Strategies of Survival: The Malay Royal Line of Lingga-Riau

Abstract

The kingdom of Lingga-Riau, with its dependencies of Johor and Pahang, traced its line of authority back to the earlier Malay kingdoms of Melaka, Singapore, Bintan and to the ultimate source Bukit Siguntang, Palembang. It was officially ended by the Dutch in 1911 when Sultan Abdul Rahman Muazzam Syah refused to sign a treaty of total submission to the colonial government of the Netherlands East Indies, and was obliged to leave the Riau-Lingga area and live in exile in Singapore until his death in 1930. Although the end of the kingdom was, and still remains, a trauma for those of noble descent in Lingga and Riau, the sultanate had in fact survived longer than most of the other indigenous kingdoms of the Malay-Indonesian world. The trauma of the ending of the kingdom prompted one descendant of the Malay royal line in Lingga to compile in 1930 an account of the Malay kings from Bukit Siguntang to Lingga. It is an account which highlights particular concerns of the author (and presumably of others in his position) about the Melaka-Johor-Lingga Malay royal lines, their relationship with other Malay royal lines and their relationship with their subjects.