The Oath of Bima

 

The Bima Kingdom wasn’t just any kingdom. Oh no. It was a goddamn powerhouse that stretched its bony fingers across half of eastern Sumbawa and reached like a greedy child for the islands scattered around the Alas Strait, even grabbing a piece of Flores. The kind of place where power was currency and history was written in blood and broken promises.

You know how these things go. Every empire has its day in the sun before the shadows creep in. For Bima, that shadow had a name: the VOC. The Company. And buddy, when the Company came calling, even kings learned to kneel.

It happened after Makassar fell. The whole eastern chunk of Indonesia went to hell—kingdoms scattering like roaches when the kitchen light flicks on. But Bima wasn’t just any vassal state. They were family, for Christ’s sake. The first eight sultans—every damn one of them—married Makassar princesses. Political marriages, sure, but blood ties all the same. The kind that bind. The kind that strangle.

Then along came Sultan Abdul Hamid Muhammad Syah in 1773.

Abdul Hamid was different. You could see it in his eyes—that look men get when they’re fixing to change things. He broke tradition like a man snapping a dry twig. Didn’t marry a Makassar princess. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But in the world of royal politics, it was like spitting in your father-in-law’s face at Sunday dinner. A declaration: I’m my own man now.

(Aren’t we all our own men, until we aren’t?)

Abdul Hamid’s daddy, Sultan Abdul Kadim, had signed a loyalty agreement with the VOC back in ‘65—1765, that is—along with six other kings on Sumbawa. You sign on the dotted line, you get to keep breathing. That’s how the Company worked. The agreement had twenty-one points, like a checklist for how to surrender your dignity one clause at a time. Point number whatever: every change of power needs Company approval. Like asking permission to wipe your own ass.

Now here’s where it gets interesting—where the darkness starts seeping in around the edges.

Abdul Hamid didn’t fight this arrangement. No sir. Instead, he turned it into theater. A ritual. The whole “sail to Makassar to swear loyalty” thing. It’s the kind of move that makes you wonder what was really going on behind those royal eyes.

It was 1792 when Abdul Hamid set sail. Mid-year. Hot as Satan’s kitchen. The manuscript—this Syair Kerajaan Bima—tells it like some grand adventure. But between the lines, Christ, you can feel the tension. The fear. The resignation.

See, Abdul Hamid had problems at home. The jeneli of Sape—a relative, no less—had tried to stage a coup. Blood against blood. The coup failed, and the jeneli ran off to Manggarai, then to Makassar. The Company, playing referee to this family squabble, invited both parties to come sort it out. Like divorce court, but with kingdoms at stake.

The voyage itself was no pleasure cruise. Abdul Hamid’s ship left Waworada Port at 11 in the morning on April 16th. Thirteen days at sea. Storms that would make your blood run cold. The kind where you make bargains with whatever god happens to be listening.

During the journey—and this detail will matter later, friend—Abdul Hamid visited his ancestor’s “sea grave.” Jane Luma Bolo. The dead watching over the living. Always watching.

On May 7th, they finally reached Makassar. The Dutch officials rolled out the red carpet, paraded him around Kampung Baharu like a prize bull. Made him wait four days before meeting Governor Beth—power games, pure and simple.

When they finally met, Abdul Hamid offered his tribute: ten slaves and five pikuls of candles. Human lives and light, handed over like party favors. The Governor invited him to reconcile with the jeneli, but Abdul Hamid refused. Some betrayals cut too deep for forgiveness.

For the next two weeks, they kept him busy—tours of the market, the port, the Chinese quarter. Distractions. Always moving, never quite settling. Like a man being shown his cell before the door slams shut.

Then came May 26th, 1792. The day of the oath.

Fort Rotterdam. All the Company officials assembled—harbormaster, clergy, native nobility. Witnesses to a ritual humiliation dressed up as diplomacy.

Picture it: Abdul Hamid, royal blood in his veins, stretching his hands over the Quran. The sacred text of his faith now a prop in this colonial theater. He recites the oath of loyalty to the Company, words like stones in his mouth.

Then comes the part that would give you nightmares if you understood what it really meant.

The sultan unsheathed his keris—not just any blade, mind you, but his keris, extension of his soul—and dipped it into water. Then he drank that water. Down the hatch. Just like the Bugis kings did before Cornelis Speelman after Makassar fell.

There’s power in that ritual. Dark power. The kind you don’t mess with. They say whoever drinks the water their keris has touched will die if they break their oath. Magic or psychology, doesn’t matter. The effect is the same: chains made of fear instead of iron.

After binding himself—body and soul—Abdul Hamid spent more time meeting the local bigwigs. The Malay Captain. Bugis nobility. Governor Beth grew fond of the sultan, kept delaying his departure. Wasn’t until Abdul Hamid complained about running out of supplies that they finally let him go.

On June 20th, he sailed from Panakukang with a grand send-off. Cannon salutes. Gamelan music. The sounds of power celebrating its latest conquest.

As his ship pulled away, I wonder if Abdul Hamid looked back at Makassar. I wonder if he felt the weight of that water in his belly, the water his keris had touched. I wonder if he knew that some oaths bind you beyond the grave.

Some say power is like a current that runs through history, changing hands but never diminishing. From Makassar to the Company to Bima and back again. Round and round it goes, where it stops—well, it doesn’t. Not really.

In the end, we all drink from that poisoned cup. We all make our oaths to someone or something. The only difference is whether we admit it to ourselves.

Abdul Hamid did. And maybe that’s what made him different after all.