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American Trading Company of Borneo

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The present-day area of "Ellena", once a colony of the United States in present-day Kimanis, Sabah, Malaysia.

The American Trading Company of Borneo was a chartered company formed by Joseph William Torrey, Thomas Bradley Harris and several Chinese investors shortly after the acquisition over a parcel of land in northern Borneo from the Sultanate of Brunei.[1] The first American settlement in the area soon was named "Ellena",[2] although it was abandoned later due to financial difficulties, diseases and riots among the workers.[3]

History

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In 1850, the United States and Brunei signed a commercial treaty, which was activated in 1865. Out of this agreement, C.L. Moses, the US First Consul to the sultanate, secured a lease of a large territorial concession in North Borneo.[4] The grant was made in an effort by the Sultan –who still had to address internal power struggle–[5] to solve the problems of rebellion and piracy in North Borneo.[6] Moses concessions were immediately sold to Torrey, a Hong Kong merchant. Together with his associates, Torrey founded the American Trading Company in their attempt to develop plantation agriculture at Kimanis in 1865.[4] This group then sold the lease to Gustav Overbeck in Hong Kong.[6]

References

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  1. ^ K. G. Tregonning (November 1954). "American Activity in North Borneo, 1865-1881". Pacific Historical Review. 23 (4): 357–372. doi:10.2307/3634654. JSTOR 3634654.
  2. ^ Richard Ker (August 26, 2012). "Ellena – America's Lost Colony in Kimanis of North Borneo". North Borneo Historical Society. Archived from the original on May 21, 2017. Retrieved May 21, 2017.
  3. ^ James W. Gould (1969). The United States and Malaysia. Harvard University Press. pp. 63–. ISBN 978-0-674-92615-8.
  4. ^ a b Singh, D. S. Ranjit (2019). The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute Concerning Sovereignty over Sipadan and Ligitan Islands: Historical Antecedents and the International Court of Justice Judgment. Singapore: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. p. 32. ISBN 978-981-4843-64-5.
  5. ^ Fitzgerald, Robert (2015). The Rise of the Global Company: Multinationals and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-521-84974-6.
  6. ^ a b Ciravegna, Luciano; Fitzgerald, Robert; Kundu, Sumit (August 29, 2013). Operating in Emerging Markets: A Guide to Management and Strategy in the New International Economy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-13-298338-9.
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