History of Sabah

The earliest recorded history of Sabah being part of any organised civilisation began in the early 15th century during the thriving era of the Sultanate of Brunei.

Subsequent deglaciation, which caused global sea level to rise, resulted in the Sundaland being submerged, separating Borneo from the rest of Asia.

[7] Stone tools and artefacts have been found in Madai and Baturong caves and in the archaeological site in Lake Tingkayu near the district of Kunak which were estimated to date back from 28,000 to 17,000 years ago.

[10][11] These recent findings suggests that human settlement in Sabah and Malaysia have existed much earlier than previously thought, which is about 40,000 years ago in Niah Caves, Sarawak.

[7] This wave of migration is believed to represent the time when the indigenous hill people of present-day Sabah had first arrived, namely the Murut, Lundayeh, Kadazan-Dusun and Orang Sungai,[7] while Brunei Malays settlement appeared somewhat later.

[12] It is believed that some Australoid or Negrito people have interbred with later Austronesian migrants and remained in Borneo,[8] while others have migrated to other places such as Melanesia, the Lesser Sunda Islands and Australia continent.

This is consistent with the recent discovery of timber coffins in the Agop Batu Tulug cave in the Kinabatangan Valley, belong to the Dusun Sukang tribe.

[23] While the thalassocratic Brunei and Sulu sultanates controlled the western and eastern coasts of Sabah respectively, the interior region remained largely independent from either kingdoms.

[24] Since the late 18th century, the seafaring Bajau-Suluk people also arrived from the Sulu Archipelago and started to settling in the coasts of north and eastern Borneo.

[25] In 1761, Alexander Dalrymple, an officer of the British East India Company, concluded an agreement with the Sultan of Sulu to allow him to set up a trading post in the region.

The first recorded ascent of Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in Borneo, was made in 1851 by British Malaya colonial administrator and naturalist Hugh Low.

Ownership was then passed to an American Trading Company of Borneo owned by Joseph William Torrey, Thomas Bradley Harris and some Chinese merchants.

The rights of the trading company were then sold to Gustav Baron Von Overbeck, the Austro-Hungarian Consul in Hong Kong (though he was actually a German national), and he later obtained another 10-year renewal of the lease.

The treaty granted Overbeck the right over the whole region of Sabah, including the parts purporting to be the dominion of the Sulu Sultanate, as well as Sandakan and Tawau.

[27] In 1880, Overbeck offered to trade the territory as a penal colony to the Kingdom of Italy, but with pressure from the British, the Italian government refused to the proposal and Britain acquired the region soon after.

[29] On the east coast of North Borneo near Sandakan, William Cowie, on behalf of Dent's company,[30] negotiated and obtained a concession in perpetuity from the Sultan of Sulu over its holdings in this region in 1878.

As the population was too small to fully economically exploit the region, the company brought in Chinese people mainly Hakkas from Guangdong province to work as labourers in plantation farms.

[35] Beginning 1920, more Chinese migrants arrived from the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and even Hebei after the British changed its immigration policy to stimulate the stagnant economy during that period.

Santulan which also a Pengeran, the father to Pehin Orang Kaya-Kaya Koroh was a Murut descendant of Omar Ali Saifuddin I, the 18th Sultan of Brunei.

[citation needed] As part of the Second World War Japanese forces landed in Labuan on 3 January 1942, and continued to invade the rest of North Borneo.

Fighting alongside Korom in his platoon was Garukon, Lumanib, Kingan, Mikat, Pensyl, Gampak, Abdullah Hashim, Ariff Salleh, Langkab, Polos, Nuing, Ambutit, Lakai, Badau and many more including the Chinese.

Sickness, disease, exhaustion, thirst, hunger, whipping, and shooting killed most of the prisoners, except for six Australians who successfully escaped, were never caught, and survived to tell the horrific story of the death march.

[40] Due to massive destruction in the town of Sandakan since the war, Jesselton was chosen to replace the capital with the Crown continued to rule North Borneo until 1963.

The idea for the formation of a union of the former British colonies, namely, Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo was mooted as early as the late 19th century, but it was Tunku Abdul Rahman who officially announced the proposal of wider federation in May 1961.

However, Malaysia considers this dispute as a "non-issue" as it interprets the 1878 agreement as that of cession and that it deems that the residents of Sabah had exercised their right to self-determination when they joined to form the Malaysian federation in 1963.

[49] These laws reaffirmed the Philippines' maritime territories and rights to natural resources across the South China Sea, including Sabah, drawing strong criticism from Malaysia.

On 15 November 2024, Kuala Lumpur lodged a diplomatic protest against the two maritime laws, arguing that they infringed upon Malaysia's territorial boundaries in the South China Sea.

In 1986, opponents of the newly elected PBS government started riots around the state, mainly in the cities of Kota Kinabalu, Tawau and Sandakan, resulting in bombings and five fatalities.

[55][56] From 1990 to 1991, several PBS politicians were arrested under the Internal Security Act for allegedly being involved in plans for Sabah independence from the Malaysian Federation and detained for two years.

[60] Soon, the state became the main target of criminals and terrorists from the southern Philippines such as Abu Sayyaf and followers of the Moro National Liberation Front under Nur Misuari.

Jesselton , circa 1911.
Entrance to the Madai Cave .
The presence of Chinese junk in northern Borneo on Kinabatangan as photographed by Martin and Osa Johnson in 1935, both the sultanates of Brunei and Sulu have been traditionally engaging trade with the dynasties of China and the arrival of Chinese junks was continued until the British colonial times. [ 15 ] [ 16 ]
The first recorded ascent to the highest peak of Mount Kinabalu was made in 1851 by Hugh Low . In 1964, the region was designated as Kinabalu National Park and it was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000.
A map of the occupation of Borneo in 1943 prepared by the Japanese during World War II , with label written in Japanese characters .
Postage stamp of the North Borneo Crown with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in 1964. Although North Borneo (Sabah) became part of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, all British Crown stamps were maintained until 30 June 1964; the newly printed Sabah stamps arrived on 1 July 1964.
Map of the British North Borneo with the yellow area covered the Philippine claim to eastern Sabah, presented by the Philippine Government to the International Court of Justice on 25 June 2001. [ 46 ]
Kota Kinabalu in 2008. It became the first city in the state in 2000 and has become not only the administrative capital but also the economic and transportation hub of the region.