Lanfang Republic

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The Lanfang Republic (modern name in Traditional Chinese: 蘭芳共和國, Hanyu Pinyin: Lánfāng Gònghéguó) was a Hakka state in West Kalimantan, or Kalimantan Barat in Indonesia that was established by Luo Fangbo (羅芳伯) in 1777, 10 years earlier than the United States (1787), until it was ended by Dutch occupation in 1884.

The sultans of Western Borneo imported Chinese laborers in 18th century to work in gold or tin mines. A number of mining communities (kongsi) enjoyed some political autonomy, but Lanfang is the best known thanks to a history written by Yap Siong-yoen, the son-in-law of the last kapitan of the Lanfang kongsi, which was translated into Dutch in 1885.^[1] None of the other Chinese mining settlements in western Kalimantan left written accounts (Heidhues 2001:169).

Notes

^ Groot, J.J.M. (1885), written at The Hague, Het Kongsiwezen van Borneo: eene verhandeling over den grondslag en den aard der chineesche politieke vereenigingen in de koloniën, M. Nijhof.

References

Heidhues, Mary Somers (2001), "Chinese Settlements in Rural Southeast Asia: Unwritten Histories", written at Honolulu, in Anthony Reid, Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, University of Hawaii Press.