Raj of Sarawak

The Raj of Sarawak, Kingdom or State of Sarawak, was the Borneo kingdom of the White Rajahs, founded in 1841 in the northwest of the island from land concessions the Englishman James Brooke won from the Sultan of Brunei for helping put down a rebellion. From Kuching, Brooke built an administration, codified laws and hunted the pirates of the rivers, and his house held the country for a century through Charles Brooke and Charles Vyner Brooke. Sarawak won recognition as a sovereign state from the United States in 1850 and from Britain in 1864, and in 1888 accepted British protection as one of the three protectorates of British Borneo, safe from stronger neighbours. The Japanese seized the country in December 1941 and held it until August 1945. Broken by the occupation, the last Rajah surrendered his titles in 1946 and ceded sovereignty to the British crown. Sarawak governed itself from July 1963 and entered the Federation of Malaysia that September.