Hostis Humanis Generis

Abstract

The so-called ‘war on piracy’ that was waged along the northern coast of Borneo from the late 1830s to the 1840s was justified in terms of a naval security operation, intended to guarantee freedom of navigation and free trade. In the course of this campaign, the Dayaks of Sarawak were brought into the narrative and cast as a warlike race, who were thought to be susceptible to the manipulation of Malay and Arab pirate lords. This chapter looks at how the Dayaks of Borneo were framed in debilitating terms, as a race that was inherently violent and yet could be saved by Western colonial intervention. The result of this was the discursive construction of the Dayak as the embodiment of primitive violence, at a time when scientific racism was the norm.