Before the port city: coastal settlements and colonialism in Borneo

Between the 1770s and the 1870s, there were no fewer than eight attempts to establish colonial footholds along the coasts of Sabah, the northern quarter of Borneo. This article charts the history of these abortive settlements and, in doing so, subverts established narratives of colonialism and urbanization that usually centre on the British North Borneo Company from the 1880s. It argues that these settlements should be regarded as part of a persistent but sporadic struggle to colonize and control the shores of Sabah. Their repeated frustrations and failures reveal the ways in which coastlines imposed constraints on thalassocracies.