America's Encounters with Southeast Asia, 1800-1900

Farish A. Noor is Professor of Political History at the Faculty of Social Science FOSS, Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia UIII. His work has focused on 19th century colonial Southeast Asia, looking at the modalities of racialised colonial-capitalism in the region. His recent works include Peta dan Kekuasaan (Mapping and Power, Lestari Hikmah, 2025), Data-Collecting in 19th Century Colonial Southeast Asia (Amsterdam University Press, 2020) and America's Encounters with Southeast Asia 1800-1900 (Amsterdam University Press, 2018).

"With his well-written book, Farish fills an important knowledge gap by showing that, to protect its commercial interests in Southeast Asia, the U.S. was pursuing its own gunboat diplomacy as early as the 1830s." - Giorgio Mariani, Asian Journal of Social Science 48, 2020 "Farish Noor’s latest book presents a series of richly-textured critical explorations of a selection of key texts presenting windows on the ways in which the United States engaged with a range of different Asian societies over the course of the nineteenth century ... this book makes valuable contributions to several fields that do not often intersect in a single academic work: Southeast Asian history, nineteenth-century literature, and American studies. Readers coming from the perspective from any of these fields will learn much from Noor’s book, and his finely crafted prose helps to make it a thoroughly enjoyable read as well." - R. Michael Feener, University of Oxford, Review of International American Studies Vol. 12, 2019 "Absolutely unique, beautifully written and quite simply mind-blowing. This is a distinct and original piece of work that offers an account of American-Southeast Asian encounters through a lens that is rightly critical of Orientalist constructions of Asia. There is nothing else like this book and the field of Southeast Asian studies is very much in need of it." - Professor Rachel Harrison, SOAS, University of London "Highly original and un-put-down-able. Farish's work looks at the interaction of Americans with Southeast Asia in the nineteenth century and the development of American Orientalism. Studying the emerging Orientalist discourse in 19th century America through the works of American authors, this work has much to say about issues of racism, and the cultural and religious exceptionalism of the United States as it emerged as a colonial power." - Professor Peter Carey, Emeritus Fellow, Trinity College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor, Faculty of Humanities, University of Indonesia

• Dedication Introduction: The Eagle in the Indies: America's early encounters with Southeast Asia, and how Southeast Asia was imagined in the 19th century. A book about books, and why books matter. Chapter 1. The Curtain Rises: America's Independence and The Birth of a New Naval Power. 1.I. 'To be considered as Actors on a most conspicuous Theatre': America's genesis and the world beyond. 1.II. The Birth of a New Naval Power 1.III. Between Expansionism and Isolationism: America's neutrality tested. 1.IV. Marking borders and stepping out: Southeast Asia Awaits. Chapter 2. Pepper and Gunboats: The Kuala Batu Affair and America's First Gunboat Action in Southeast Asia. 2.I. Boom! America's Pepper Rush begins. 2.II. Not so friendly after all: The Attack on the American Merchant Vessel Friendship. 2.III. 'You are authorized to vindicate our wrongs': America's first attack in Southeast Asia. 2.IV. Drama Awaits: The controversy over the Kuala Batu affair back home in America. 2.V. 'Conducted in a desultory manner': Francis Warriner's account of the Kuala Batu Attack. 2.VI. 'We have made no conquests, dethroned no Sultans': Jeremiah Reynolds' defence of American aggression. 2.VII. Far from the Madding Crowd: Embedded Writers and the Beginnings of American Scholarship on Southeast Asia. Chapter 3. Friends, but not Equals: Edmund Roberts' mission to Siam and the Birth of American Orientalism. 3.I. In Search of Friends: America's mission to Siam. 3.II. 'Not a single vessel of war was to be seen': Roberts' Mission to secure a friend for America. 3.III. The great unknown: Edmund Roberts' arrival in Siam. 3.IV. The American Eagle and the British Lion: 'Frienemies' in the Indies. 3.V. Regarding the feeble, un-Christian Other: Oppositional dialectics in Roberts' narrative. 3.VI. Edmund Roberts as the American Orientalist. Chapter 4. 'It was a scene of grandeur in destruction': Fitch W. Taylor and America's Second Attack on Sumatra in 1838. 4.I. Boom! Back to Sumatra we go. 4.II. 'May a merciful as well as a just God direct': Fitch Taylor's Christian Universe. 4.III. Finding Comfort in the Familiar: Fitch Taylor's deliberate blindness. Chapter 5. Flirting with Danger: Walter Murray Gibson, The American Nobody Wanted. 5.I. From Sea to Shining Sea: America's Expansion and Consolidation in the 1840s and 1850s. 5.II. 'Jealousy had met me at the threshold of Netherland India': Walter Murray Gibson's misadventure in Sumatra. 5.III. Will no one rid me of this troublesome man? The Walter Gibson Affair and its Impact on American-Dutch Relations. 5.IV. Those who can't do, write fiction: Walter Gibson as American Orientalist. 5.V. The Filibuster's Demise: Gibson's final Pacific adventure. Chapter 6. It is your shells I am after: Albert S. Bickmore's Voyage to the East Indies And America's Coming of Age. 6.I. From Antebellum to Post-Civil War United States: Another America Rises. 6.II. All for the Sake of Knowledge: Bickmore's Scientific Jaunt across the Dutch East Indies. 6.III. 'This indicates their low rank in the human family': Bickmore and the Theory of Racial Difference. 6.IV. Albert Bickmore's Adventure in Conchology and America's entry into the club of Civilized Western Nations. Chapter 7. Empire at Last: America's Arrival as a Colonial Power in Southeast Asia. 7.I. Travelling in the Shade of Empire: American Tourists and Amateurs in Southeast Asia. 7.II. That other Great Game to the East: America's rise as a Colonial Power from 1898. Chapter 8. Conclusion: American Orientalism in Southeast Asia. 8.I. American Orientalism: The contours of a New Language-Game, and its Users. 8.II. The Gathering of Minds: How the echo chamber was formed. 8.III. 'Indians', Indians, Asians, and the Disabled Native Other. 8.IV. Talking to themselves: American works on Southeast Asia as self-referential texts. 8.V. The Stories We Tell: America and Southeast Asia's entanglement, then and now. Appendix A: The treaty