This dissertation analyzes the development of frontiers and smuggling in Insular Southeast Asia around the turn of the twentieth-century. It particularly focuses on how the British and Dutch delineated colonial spheres, first on paper via treaties, and then on the ground via institutions, over the course of 1870–1910. As this frontier was created, it was simultaneously crossed by traders of all descriptions (Chinese, Malay, Bugis, and Europeans, to name just a few), who ignored the new geopolitical “realities” and continued to trade in a wide band-width of commodities now forbidden by these states. Opium, counterfeit currency, guns and human beings were among these cargoes, but more prosaic items, such as pepper, betel nuts, and even letters and salt were also contrabanded. The dissertation asks how these patterns changed over time, and perhaps more importantly, whether these two colonial states were able to enforce their economic, moral, and political will in this regard. How effective were these states in “seeing” this 3000 kilometer frontier in 1870, as opposed to 1910? Were certain spaces (ie: maritime, mountain, urban) more opaque to Batavia and Singapore than others? Did smuggling follow certain channels, and if it did, which routes were favored? Who smuggled contraband across this frontier, and why?.; The thesis is organized into three inter-locking parts. The first third writes a short history of the evolution of the frontier, analyzing map-making, communications, and the expanding reach of these states into Borneo, Sumatra, and the South China Sea. How the Anglo/Dutch frontier was “created” is under scrutiny, as well as how it was crossed by opium traders, currency-runners, and human-traffickers alike. The second third of the thesis then brings this wide avenue of vision down to a more specific commodity-smuggling chain—the illegal commerce in arms. Gun-running became big business in turn-of-the century Southeast Asia; secret societies, nomadic peoples, and commercial speculators all trafficked in weapons, each for their own reasons. The final third of the thesis then focuses our inquiry onto an even more micro-level—a single junk which was caught smuggling across the Straits of Melaka in 1873. In the ensuing court case that follows, we are given an unparalleled window into the world of Southeast Asian smugglers, as the men of the Kim Ban An were forced to testify in a long and heated court battle. Contrabanding at its different levels—State, mercantile, and personal—are all examined therefore, and brought together in a single, woven narrative.
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