摘要

蘭芳公司，做為東南亞客家研究的對象，是因為這個公司主要 由客家人所組成，羅芳伯這位從中國嘉應州到印尼坤甸的客家人， 在當時的環境下組織蘭芳公司，後來改組為蘭芳大統制，其後被稱 為「共和國」，受到許多學者的重視，甚至於將蘭芳共和國和美國在 民主共和的理念方面相提並論。不過因為蘭芳公司的第一手資料相 當缺乏，本文除針對羅芳伯及早期此地移民的背景加以說明外，將 分別針對蘭芳公司的活動與發展、蘭芳共和國的建立與消失加以陳 述；最後，針對蘭芳公司是一個公司或是共和國陳述不同的見解， 本文尚未處理這個客家人建立的共和國究竟是不是一個國家？這些 議題目前仍有相當大的討論空間，有待更詳細的解析將另文討論。唯一確定的是羅芳伯的蘭芳公司主要由客家人組成，他們擁有與其 故鄉相似的特殊管理體系與防衛系統，而羅芳伯則被客家人稱為大伯公。

We take Lan Fang company as the Southeast Asian Hakka research topic, because this company mainly consists of the ethnic Hakka from Jia-Ying County of Guang Dong in China. These Hakka people emigrated to West Borneo in the 18th century. The founder, Mr. Lo Fang-Pah, organized a Lan Fang gold mine company that then reformed as Lan Fang Presidential System in 1777. Finally it becomes a “Lan Fang Republic”. For historians, this is a controversial event, especially the Chinese prefer to claim this as the first democratic republic country in the world, and emphasize that it is 10 years earlier then the United States of America, found by George Washington. Base on rare materials, this paper is trying to describe the history of the raise and fall of this company. What we could only confirm is that Lo Fang-Pah is a Hakka’s Thai Pak Kong , and the Lan Fang company is a Hakka’s gold mine company, and it has a special self governing and defense system, which may share similar structure with their home town in China; however, we don’t have material to answer whether this company is democratic republic or not, hopefully will have an answer in another separated paper in the future.

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