The Santiaogou Republic ( zh, 三條溝公司,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
/
Dutch
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People E ...
: Sam-Thiao-Keoe; "Three gullies"), sometimes spelled as Santiago Republic in some sources, later renamed as the Sanda futing (
Chinese
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: 三達副廳; "Deputy Hall of Three Reaches"), and lastly as the Hexian zhengting (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
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: 和現正廳; "Legitimate Parliament of the Harmonies Present"), was a powerful Chinese
kongsi federation formerly associated with
Monterado
Monterado was a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Ancona in the Italian region Marche, located about west of Ancona.
The municipality of Monterado was disbanded 1 January 2014 and united to Castel Colonna and Ripe in the new municipa ...
(
Chinese
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: 打勞鹿,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
: Montradok) district before moving to
Sepang (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
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: 昔邦,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
: Sapawang) in
West Kalimantan
West Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Barat) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five Indonesian provinces comprising Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city is Pontianak. The province has an area of 147,307&nbs ...
,
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...
. It joined the
Heshun Confederation in 1776, but left due to disputes and allied with the
sultan of
Sambas (and later the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
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People E ...
), succeeding in destroying its former ally Heshun and the
Dagang kongsi. It was one of several miners' confederations in Borneo that later came into conflict with the Dutch to maintain their form of government, described as democratic.
Despite its alliance with the Dutch, Santiaogou's kongsi was also dissolved and its lands officially handed over to the Dutch in 1854. The remaining Santiaogou miners moved northward into
Sarawak
Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...
, where they continued their mining operations until 1857.
Demographics
Before the establishment of the Heshun Confederation, the Santiaogou Confederation had in its command approximately 800 members,
all of whom coming from the modern-day
Huilai and
Lufeng counties in
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
. Its members bore the surnames
Wen
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* Wen (surnam ...
温 and
Zhu 朱, though their membership diversified throughout the years.
Like the other thirteen founders of the Heshun Confederation, Santiaogou was a ''kaixiang kongsi'' 开香公司 (lit. "open incense ''kongsi''"), or a ''kongsi'' who can trace its roots back to a temple cult organization in mainland China.
Its mining territory comprised originally in the settlements of
Banyaoya (
Chinese
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**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
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: 半要鴉,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
: Pandjawa),
Baimangtou (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
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: 白芒頭,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
: Phak-miong-theoe),
Sibale (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
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**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
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: 西哇黎,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
: Sibaler), and
Serukan (
Chinese
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: 凹下港,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
: Seroekam), all of which located east of the main town of Montrado. After its disassociation with the Heshun Confederation in the 1830s, Santiaogou's members fled to the more northern towns of Sepang,
Seminis
Seminis is a developer, grower, and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds. Seminis' hybrids claim to improve nutrition, boost crop yields, limit spoilage and reduce the need for chemicals. Their retail line includes over 3,500 seed varieties.
...
(
Chinese
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: 西宜宜), and the port of
Pamangkat (
Chinese
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**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
: 邦戛).
At its height following the disassociation, the Santiaogou controlled twelve major kongsi-mines with up to forty smaller cooperative mines.
History
Early History
Little is known about Santiaogou's history prior to the formation of the Heshun Confederation in 1776. Its power, compared to the other kongsis, led to Santiaogou becoming an influential member of the Confederation. Santiaogou built an elaborate kongsi house in Montrado, the epicenter of Heshun activities, before 1820. East of Montrado, bordering the
Lara
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region, the Santiaogou built a long
stockade along the mountains, so large that it "resembled the
Great Wall
The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups ...
".
In 1807,
the growing Dagang kongsi and
Jielian kongsi squabbled over mining rights near the territories of the ''Shangwu'' in Montrado (a large fortified building in the south, used often as kongsi houses of the Dagang), the Santiaogou sided with the Dagang, and assisted Dagang in kicking out the Jielian and forcing its members to
Pahang
Pahang (; Jawi: , Pahang Hulu Malay: ''Paha'', Pahang Hilir Malay: ''Pahaeng'', Ulu Tembeling Malay: ''Pahaq)'' officially Pahang Darul Makmur with the Arabic honorific ''Darul Makmur'' (Jawi: , "The Abode of Tranquility") is a sultanate and ...
(
Chinese
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: 巴亨). In 1808, another quarrel surfaced with Dagang and
Xin Bafen, to which the Santiaogou again helped aid the former; Zhu Fenghua, an able commander from Santiaogou, was put in charge of the Dagang and Santiaogou troops. After the conflict, writers at the time recorded that Santiaogou was not given any spoils from Xin Bafen's destruction. Contemporary Sinologists speculate this was probably done to reduce Santiaogou's greatness, as later he would become a bitter enemy of the Dagang. At the end of the conflict, only seven kongsis of Heshun remained, while Dagang and Santiaogou possessed the real power.
Rising Tensions with Dagang
Santiaogou's power steadily increased in the decade that followed, and finally peaked in winning the presidency after the 4th Heshun headman, Dagang-affiliated Liu Zhengbao, abdicated to visit his family in 1818. The Santiaogou affiliated headman, Hu Yalu, has his presidency end in disaster after he attempted to unite the Dagang and Santiaogou, two kongsis wildly differing in their occupations (Dagang was mainly artisan based in the rich bazaars of Montrado, while Santiaogou was rather agricultural), leading him to resign only after three months.
Zhu Fenghua succeeded Hu Yalu's premature reign, probably the main candidate chosen by the Santiaogou in order to save face. After his service in the conflict with Xin Bafen, Fenghua was elected to the highly respected title of the Heshun's
secretary
A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a ...
(''xiansheng''). This, along with being the caretaker and foreign representative of the Heshun to the Sambas sultan and the later Dutch diplomats, made him an extremely powerful and affluent man. However, his relations and position in the Confederation made Fenghua want more than a temporary presidency and more than a figurehead that depended on the vote of the Heshun parliament. Fenghua attempted to nominate himself as headman-for-life in the Confederation, an unprecedented action that was considered blatantly disrespectful and almost the entire alliance turned against him. He was forced to concede,
and later flee to
Sambas in 1820 where he enjoyed the protection of the Sambas sultan.
The opposition to Santiaogou, now headed by Dagang, prepared for conflict with Santiaogou, as they believed their leadership was incompetent. A letter was sent to Liu Zhengbao to request his return to Borneo, and the leaderless Santiaogou could not prevent Zhengbao's ascension to the presidency.
Santiaogou has been thoroughly weakened with the absence of its leader; Dagang was now the clear face of the alliance and had to request Dagang's protection for its assets that were now in jeopardy. As Santiaogou's beleaguered residents settled down for peace, an infuriated Zhu Fenghua, now friends with the Sambas sultan, would pursue a conflict.
Dagang-Santiaogou Conflict
At this time, Heshun's mining activities had spread beyond Montrado and now had settlements eastward to Larah, northeast to Seminis, Sepang, Lumar, and northward to Pamangkat. Despite Santiaogou's reduced position, both it and Dagang claimed rights to mine in the region between Sepang and Seminis. It is in this ''
status quo'' that Zhu Fenghua convinced the Sambas sultan and a contingent of Dutch forces that Dagang was conspiring to attack "Santiaogou"'s mines in Lara, and promised his family riches if they succeeded in helping him kick out the Dagang. This ''
casus belli'' was false, as Larah, which was formerly been Xin Bafen's territory, had been under Dagangs' control after Xin Bafen's destruction, and not Santiaogou's. In May 1822, spearheaded by a Santiaogou flank, a Dutch vanguard under
Lieutenant von Kielbeg marched inland to Larah to stop the "Dagang invasion". After arriving in Larah, von Kielbeg died in action, and the rest of the Dutch soldiers were spared by the Dagang and sent back to Seminis.
Santiaogou's Escape
Thoroughly embarrassed and dismayed by the expedition's results, Santiaogou's members decided to leave Montrado and move to an ally's stronghold. On June 23, 1822, Santiaogou quietly commanded its members living in its settlements to pack up and flee to the
Gunung Penaring mountains, where the
Xiawu kongsi is located. Xiawu was one of the few Larah kongsis that did not pledge allegiance to the Dagang, having such a strong connection with Santiaogou they were referred to as the "Little Santiaogou" kongsi. After arriving in Xiawu, Santiaogou chased away the Dagang-allied kongsis like
Manhe,
Yuanhe, and
Shenghe. Dagang convened its remaining four members to raise a large army to stop this. After a few fruitless days of attempting to scale the Gunung Penarings, they finally made it over and marched into Larah, where Santiaogou's strongholds were destroyed. Santiaogou had to leave Xiawu to the northwest where they were able to be closer to the capital of Sambas.
Dutch intervention
J.H. Tobias, the Dutch
magistrate
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judic ...
that was put in charge of West Borneo, mediated tensions between Dagang and Santiaogou, and called a meeting in Montrad on September 13, 1822. Here, Dagang and Santiaogou accused each other of beginning the conflict; Santiaogou particularly made what Tobias noted as "utterly idiotic" statements against the Dagang, saying that Dagang had destroyed their property when they could have protected their assets. After Tobias heard from the sultan of Sambas about the promises Fenghua made him and his family, he decided that it was indeed Dagang that was wrong. He decided to not fully accuse the Sambas sultan and the Santiaogou kongsi because he wanted to preserve peace and respect, although he favored the sultan and Santiaogou for unknown reasons.
In January 1823, despite hearing Dagang retrieving its forces from Lara, Tobias suddenly formed an expedition to Lara, headed by Santiaogou soldiers and led by
General de Stuers. The expedition failed to surprise the Dagang but won a very pyrrhic victory after taking a Dagang stronghold. After Tobias again approved an expedition to Montrado, resulting in the Dutch occupation of Montrado, Santiaogou's seal was present in the Dutch demands, ones that included "dissolving" the Heshun kongsi and strengthening Dutch authority in Montrado.
When Tobias was replaced by M. van Grave, his provocative demands on the Dagang for poll taxes and hypothetical unification of all kongsi into a governmental district led Dagang to retaliate through burning Dutch and Santiaogou strongholds in 1824. Zhu Fenghua, who owned several lucrative coffee
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
s at the time, attempted to defend the Dutch and his men, with no success.
Eventually, the military actions decreased and the Santiaogou settled with Sepang (a rich mining district once leased to Dagang) while Dagang settled with Lara. In return for their profits in Sepang, Santiaogou was forced to pay 10
taëls of gold every year to the Dutch.
Battle of Pamangkat
After approximately two decades of relative Dutch isolation from West Bornean affairs, F. J. Willer was appointed as the new Dutch magistrate and took on a much more direct and provocative stance in dealing with the Heshun Confederation. Months of tension, including a Dutch
blockade
A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force.
A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are leg ...
of the port of
Sedau, led to a couple of incidents. First, a series of Dayak massacres on the frontier Chinese towns of Budok and Lumar led Dagang to suspect it was Santiaogou's doing, when it was actually the paranoid Sambas sultan who thought the Dagang would invade the capital. Dagang retaliated, but instead of invading Sambas, the army began targeting specifically Santiaogou aligned towns. In July 1850, a thousand Dagang soldiers laid siege to Sepang and defeated it after 12 days. Seminis fell soon after, followed by the towns of Sebawi (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
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**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
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: 沙泊) and Shabo (
Chinese
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: 沙啵). Pamangkat took the longest: it is believed its siege must have taken a few weeks, but Dagang at last conquered the city in August, leaving the remaining Santiaogou population to flee to the opposite side of the
Pamangkat River under
Sarawak
Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...
jurisdiction. After Dagang left and the Dutch reclaimed Pamangkat, Dagang once again ousted the Dutch soldiers in September and made plans to attack the Lanfang Republic at Mandor, who were allied with Santiaogou. In the ensuing peace talks in November 1850 with the Dutch and Dagang, Santiaogou was absent from the conference, its members scattered to the north into Sarawak.
The Split of the two Santiaogous
In the immediate aftermath, the Dutch debated on what to do with the remnants of the Santiaogou, and eventually agreed they were to be induced back from Sarawak to rule Pamangkat, as a sort of check for the Dagang and Heshun, as well as regrowing the Pamangkat environs, which had been left untended despite fertile soil. In 1851, Willer persuaded Montrado to remove its claims to Santiaogou. After some time, members of Santiaogou quietly returned to reoccupy their former mines, and its leaders renamed the kongsi to the Sanda futing ("Three reaches deputy hall") to be, at least in name, on par with the Heshun zongting, whose power has been wrenched by the Dutch.
Willer soon realized the conundrum; since the Battle of Pamangkat, the majority of Santiaogou miners were stationed in Sarawak, which meant Willer was essentially tending to an organization that had its headquarters in the
Rajah Brooke's domain. Willer demanded the immediate renunciation of this Sarawak alliance and said their name change was proof of their subjugation to the Dutch. Willer said the word san in Sanda futing had to be removed, as this associated the Dutch kongsi with the Sarawaki kongsi. The Sanda envoy became so incensed he declared that if this were to ever happen, the remaining miners in Dutch territory will leave for Sarawak. Willer, in his last decrees, changed the name of the kongsi one more time to Hexian zhengting and attempted to rally so that Santiaogou members would return from Sarawak; many did not.
Legacy
The majority of Santiaogou immigrants found a new place in the similarly Chinese mining villages of interior Borneo, particularly the county of
Bau in
Kuching province, Malaysia. The earliest migrants settled there during its reign under the
Bruneian Empire
Bruneian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to Brunei
* A person from Brunei, or of Bruneian descent. For information about the Bruneian people, see Demographics of Brunei and Culture of Brunei. For specific Bruneians, see List of Bruneians. ...
, but a spike of immigration in the mid 19th century coincided with James Brookes' rise in Sarawak. Along with other Chinese immigrants, the miners joined the pre-existing
Twelve Companies (十二公司), a partnership of twelve kongsi federations that resembled Santiaogou's government, and greatly boosted their power and their population to about 4,000.
Their autonomy threatened the British settlers and plantation owners, leading to the Twelve Companies, under
Liu Shan Bang, to attempt a coup against Brooke's rajahnate, only to fail and be brutally defeated. Descendants of the original Santiaogou miners can be found throughout
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, and
Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...
.
References
{{reflist
Kongsi federations
Chinese diaspora in Indonesia
Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia
Former countries in Southeast Asia
Former republics
Precolonial states of Indonesia
Chinese-speaking countries and territories