When we think of colonialism we usually picture armies, treaties, and governments marching in lockstep. Yet history also holds a handful of audacious individuals—much like Kipling’s fictional Dravot and Carnehan—who leapt into uncharted lands and tried, with varying degrees of success, to fashion their own sovereign realms. These ten private adventurers, driven by ambition, idealism, or perhaps a touch of madness, each left a curious imprint on the map.
10. Joseph William Torrey North Borneo
Born in Maine, Joseph Torrey was a restless soul who bounced between roles—clerk in Melbourne, journalist for the Boston Times, a Hong Kong shipping broker, and even vice‑consul in Siam. In 1864 he launched the American Trading Company of Borneo, securing a lease over a sizable tract of North Borneo and earning the title “Raja of Ambong and Maradu” from the Sultan of Brunei. He dispatched a handful of Americans and Chinese to found the settlement of Ellena, though he stayed behind, hunting for investors in Hong Kong.
Ellena quickly turned into a disaster. The overseer died of fever, the settlement ran out of cash to pay its Chinese laborers, and backers lost confidence. Within a year the colony was abandoned. Torrey returned in 1875 hoping to extend his lease, but eventually sold his rights to Baron Gustav von Overbeck, the Austro‑Hungarian consul. Overbeck’s lobbying failed, and the territory later slipped into British hands.
9. Walter Reinhardt Sombre The Principality Of Sardhana
Walter Reinhardt Sombre’s early life is a tangled web of nationalities—French, Swiss, German— and shifting allegiances. Some say he sailed to India in British service and defected to the French; others claim the reverse. Ultimately he entered the service of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal, and in 1763 performed a grisly feat that cemented his notoriety.
During a war with the British, Mir Qasim ordered Sombre to eliminate a group of captives in Patna. Sombre invited 40 British officers to dinner, then slit their throats before slaughtering the rest, killing roughly 150 Europeans. He spent the next years evading British retaliation, eventually receiving control of the 620‑square‑kilometer Principality of Sardhana. There he and his partner, the Begum Sumru, ran a hybrid court of Indian nobles and European adventurers. After his 1778 death, the Begum ruled alone for 58 years until the British seized the land, prompting a later‑generation great‑grandson to launch a bizarre 37‑year legal saga.
8. Jeremiah Heaton The Kingdom Of North Sudan
Seven‑year‑old Emily Heaton wanted to be a princess, and her dad, Jeremiah—once a failed congressional hopeful—decided to make that dream a reality. After ruling out Antarctica due to international treaties, he set his sights on Bir Tawil, a 2,100‑square‑kilometer desert strip disputed between Sudan and Egypt. In June 2014 he trekked from Egypt across the harsh desert, planting a flag designed by his children and proclaiming the area the Kingdom of North Sudan.
Many dismissed the stunt as a whimsical family escapade, while critics called it a stark example of white privilege. Still, Heaton persists, outlining plans for desert agriculture, a Red‑Sea desalination pipeline, and an internet server farm to champion digital liberty. The story caught the eye of Disney and Morgan Spurlock, who considered turning it into a documentary or feature film.
7. Jules Gros Counani
In 1886 a cluster of French settlers in the demilitarised zone between Brazil and French Guiana declared an independent republic called Counani. They installed Parisian journalist Jules Gros as president. Gros, a former secretary of a geographic society and contributor to several magazines, was well‑known among the expatriate community, which comprised criminals, deserters, fugitive slaves, and a few traders.
Gros learned of his appointment via telegraph, only to be ousted shortly thereafter when a Counani official was caught trafficking contraband. Accusations of alcoholism flew, and the fledgling government revoked all of Gros’s authority. He tried repeatedly to reach his “nation” but died in 1891. Counani lingered, later attracting gold seekers in 1895 and a Swiss arbitration that awarded the area to Brazil.
6. John Baker The Republic Of Madawaska
Madawaska sat at the crossroads of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Maine—a lawless buffer where French Acadians fled British persecution after the French‑Indian War and American loyalists escaped the Revolution. The area’s borders were a mess, thanks to the vague Treaty of Paris and the chaotic aftermath of the War of 1812.
In 1827, American settler John Baker hoisted a flag reminiscent of the United States on July 4th and declared the Republic of Madawaska an independent American state. New Brunswick authorities promptly arrested and fined him, sparking a diplomatic flare‑up. Subsequent years saw a flood of land agents and census takers from both sides, many of whom were detained. The Treaty of Ghent’s negotiators failed to settle the dispute, allegedly because surveyors got drunk and navigated the wrong river. The Aroostook War of 1838—a lumberjack showdown—ended without bloodshed, and the 1842 Webster‑Ashburton Treaty finally fixed the border.
5. Jean‑Baptiste Dutrou‑Bornier The Kingdom Of Easter Island
Jean‑Baptiste Dutrou‑Bornier, a French artillery officer from the Crimean War, abandoned his family in the 1860s to wander the globe. After a brief arrest in Peru for gun‑smuggling, he spent years “recruiting” (likely slave‑trading) Pacific islanders for Tahitian plantations, which brought him into contact with Easter Island.
Burdened by gambling debts, Bornier settled permanently on the island in 1868 with a wild scheme: turn Rapa Nui into a massive sheep ranch. He bought land from the dwindling native population, deported many Rapa Nui people, and even kidnapped young women for his pleasure, provoking missionaries. He burned down the mission station, forced the clergy off the island, and crowned himself “King Onesime.” He married Princess Koreta—perhaps forcibly—claimed descent from the last Rapa Nui king, planted a vineyard, and lobbied France to make the island a protectorate, all to no avail.
Bornier’s reign ended abruptly in 1876 under mysterious circumstances: some say a horse‑fall injury, others claim murder by the remaining Rapa Nui. By the time he died, the island’s population had shrunk to a mere 111 souls.
4. William Augustus Bowles The State Of Muskogee
William Augustus Bowles enlisted as a Loyalist at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War at the tender age of 13, only to be expelled for insubordination in 1779. He then spent two years living among the Muskogee (Upper Creek) tribe, where a minor chief adopted him. After a fallout with chief Alexander McGillivray, Bowles fled, only to return a decade later when McGillivray lay on his deathbed.
Bowles seized the moment, striking at Spanish Florida, but was captured and shuffled through Cuban, Philippine, and Spanish prisons. He escaped, made his way to England, and secured royal backing for the Native cause. In 1799 he returned to Florida via the West Indies, where his native attire earned him minor celebrity. Declaring himself “Director‑General of the Creek and Cherokee Nations,” he later renamed the coalition Muskogee.
The Muskogee, resentful of American encroachment, rallied behind Bowles. He waged guerrilla warfare against Spain, fielding a ragtag force of Seminoles, Creeks, Black Seminoles, escaped slaves, and a few European outlaws. Armed by the British, they burned plantations, raided slave holdings, and even maintained a modest navy. However, U.S. agent Benjamin Hawkins, combined with the loss of British support after the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, weakened Bowles’s position. He tried a bold confrontation with Hawkins and tribal leaders, only to be handed over to the Spanish for a bounty.
3. Charles‑Marie David De Mayrena The Kingdom Of Sedang
Charles David, later styling himself Charles‑Marie David De Mayrena, was a career French soldier who fought in the conquest of Cochinchina and later in the Franco‑Prussian War. After a scandalous 1883 embezzlement charge, he fled, abandoning his wife and children, and initially aimed to fight in the Dutch‑Aceh War. Instead, he set up a plantation in central Vietnam, where accusations of gun‑running followed.
Venturing into the highlands, Mayrena, aided by two French missionaries, united several tribes into the “Kingdom of Sedang,” proclaiming himself King Marie I. He issued royal stationery, flags, postage stamps, and uniforms, granted interviews to bemused journalists, and wrote letters to foreign leaders, including the French president.
His kingdom was financially fragile. When funds dried up, Mayrena attempted to blackmail the French government by threatening to sell his realm to Britain, Siam, or Germany—an effort that backfired. After a brief stint in power, he returned to Europe to raise money, briefly re‑entered Asia in 1890 with weapons, but the French refused him re‑entry. He died under mysterious circumstances—rumors ranging from suicide to a duel to a venomous snakebite.
2. The Clunies‑Ross Kings The Cocos Islands
In the 1820s Scottish adventurer John Clunies‑Ross claimed the uninhabited Cocos Islands, a remote Indian Ocean archipelago about 3,000 km northwest of Perth. He imported a Malay workforce to plant coconuts and harvest copra, turning the islands into a thriving coconut‑oil enterprise. In 1886 Queen Victoria officially recognised the Ross family, granting them perpetual rights within the British Empire.
The Ross regime was relatively benign; many Malay workers settled permanently and raised families. However, the world eventually intruded. During World War I a telegraph station was built, attracting the German raider SMS Emden, whose distress call led to the Royal Australian Navy’s first victory when HMAS Sydney engaged and forced Emden ashore on North Keeling. World War II saw a brief Japanese bombardment, but the islands survived.
Post‑war, Australia assumed sovereignty, and in 1974 the UN condemned the Ross family’s feudal rule. Australia purchased the islands for $6.25 million in 1978, but legal battles over the Ross mansion drained the funds. The last king, Ross V, lives anonymously in suburban Perth, while his son remains on the islands, farming giant clams from a modest bungalow.
1. James Harden‑Hickey The Principality Of Trinidad
James Harden‑Hickey was born in San Francisco in 1854 and whisked to Paris by his French mother to escape the Gold Rush frenzy. Entranced by the opulence of Napoleon III’s court, he entered Saint‑Cyr military academy, graduating as a master swordsman, and later married a countess.
A fervent Bourbon monarchist, Harden‑Hickey penned novels, a treatise on suicide, and the incendiary magazine Triboulet, which landed him in dozens of lawsuits and a 300,000‑franc fine. After the death of his patron, the pretender Count Henri of Chambord, he fled France, married the heiress of American oil magnate John Flagler, and set sail worldwide.
During his travels he stumbled upon an uninhabited South Atlantic island named Trinidad (not to be confused with its Caribbean namesake). In 1891 he declared himself Prince of Trinidad, created a chivalric order, commissioned a crown, and claimed monopolies over guano, turtles, and rumored buried treasure. He sent a schooner of 300 coolies and began construction, but in 1895 British telegraph‑cable ships seized the island as a relay station, sparking a standoff with Brazil. Mocked by the press and denied further funding, Harden‑Hickey fell into despair and took his own life in an El Paso hotel in 1898, leaving behind his crown, flag, and a letter from filibuster Ralston Markowe offering him the Hawaiian throne.
10 Private Adventurers Overview
The saga of these ten private adventurers proves that the lure of nation‑building has always captivated bold, sometimes reckless, individuals. From the jungles of Borneo to the windswept cliffs of the Cocos Islands, each story blends ambition, intrigue, and the occasional tragedy—reminding us that the line between visionary and delusion is often as thin as a flag‑pole.