This paper looks at an early nineteenth-century Malay letter from a land of exile,
Ceylon (present Sri Lanka). The letter, written in Colombo, was dated 3 January
1807 and is in Leiden University Library MS Cod.Or.2241-I 25 [Klt 21/no.526]. It
was written by Siti Hapipa, the widow of the exiled Sultan Fakhruddin Abdul
Khair al-Mansur Baginda Usman Batara Tangkana Gowa, the 26th king of the
Gowa Sultanate of South Sulawesi who reigned from 1753 until 1767. He was
banished by the Dutch (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) to Ceylon
in 1767 on a charge of conspiracy with the British to oppose the VOC trading
monopoly in eastern Indonesia. Although many studies of Malay letters exist,
letters from the lands of exile like such as the one discussed in this article have
received less scholarly attention. Also remarkable is that this is one of the rare
eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries Malay letters written by a female. Setting
the scene with a historical sketch of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth
century in colonial Ceylon and the Netherlands East Indies, this paper provides
the transliteration of Siti Hapipa?s letter in Roman script, through which I
then analyse the socio-economic and political aspects of the family of Sultan
Fakhruddin in their exile in Colombo.
