason why people think division 2 was ceded in 1853 is because of a mistake by Henry Bulwer and the printers for the Foreign Office. Bulwer made a mistake in his report on the treaties, the printer spotted the mistake, then you can see 55 crossed out replaced by 53....

But I suppose this is a new discussion, and one for the Raj of Sarawak page :) MatSallehSesat (talk) 21:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I doubt that many of the people who have written about the Brookes ever considered that Rajah could be translated by a Malay speaker, as you point out that it can. However, most articles about them were, and still are, in English and use the spelling Rajah rather than Raja (with the exception of Gertrude Jacob's early biography, but she was probably influenced by the Indian background of her father). Just look at the bulk of the literature to see that tradition dictates that you use Rajah when writing in English. In fact, the wording on the Brooke Memorial in Kuching - "Charles Brooke Rajah ka-dua ... " uses it in a Malay context as well... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Battang (talk • contribs) 17:56, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Adding sexual orientation category to this biography may be a WP:CAT/R#Sexuality violation

WP:CAT/R#Sexuality For a dead person, there must be a verified consensus of reliable published sources that the description is appropriate. For example, while some sources have claimed that William Shakespeare was gay or bisexual, there is not a sufficient consensus among scholars to support categorizing him as such. Similarly, a living person who is caught in a gay prostitution scandal, but continues to assert their heterosexuality, can not be categorized as gay. Categories that make allegations about sexuality – such as "closeted homosexuals" or "people suspected to be gay" – are not acceptable under any circumstances. If such a category is created, it should be immediately depopulated and deleted. Note that as similar categories of this type have actually been attempted in the past, they may be speedily deleted (as a G4) and do not require another debate at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. User: Pgarret (talk) 01:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC).

We need reliable sources for category claims. It may well be that such sources are indeed available and you can list them in the article - but if not, then who is saying that these people fit the bill? Just deciding that you think they fit the description is Original Research - and that's not allowed here. I need to see a few reliable little blue number in each categorization that links to a reference document that can be examined to confirm Basic Academic rigour

Most people that are listed in the misleading LGBT categorization can also be connected with the following:

-Heteroflexibility -is a form of a sexual orientation or situational sexual behavior characterized by minimal homosexual activity despite a primarily heterosexual sexual :orientation that is considered to distinguish it from bisexuality.

-Pansexual- A person who is fluid in sexual orientation and/or gender or sex identity.

-Polyamory- is the practice of having multiple open, honest love relationships.

-Affectional orientation - To holders of this view, one's orientation is defined by whom one is predisposed to fall in love with, whether or not one desires that person sexually

-MSM- are male persons who engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, regardless of how they identify themselves; many men choose not to (or cannot for other reasons) accept sexual identities of homosexual or bisexual.

-Situational sexual behaviour is sexual behavior of a kind that is different from that which the person normally exhibits, due to a social environment that in :some way permits, encourages, or compels those acts.

Many people change their sexual behavior depending on the situation or at different points in their life. For example, men and women in a university may engage in bisexual activities, but only in that environment. Experimentation of this sort is more common among adolescents (or just after), both male and female. Some colloquialisms for this trend include "heteroflexible", "BUG" (Bisexual Until Graduation), or "LUG" (Lesbian Until Graduation).

Sexual orientation

A report from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health states, "For some people, sexual orientation is continuous and fixed throughout their lives. For others, sexual orientation may be fluid and change over time". "There . . . [was, as of 1995,] essentially no research on the longitudinal stability of sexual orientation over the adult life span. . . . [I]t [was] . . . still an unanswered question whether . . . [the] measure [of "the complex components of sexual orientation as differentiated from other aspects of sexual identity at one point in time"] will predict future behavior or orientation. Certainly, it [was] . . . not a good predictor of past behavior and self-identity, given the developmental process common to most gay men and lesbians (i.e., denial of homosexual interests and heterosexual experimentation prior to the coming-out process)."

Kinsey scale

Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, attempts to describe a person's sexual history or episodes of his or her sexual activity at a given time. Ituses a scale from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to 6, meaning exclusively homosexual.

The Source?

Where is it stated in the text that he is definitively bisexual and it is a proven and recorded fact beyond ambiguity?

What does the WP article say:

-He was granted the title of Rajah of Sarawak on 24 September 1841, partly attributed to his relationship with a daughter of the Sultan, although the official declaration was not made until 18 August 1842.

-Among his more notable emotional relationships was the one with Badruddin, a Sarawak prince, of whom he wrote, "my love for him was deeper than anyone I knew." Later, in 1848, Brooke is alleged to have formed a relationship with 16 year old Charles T. C. Grant, grandson of the seventh Earl of Elgin, who reciprocated. Whether this relationship was purely a friendship or otherwise has not been fully revealed.

-Although he died unmarried, he did acknowledge one son.

References

User: Pgarret (talk) 11:50, 12 September 2012 (UTC).

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on James Brooke. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130701160652/http://library.perdana.org.my/Digital_Content/NLM/Batch3/B03_PDF_DVD001/15%20sep/M959.521EVAHistoryOfLabuanVictoriaIsland.pdf to http://library.perdana.org.my/Digital_Content/NLM/Batch3/B03_PDF_DVD001/15%20sep/M959.521EVAHistoryOfLabuanVictoriaIsland.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080228143205/http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/vicpamphlets/0/0/1/pdf/vp0010.pdf to http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/vicpamphlets/0/0/1/pdf/vp0010.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:27, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on James Brooke. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140808045312/http://dspace.wbpublibnet.gov.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/10689/13857/3/Chapter2_108-187p.pdf to http://dspace.wbpublibnet.gov.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/10689/13857/3/Chapter2_108-187p.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:52, 7 December 2017 (UTC)