author
Rajah of Sarawak James
1803–1868
A wounded former East India Company officer who reinvented himself as the first White Rajah of Sarawak, he became one of the 19th century’s most unusual empire-builders. His life mixed adventure, politics, and controversy in a way that still feels larger than fiction.
1 Audiobook
The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido For the Suppression of Piracy
by Sir Henry Keppel, Rajah of Sarawak James
About the author
Born in 1803 in India, James Brooke served in the Bengal Army of the East India Company and was badly wounded during the First Anglo-Burmese War. After leaving military service, he sailed to Borneo in the late 1830s and used his own ship, the Royalist, to enter local power struggles.
In 1841, after helping the Sultan of Brunei suppress a rebellion, he was granted control of Sarawak and became its first rajah. He went on to found the Brooke dynasty, often called the White Rajahs, and ruled Sarawak until his death in 1868.
Brooke was celebrated in Britain as an adventurous anti-piracy figure, but his career has also been debated for its ties to colonial expansion and violent campaigning. That mix of charisma, ambition, and contradiction has kept him a fascinating historical subject ever since.