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Malaya, now
the largest component of the Federation of Malaysia occupied the Malay
Peninsula, which extends south–southwest from the narrow Isthmus of Kra to Singapore, which was not part of Malaya. There is archaeological evidence of human
occupation at least 5,000 years ago, and it is clear that the peninsula was
one of the routes by which the prehistoric peoples of Indonesia, Melanesia,
and Australia travelled on their way south to their ultimate destinations,
and that successive waves of people left some of their number in the northern
part of the Malay Peninsula.
The Stone and Bronze
Ages
The earliest known inhabitants of Malaya had
physical characteristics that suggest an affinity to present-day Melanesians
and Papuans. They lived in caves, made rough stone tools, and were probably
in undisturbed possession until a little before 2000 BC, when a people with a Neolithic
culture arrived from the north, possibly from southwest China. These
were farmers, kept domestic animals, and were skilled in pottery making and
in selecting and working stone to make tools and ornaments.
Evidence of a Bronze Age
culture, dating from about 250 BC,
has been found in two widely separated places in Malaya, at Klang and on the Tembeling River in Pahang. This is known as the
Dong Son culture. Two bronze gongs and three large bronze bells are among the
most important articles of this period that have been discovered. They were
almost certainly brought into the country from Sumatra or Indochina.
The Iron Age and the
proto-historic period
Archaeological discoveries belonging to the Iron Age period can be divided
into two categories, those probably representing the indigenous population
and those brought in by settlers. The earliest and most mysterious of these
discoveries is the collection of beads found at Kota Tinggi, in Johore, about
20% of which have been identified as of Roman origin and dating from the
first two or three centuries AD.
This probably indicates a foreign settlement on the Johore River
at a very early date.
The most important
settlements of foreigners on the west coast during this early period were
near Kedah Peak, where colonies of southern
Indians lived from the 4th to the 12th century AD. At Kuala Selinsing, in northern Perak, considerable
quantities of wheel-made pottery, gold ornaments, cornelian and glass beads,
and shell ornaments have been found, alongside skeletons of proto-Malay
types, which point to the conclusion that this was an important indigenous
settlement probably flourishing about AD
800. The only other material evidences of indigenous settlements during the
proto-historic period are slab graves and iron implements found in Perak,
Selangor, and Pahang, dating probably from the 10th century AD.
From early in the Christian
era there were merchant ships plying between India
and China, some of which
put in at river mouths in the Malay Peninsula.
The reports that these traders carried back to their native lands are the
main source of historical information about this early period.
Though in the centre and
south of western Malaysia
there are few traces of continuous occupation except by pre-urban tribes
before the 15th century, there is ample evidence of Malay settlements in the
north, notably in Kedah, Singgora, and Ligor, from a very early date. At one
period they formed part of the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Lankasuka.
Kelantan, Trengganu, and Pahang can also be identified from early Chinese
records as Malay settlements of some importance, reaching a high standard of
culture and wealth.
Malay kingdoms of the
Archipelago
The main source of Malay power seems to have stemmed from the island of Sumatra,
across the Strait of Malacca. Here a very
powerful Malay kingdom, with its capital at Palembang, finds a place in Chinese records
as early as AD 600. This was an Indian-influenced
Buddhist state and is best known by its Sanskrit title of Srivijaya. This
kingdom conquered Lankasuka, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, and Pahang some time
before 800, and its ruler became the overlord of the Malay Peninsula as well
as of a substantial part of eastern Sumatra.
At the same time, also
based on eastern Sumatra, was another Malay kingdom, which was later known as
the kingdom of Menangkabo, but which was originally
referred to as Malayu. Though this kingdom never controlled any part of the
Malay Peninsula, it was probably the first Malay kingdom to adopt Islam as
its religion, and in 1281 envoys from Malayu to China had Muslim names.
Colonists from Palembang
founded a separate island kingdom of Tumasik (Sanskrit Singapura; modern
Singapore) some time between 1200 and 1300, but this, together with
Palembang, Malayu, parts of Borneo, and the whole of the occupied portions of
the Malay Peninsula, was overrun and destroyed between 1360 and 1365 by
Majapahit, Java's last Hindu kingdom. The Majapahit king made no attempt to
occupy the Malay Peninsula after his
conquest, but traces of Majapahit influence are still to be found in Kelantan
and Patani.
The Malacca sultanate
The destruction of Singapore
by Majapahit led to the rise of Malacca. At first a fishing village, occupied
by 'sea gypsies' (aboriginal orang-laut), it attracted fugitives from
Tumasik, among them its dispossessed ruler, Parameswara. The new Malay state
he founded was beset with enemies, chief among whom was Siam (Thailand). Appeals to the Chinese
emperor for protection resulted in the raising of the title of the Malay
ruler to that of king of Malacca in 1405, and freed him from any dependence
on the Siamese.
During the 15th century the
kingdom of Malacca flourished. Its trade developed,
and its influence extended as far north as Patani and even over the coastal
regions of western Sumatra. The main
conversion of the Malays to Islam also began in this century. Parameswara was
a Hindu when he came to Malacca; the conversion to Islam was gradual,
probably beginning under Parameswara's successor, and was not completed until
the 17th century when Iskandar Muda, sultan of Acheh, took a leading part in
spreading Islam to the Malay Peninsula itself.
The arrival of the
Europeans
In 1511 a Portuguese fleet sailing under Afonso d'Albuquerque conquered the kingdom of Malacca. Its ruler, Sultan Mahmud,
fled to Johore and there established the kingdom of Riau Johore.
The Portuguese held Malacca for over a century. Though they attempted,
largely unsuccessfully, to convert the people they had conquered to
Christianity, their main concern was trade, and they allowed the Asian
communities in Malacca a fairly wide measure of self-government within
prescribed limits.
In 1641 the Portuguese were
defeated by the Dutch, who were also principally interested in trade. The
Dutch held Malacca until 1795, when, during the French Revolutionary Wars,
the British took possession of the territory. Malacca was later returned to
the Dutch (1818), but the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 recognized the Malay
Peninsula as being within the British sphere of influence, and in 1825 the
Dutch exchanged Malacca for Benkoelen, on the west coast of Sumatra.
Riau Johore, the Bugis,
and the Menangkabo state
The kingdom of Riau
Johore, founded in the early 16th century by the fugitive
sultan of Malacca, loosely took in all parts of Malaya
over which the Portuguese did not have effective control. Weak and poor, it
was chronically unstable. The murder of its sultan in 1699, marking the extinction
of the royal line of Malacca, and the periodic invasions of the Bugis from
Sulawesi (Celebes), began the disintegration
of the Riau Johore kingdom. The Bugis established themselves in Selangor, and
in 1722 became de facto rulers of the Johore kingdom.
During the 18th century the
Malay Peninsula lost all semblance of
cohesive government and was split up into a number of weak and mutually
hostile states. A Menangkabo migration to Malaya from Sumatra
had begun in the 16th century, and in 1773, when, threatened by Bugis
domination, they united under a Sumatran prince of Menangkabo descent. This
state should have become extremely powerful, since it could produce more tin
than any other state in the peninsula, but 18th-century Bugis interference
and 19th-century Siamese invasion, coupled with internal dissension, kept it
in a condition of constant weakness.
The coming of the East
India Company
The efforts of a former British naval officer, Francis Light, brought Penang under the control of the British East India
Company in 1786. Penang had hitherto formed
part of Kedah, and the sultan hoped that its cession would bring him British
aid in the event of any attack on Kedah by the Bugis of Selangor or the
Siamese. In 1821, however, the Siamese invaded and conquered Kedah, though
the sultan was reinstated in 1842.
In 1826 the East India
Company concluded an agreement with Siam,
the essential clause of which provided for non-interference by Siam in
Perak, Selangor, Kelantan, and Trengganu. But the threat of Siamese encroachment
in northern Malaya was not finally removed until the Anglo-Siamese treaty of
1909, in which Siam
transferred to Britain
all its rights in the northern states.
The acquisition of Singapore
In 1824, as the result of an earlier agreement between the British East
Indian administrator Stamford Raffles, the Temenggong of Johore, and Sultan
Hussein, Singapore was
ceded in perpetuity to Britain.
This treaty was destined to convert a mangrove swamp into one of the world's
greatest ports, and to change Johore from forest and jungle into a prosperous
state. Raffles's 'Grand Emporium' rapidly justified his hopes. A year after
its cession the population numbered 10,000, and by 1823–24 the total trade
handled by the free port that Raffles established stood at almost 11.5
million Malay dollars in value.
Further acquisitions and
the creation of the Straits Settlements
The island of Pangkor and the Sembilan island were ceded to Britain by Perak
in 1826, and this cession was confirmed in 1874, when the strip of territory
on the mainland opposite, known as the Dindings, also became British. In
February 1935 the Dindings territory was ceded back to the state of Perak.
In 1805 Penang was made a
separate British East Indian 'presidency', of equal rank with Madras (now Chennai)
and Bombay (now Mumbai), but was reduced to a lieutenant governorship
subordinate to Bengal in 1830. In 1825 Singapore
and Malacca were incorporated with Penang under one governor, forming the
core of the Straits Settlements, with Penang
remaining the seat of government. In 1836 the seat of government of the
Straits Settlements was transferred to Singapore.
The transfer to the
British crown
From the founding of Penang in 1785 down to 1858, the constitutional history
of the Straits Settlements is part of the
history of the East India Company. Malaya, like India, suffered under the evils
and disadvantages of being administered by a trading company, and, despite
the work of Raffles, many reforms were long overdue. But in 1858, in the wake
of the Indian Mutiny, the East India Company was abolished, though at least
its occasional firmness in foreign policy had saved most of the Malay
Peninsula from subjugation by Siam.
With the abolition of the
East India Company the Straits Settlements
fell automatically under the India Office for a brief spell. Then in 1867 the
British government, bowing to local agitation, approved their transfer to the
Colonial Office.
Raffles had strongly
favoured British expansion in the Malay Archipelago.
With his disappearance from the scene, his policy became largely dormant
until it was awakened in the last quarter of the 19th century by the
rivalries of the great European powers and by the demands of British and
Chinese capital seeking fresh fields for expansion, coupled with the
discovery of rich mineral resources in the hinterland.
But though the five decades
after 1824 have been described as 'half a century of inactivity', this is
true only in so far as British policy towards the Malay states was concerned,
for here a policy of non-intervention was strictly enforced. Singapore, however, grew with remarkable
rapidity, Penang developed at a modest pace,
and only Malacca stagnated. Meanwhile, in the Malay states of the west coast,
the rulers' authority became increasingly weakened, and to the troubles
caused by court factions was added the disturbance caused by Chinese
immigration in the tin-mining areas.
Greater British
intervention
Apart from in the Straits Settlements, local
state chiefs had been allowed to retain considerable political autonomy.
However, in the 1870s, after the opening of the Suez
Canal, British policy became more active. The period 1874–1914
is marked by the gradual establishment by treaties of the British
protectorate over the Malay states.
With the transfer of the
three settlements of Singapore,
Malacca, and Penang to the Colonial Office in 1867, the governor and leading
citizens in the Straits Settlements were
able to represent the deplorable conditions in the western Malay states more
effectively, and to press for a new policy of intervention. Civil war was
causing loss of trade in the Settlements, and piracy was rife in the Strait of Malacca. Serious factional fights occurred
among Chinese miners in Perak, and there were rival claimants to the
sultanate.
The combination of these
pressures forced the British government to undertake a more positive rule in
the affairs of the interior. In November 1873 Sir Andrew Clarke arrived in
Singapore with the task of reporting what steps should be taken by the
colonial government of the Straits Settlements to promote the restoration of
peace and order, and especially to examine the question of appointing British
officers to reside in the states.
The appointment of
British residents
Perak's situation demanded and received priority. In January 1874 Clarke
temporarily settled the succession by the treaty known as the Pangkor
Engagement, and secured the agreement of Sultan Abdullah to the appointment
of a British resident who was to advise on the collection and control of all revenues
and on the general administration of the state. The heads of the Chinese
factions were present and they signed a bond to disarm completely and to keep
the peace.
Before the end of 1874
residents had also been appointed in Selangor and Sungei Ujong, the most
prosperous member of the Menangkabo confederation, and a measure of peace and
order had been restored. British 'advice' was later extended to the rest of
Negri Sembilan, and to Pahang in 1887, and the four states were united as the
Federated Malay States in 1895, with a capital in Kuala Lumpur. Perak joined the federation
in the following year.
In the development of the
residential system the diplomacy and skills of such men as Hugh Low in Perak
and Frank Swettenham in Selangor and Perak Perak (and later as the first
resident general) did much to establish firm administration and to reconcile
the Malay ruling class to the new regime.
Treaties between Britain
and the Malay states
Both the Federated Malay States and the states of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan,
Trengganu, and Johore, which remained outside the federation, continued under
a separate form of administration from the Straits Settlements and were never
declared British territory. Relations with Johore were regulated by a treaty
in 1914.
All the treaties between Britain and
the Malay states were substantially similar. The states agreed to accept
British protection and to have no dealing with foreign powers except through Britain, and Britain guaranteed the states
protection against attack by foreign powers. The agreements also provided for
the appointment of a British officer in each state whose advice had to be
taken except in matters concerning Malay custom and religion.
Economic development
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which enabled the sea journey from Britain to be
completed in 42 days instead of 116, encouraged an increase in trade.
Economic development on the mainland of the Malay
Peninsula came in two phases. During the last quarter of the
19th century demand in Britain
and the USA
encouraged the rapid growth in tin production, necessitating the construction
of a railway. The rubber boom, beginning early in the 20th century and almost
entirely dependent on the rise of the automobile industry, gave Malaya its second great export staple.
The demand for tin and
rubber brought a new level of prosperity to the western states, and the
population increased rapidly. Chinese miners had been encouraged to enter the
tin-mining areas by earlier Malay rulers and chiefs, but now they poured in
of their own accord, and by the middle of the 20th century were to be almost
as numerous as the Malays themselves. South Indian labour was recruited by
the owners of the rubber estates, and by the 1920s Malaya
was exporting more than 200,000 tonnes of rubber annually.
Constitutional
developments
In the Federated Malay States a federal council had been created by Sir John
Anderson in 1906. A high commissioner presided over the council, which
consisted of the four rulers, the resident general, the four British
residents, and four unofficial members nominated by the high commissioner.
The membership remained unchanged until 1927, when the rulers withdrew, the
officials were increased to 13, and the unofficial members to 11. The
proceedings of the council then began to adopt something of the British
aspect of government and opposition.
There was no further
constitutional change until the Japanese occupation of Malaya
(1942–45) ended. Throughout the first half of the 20th century government
remained extremely decentralized, with each state possessing considerable
autonomy. But British control was paramount, and already some Malays were
demanding a greater voice in the affairs of their country.
The Japanese invasion
Any further constitutional developments were put on hold by the Japanese
invasion of Malaya in December 1941. In 1940
the Japanese had taken over French Indochina by agreement with the
collaborationist Vichy government, and it was
from Indochina that Japan
launched its surprise blitzkrieg attack down the Malay
Peninsula.
The unprepared British
forces were forced into a rapid southward retreat, withdrawing to the
supposedly impregnable fortress of Singapore. However, Singapore's
defences were all directed towards the sea, and the Japanese came by land.
The British in Singapore,
recently reinforced by the arrival of many Australian troops, were forced to
surrender on 15 February 1942, leaving Japan
occupying the whole of Malaya.
The defeat of the British
at the hands of an Asian power opened the eyes of many Chinese and Malays to
the myth of European superiority. However, the Japanese occupation was not
generally welcomed, and armed resistance to the Japanese was conducted by
pro-communist Chinese guerrillas.
In August 1945, when the
Allies were preparing for a campaign for the liberation of Malaya, the
dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about
the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. In September 1945 a British
military administration was established under the Supreme Allied Commander,
Southeast Asia, whose headquarters were in Singapore.
The establishment of the
Federation of Malaya
In January 1946 the British government published proposals for a Malayan
Union, which would unite the whole of the peninsula (except Singapore, which
was to become a separate colony) under a governor and a strong central
government, and which considerably curtailed the authority of the rulers and
the states. These proposals were strongly resisted by the Malays, who rapidly
formed a political organization, the United Malay National Organization, with
branches all over the country. Their attitude was supported by a group of
retired Malayan civil servants in England, including Frank Swettenham, and
the scheme for a Malayan Union was abandoned.
In its place the Federation
of Malaya Agreement was signed in Kuala Lumpur on 21 January 1948, and came
into force on 1 February of that year. This agreement provided for a high
commissioner and a federal legislative council containing 75 members, 50 of
whom were unofficial. A considerable degree of authority was restored to the
rulers, acting in consultation with their state executive councils, and a
form of common citizenship was created for all who acknowledged Malaya as
their permanent home and the object of their undivided loyalty. Within this
framework the settlements of Penang and Malacca remained British territory,
and Singapore became a separate colony under its own governor.
The communist revolt
The year in which the Federation was inaugurated saw the outbreak of a
serious communist revolt. The communists – who had mounted a campaign of
active resistance to the Japanese – had hoped to gain control of the country
in September 1945, but they were forestalled by the arrival of the British
military administration. During the next two years they made increasingly
determined efforts to paralyze the economic recovery of the country, and
finally launched a campaign of violence and murder in which the principal
targets were British rubber planters and tin miners, and those Chinese who
actively opposed them. A state of emergency was declared in June 1948.
Captured documents have shown that the communists had hoped to declare a
communist republic on 3 August 1948.
The number of active
communist guerrillas probably never exceeded 7,000, the majority of them
Chinese, but they proved an elusive enemy. In spite of increasingly effective
measures, a communist hard core was still in armed revolt in July 1955, when
a general election was held to elect 52 unofficial members to the federal
legislative council. All except one of those elected were members of the
Alliance Party led by Tunku (Prince) Abdul Rahman, who then became chief
minister.
Subsequently the Alliance
Party, a coalition of the major communal organizations (United Malay National
Organization, Malaysian Chinese Association, Malaysian Indian Congress, and,
at the formation of Malaysia, Sarawak Alliance and Sabah Alliance) dominated
Malayan, and then Malaysian, politics.
On 9 September 1955 Tunku
Abdul Rahman's government declared an amnesty for the communists, thereby
fulfilling an election promise, but this was withdrawn in February 1956 after
rejection by the communists and some fruitless attempts at negotiation. The
number of active guerrillas dwindled until in 1960 the state of emergency was
declared at an end. Their remarkable decline since 1948 was due to the
effective action of the security forces and, after 1955, to the
counter-attraction that Tunku Abdul Rahman's administration had for the great
majority of Malaya's people, including those of Chinese origin.
Malayan independence
The Alliance Party was pledged to press for immediate Malayan independence.
In January 1956 the chief minister led a Merdeka (independence)
mission to London where, in February, agreement was reached with the colonial
secretary bringing self-government into effect and envisaging full
independence for the Federation within the Commonwealth by 31 August 1957.
Early in March 1956 an independent commission was appointed to make
recommendations for a form of constitution for a fully independent and
self-governing Malaya. In May 1957 the chief minister again took to London a
delegation in order to reach final agreement on independence for the
Federation.
Malaya became an
independent state on 31 August 1957 and remained a member of the
Commonwealth. Malaya's relations with Britain after independence remained
close. In 1963 the country became part of the Federation of Malaysia.
© Copyright Helicon Publishing Ltd
2000. All rights reserved.
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