On 1 May 1837, the
Skrang Ibans invaded the Jagoi-Bratak Bidayuh settlement on top of Bratak Peak, killing over 2,000 Jagoi-Bratak Bidayuh men and taking 1,000 women captive. Panglima Kulow, head of Jagoi-Bratak Bidayuh community, and a handful of his followers survived the massacre. In 1841
James Brooke, who was then the newly installed White Rajah of Sarawak, was able to rescue some of the women taken captive. Each year on 1 May, descendants of the survivors of the 1837 massacre hold Jagoi-Bratak Day on top of
Bratak Hill in Bau in memory of their ancestors. A memorial stone was erected on 1 May 1988, to mark the day.
Gold mining The Hakka Chinese first began gold mining in Bau in the 1800s, centred at
Pangkalan Tebang. Local Chinese oral history put the establishment of first Chinese settlement in Bau at 1830. Chinese immigration into Bau halted temporarily in 1836 during the civil war between Kuching Malays and Bruneian Malays. Amongst those who were killed during the uprising were police inspector P. Middleton and his family, R. Wellington, an employee of
Borneo Company Limited (BCL), 19-year-old Harry Nicholettes, the Lundu Resident, and a Malay Corporal. But during the
Great Depression Chinese miners continued to
artisanally mine the deposits. The mines were reopened in the late 1970s when world gold prices soared, but were closed down again in 1996 when the Asian financial crisis started. The last mining occurred at the Tai Parit open-pit mine. In 2002, Preston Resources began exploratory development of the mining leases formerly held by Malaysia's Oriental Peninsula Gold (now Peninsula Gold Ltd.). Zedex was primarily concerned with determining the extent and richness of the remaining Jugan gold deposits, but it also assayed the old
tailings at the Bukit Young Gold Mine site for potential reprocessing. As of 2014, the mining rights were held by North Borneo Gold, a joint venture of Besra Gold (aka Olympus Pacific Minerals), Golden Celesta and Gladioli Enterprises, a Malaysian mining group. , the mines have not reopened. ==Geography==