When tobacco was important for Sabah

Published on: Sunday, June 15, 2025
Published on: Sun, Jun 15, 2025
By: David Thien Text Size: Grading and sorting dry tobacco leaves. ALTHOUGH its availability is now reduced to token quantities in Tamus (weekly markets), tobacco was crucial for the profitability of the British North Borneo Chartered Company. In 1884, the first bale of North Borneo-grown tobacco was dispatched to tobacco dealers in London and Amsterdam where it made an impact as comparable in quality to the Sumatran tobacco leaf and was most suitable for the cigar industry as wrapper-leaf.
Advertisement An excerpt reads: … 'a similar plantation industry also developed in what is now the Malaysian state of Sabah in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. 'Roughly the size of Ireland, Sabah – then known as North Borneo – was administered from 1881 until 1946 by the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company and this tobacco industry was of crucial significance in the economic history of the Company's territory. 'Tobacco in the eighties,' wrote historian Owen Rutter half a century ago, 'played an even more important part in the destinies of the country than rubber has in later years. Until ousted by rubber it was the country's foremost planting industry…' (Rutter, Owen., British North Borneo: An Account of Its History, Resources and Native Tribes, London, 1922, p. 249) Today, local tobacco is planted in Tandek, Kota Marudu and processed mostly for local consumption and can be found on sale at local tamu markets as 'Sigup Daun' or tobacco leaves, 'tembakau' (tobacco), or 'sigup' or cigarette, or 'curut', the local (cheroots) version of cigar, or marketed online to niche pipe tobacco aficionados beyond Sabah. Not every smoker has a taste for such cottage industry processed products. 'Sigup' was locally hand-made, and 'rokok' refers to the foreign brands. Tobacco growers can earn a decent income to alleviate poverty in one of Malaysia's poorest districts. (Readers can view a YouTube video on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDX9MqardM8 'Bagaimana Sigup Kampung Dihasilkan? Cara Tradisional | How To Process Tobacco'.) The origins of the North Borneo tobacco industry started with a plant of New World (Americas) origin. Tobacco was introduced to Southeast Asia in the later sixteen century when a missionary from Mexico carried seeds to the Philippines. The plant soon spread through the archipelago and by the mid-1800s 'the cultural adoption of smoking had become widespread and tobacco was planted in North Borneo south west of the Philippines. Although, in the absence of a fully-documented review of its history and organization, it rarely receives notice, a similar plantation industry also developed in what is now Sabah in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Roughly the size of Ireland, Sabah – then known as North Borneo – was administered from 1881 until 1946 by the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company and this tobacco industry was of crucial significance in the economic history of the company's territory. In today's Sabah, the importation of the multinational brands of other cigarettes has affected the demand and growth of its tobacco products. Smoking in the days of old was seen as a cultural passage of rites for males, other than drinking alcoholic drinks. A saying went, 'kalau belum pandai besigup belum lagi bujang tu (if you don't know how to smoke you have not grown up yet)'. So in order to be impressive and become a grown up, one must first learn how to smoke or 'pandai besigup'. The ability to smoke was equated with adulthood. Later the social habit also spread to the more affluent betel nut chewing fairer sex. In some parts of Borneo, 'daun kirai' is a tobacco leaf that acts as the outer layer to hold the tobacco. The tobacco was placed inside it and the leaf was then rolled up, much like today's cigarettes. The 'daun kirai' and the tobacco provided a combined taste to the smoker. In order to have a good smoke, one would need to know what kinds of leaf and tobacco to buy. Smokers praised the tobacco's good quality if it was 'licak' or smooth when held tightly in one's palm and if the ash it produced was white and did not fall on its own. The 'daun kirai' can also be replaced by a piece of thin paper. Despite this substantial difference, this kind of hand-made cigarette continued to be known as 'sigup'. US' first tariff regime destroyed North Borneo's tobacco sector IT was the United States' first tariff regime that brought down North Borneo's tobacco industry. In 1892 with the introduction of the United States President William McKinley's tariff (idolised by Donald Trump as an exemplar for his economic policy, who renamed a mountain after this president), the United States which was the chief importer of cigar tobacco, decided to protect its homegrown tobacco industry. This resulted in a sharp drop in demand for North Borneo tobacco, and a further drop in prices. Prior to this period of decline, tobacco planting had given the North Borneo Chartered Company a new lease of life. It stimulated the economy as a whole and led to an improvement in the financial resources of the North Borneo Company. From a company which was operating with losses since its inception in 1881, it was able to generate sufficient income from 1890 to cover its expenditures. It was due to tobacco's contribution that the company was able to pay its first dividends to its shareholders. In 1890, tobacco exports accounted for about 30 per cent of North Borneo's total exports, and this increased steadily to 50 per cent in 1891 and 60 per cent from 1892 onwards. As a consequence of the demand for labour by tobacco estates, an influx of Chinese and later, Javanese immigrants to Sabah changed the demography of the state. The tobacco boom was short-lived. By 1892, tobacco estates were beginning to experience difficulties. The rapid development of the crop in South-East Asia had resulted in shortage of skilled planters and supporting staff. Being new to the industry, the companies in North Borneo had to rely on the 'rejects' of the more established companies in Deli, Sumatra. This resulted in a decline in production quality. But it was the economic depression of the early 1890s which stalled the growth of the industry in Sabah. As most of the companies were new, they were in constant need of funds. The credit squeeze which came with the economic depression meant that many companies simply could not go on. The problem was also exacerbated in 1892 by the introduction of the McKinley tariff. North Borneo's trade ties with Shanghai in 1880s THE New Darvel Bay Tobacco Plantation near Lahad Datu was the last company which was wound up in 1930. After that, the tobacco industry continued on a small scale with the Imperial Tobacco Company taking over the New Darvel Bay Company's land in Segama in 1934. The tobacco leaf of Sabah was still in demand well into the 1930s as a wrapper-leaf. The Imperial Tobacco Company was revived after the war, but finally closed in 1960. Among the tobacco growing companies that operated in North Borneo include the North Borneo-China Land Farming Company that started in 1883 with growing sugar canes. After the sharp drop in the price of sugar then, the company shifted to tobacco and the experiment was a success. Sanders, a tobacco planter from Deli in Sumatra, was enlisted to explore the area south of the Marudu Bay at Bandau, Bongon and Bengkoka River in order to determine their suitability for the planting of tobacco. The company had acquired a land concession of 40,000 acres (16,000ha) in 1882. The first experiment was carried out by Sanders at the Suanlamba River near Sandakan as a project of the North Borneo-China Land Farming Company, a Chinese-European joint venture company that was floated in Shanghai. Thus, North Borneo had a business connection with Shanghai, China, in the 1880s. In 1884, the first bale of tobacco was dispatched to tobacco dealers in London and Amsterdam where it made an impact as comparable in quality to the Sumatran tobacco leaf. The wars in the 20th century ending with WWII closed down most of these companies and tobacco was replaced by rubber after rubber prices soared during the Korean War in the 1950s. Daily Express visited China Tobacco Museum which is the world's largest tobacco museum in Shanghai, China during its participation in the Belt and Road Journalists Course in July last year with media practitioners from Europe, Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia. The China Tobacco Museum is located at the intersection of No. 728 Changyang Road and Tongbei Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai, across the road from Shanghai Cigarette Factory. The tobacco pavilion vividly displays the history of Chinese tobacco culture and interprets the rich connotation of tobacco culture through precious cultural relics, documents, models, scenes, real wax figures, photos, multimedia and other forms. 'The China Tobacco Museum is a national and professional national museum and the largest professional tobacco museum in the world. China Tobacco Museum is not only a treasure house of Chinese tobacco knowledge, but also a window for people to understand the history of tobacco development and experience tobacco culture,' says Li Wenhua, the guide for the visitors. This informative five storey museum is complete with important relics and artifacts, documents and exhibition spaces. The first three levels are dedicated as full-fledged exhibition halls while floor number four and five are kept as the business area. The China Tobacco Museum boasts of seven well maintained display halls that include the hall for tobacco development, the hall for tobacco agriculture, tobacco industry, the management of tobacco, culture, trade as well as a hall providing information on smoking. There is also a hall dedicated for smoking control. The museum has opened eight exhibition halls, namely 'Tobacco History', 'Tobacco Management', 'Tobacco Culture', 'Tobacco Agriculture', 'Tobacco Trade', 'Tobacco Industry', 'Smoking and Tobacco Control' and 'New Century Pavilion'. The Sabah Museum did not exhibit any of North Borneo's tobacco history at its premises although North Borneo had a tobacco culture heritage with Brunei. The China Tobacco Museum is designed with large merchant ships and Mayan temples as the concept, forming an external structure of about 80m long, 25m wide and 30m high. In the middle of the museum's outer wall, there is a 140m-long and 4.1m-high granite relief. The Mayan and other native Americans were said to be the first to have smoking habits, some with peace pipes rituals to avert conflicts and wars. European settlers later adopted these smoking habits and spread it as part of Western civilisation culture that went westward with Christopher Columbus. Starting on the third floor, bypassing the Exhibition Hall for Minors, is a history of tobacco. There are wax figures of happy Native Americans and a model of Christopher Columbus's ship, the Santa María, which brought him in contact with smokers on San Salvador Island in 1492. Malaysia is home to over 4.9 million adult smokers. A National Health & Morbidity Survey found that while most smoked manufactured cigarettes, older smokers and those living in rural areas were also likely to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, a trend Sabah is well known for. More of the younger generations are involved in vaping now.

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