Melaka History

Everyone knows Singapore as the Lion City and the story behind of a Palembang prince, Sang Nila Utama, sighting a lion on this island that was first published 200 years ago in John Leyden's translation of the Malay classic Sejarah Melayu. But few people have actually read the Sejarah Melayu to realise the fairytale-like claims of Singapore's supposed medieval founder as a descendant of Alexander the Great, and the son of an Indian king who tried to conquer China and a princess from underwater; or that the creature he purportedly saw was not described as a lion, but a chimera with a red body, black head, white breast, and was a little larger than a he-goat. And barely anyone remembers the days when respectable residents of Singapore scoffed at suggestions that Singapore's name has anything to do with the Felis Leo.


Decoding Sejarah Melayu daringly challenges the assumption that the Sejarah Melayu records Singapore's pre-modern past, which has been held since Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in 1819 and declared himself at the "ancient Capital of the Malay kings". It seeks to grasp what is the Sejarah Melayu and how its accounts of Singapore as Temasek and Singapura were written, critically re-examines key historical text such as the Malay epic Hikayat Hang Tuah, Tomé Pires' Suma Oriental and 14th century Chinese travelogue Daoyi Zhilue, and makes an expansive study into other sources in Malay, Javanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Siamese, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and the English language to discover clues to ancient Singapore's long hidden past. This is a book that will profoundly change understandings of Singapore's history and identity.

The conquest of Melaka by Afonso de Albuquerque was a feat of arms celebrated by poets and chroniclers and traditionally referred to as a major achievement in the settlement of Portuguese Estado da Índia. However, some questions may be raised concerning its real significance: the decision of taking the city by force and its possible misjudgement; how Melaka was far from Goa and the main centres of Portuguese presence in Asia and completely depended upon local conditions; the strategies developed by the Portuguese that allowed the city to survive in a potentially hostile environment and, finally, the arrival of the Dutch in Southeast Asian waters and the collapse of Melaka’s former position.

Atas cadangan seorang sahabat, maka saya kongsikan semula satu kertas kerja (ringkas) berkenaan perkembangan perdagangan di Melaka Abad ke-15, yang ditulis semasa saya masih menuntut di KUIS dahulu, bagi subjek Pengajian Malaysia.

"Kesibukan di pelabuhan Melaka dapat dilihat melalui catatan Tome Pires bahawa di pelabuhan Melaka biasanya terdapat lapan puluh empat bahasa yang dituturkan dan setiap pertuturan tersebut adalah berbeza. Selain itu, Tome Pires juga pernah mengatakan bahawa pada setiap tahun terdapat sekurang-kurangnya 100 buah kapal besar dan kira-kira 30 hingga 40 buah kapal-kapal kecil datang ke pelabuhan Melaka. Tambahan beliau lagi, pelabuhan Melaka begitu besar sehingga boleh menampung hampir dua ribu buah kapal yang berbagai-bagai saiz untuk sesuatu masa".

Mudah-mudahan tulisan yang ringkas ini dapat memberi manfaat kepada para pembaca sekalian.

Wallahua'lam.

Pada amnya bandar berasal daripada kampung, oleh itu sebarang perbincangan mengenai bandar awal Melayu sewajarnya didahului dengan tinjauan ringkas mengenai kampung-kampung Melayu sebagai bentuk pertempatan paling awal. Dalam kertas ringkas ini tumpuan akan diberi kepada perkembangan bandar di Semenanjung, namun ia akan dilihat dalam kontek kepulauan Melayu atau Nusantara.

This article reconstructs the history of Kling Muslims' contribution to the religious and ethnic cosmopolitanism of sixteenth-century Ayutthaya. This study's argument is constructed based on an aggregate of written fragments about the Kling in both Portuguese primary sources and the wider academic literature. We reveal that, amongst the many ways in which Siam benefited from the Iberian invasion of Melaka in 1511, the dramatic geopolitical rupture of the invasion rerouted trade across the Bay of Bengal. As a result, Kling merchants began arriving in Ayutthaya in greater numbers via the new network of Siamese-controlled ports and portages. Moreover, this study demonstrates the utility of greater synergy among South Asian, Southeast Asian, Thai, and Malay Studies through focusing on the exonyms employed in primary and secondary sources. Finally, this article contends that Ayutthaya's ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism was impacted by the arrival of South Asian Muslims, referred to as Kling in the Malay World and Khaek in Siam, approximately one century before Persians arrived in greater numbers. This, among others, was an unintended result of Portugal's sixteenth-century interventions into, and alliances with, the Siamese.

The Singapore and Melaka Straits are a place where regional and long-distance maritime trading networks converge, linking Europe, the Mediterranean, eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent with key centres of trade in Thailand, Indochina, insular Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan. The first half of the seventeenth century brought heightened political, commercial and diplomatic activity to this region. It has long been clear to both the Portuguese and the Dutch that whoever controlled the waters off modern Singapore gained a firm grip on regional as well as long-distance intra-Asian trade. By the early 1600s Portuguese power and prestige were waning and the arrival of the Dutch East India Company constituted a major threat. Moreover, the rapid expansion and growing power of the Acehnese Empire, and rivalry between Johor and Aceh, was creating a new context for European trade in Asia.

Drawing on maps, rare printed works, and unpublished manuscripts written in Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Latin, Peter Borschberg provides new information on the diplomatic activities of Asian powers, and shows how the Portuguese and Spanish attempted to restore their political fortunes by containing the rapid rise of Dutch Power in the region. Key documents, transcribed and translated into English for the first time, make up a series of appendices.

The product of more than two decades of research in European libraries, archives, The Singapore and Melaka Straits will be of great interest to readers in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where little is known about this pivotal pre-colonial period. It is also an invaluable resource for historians and other students of early modern Europe and of the European presence in Asia.
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The Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia is a phenomenon that exhibited diverse features and shapes throughout the ages, fluctuating according to periods of opening and closing relations between China and the “South Seas”. It is a problem that involves a plurality of dimensions, including political and diplomatic aspects, motivations and economic effects, social impacts and cultural expressions. The effects of this phenomenon in the Southeast Asian societies were profound and are currently an issue that still raises differences concerning integration, assimilation and segregation.
The arrival of the Europeans to the Malay-Indonesian archipelago has introduced a new variable in the regional dynamics that promoted the growth of the Overseas Chinese communities, both in size and relevance. In the following two centuries, these groups played an increasing role in the acceleration of Southeast Asian economic life and became important in the political and social milieu of European colonial cities. Their impact was however different in each one of them. The Portuguese, the Spaniards and the Dutch came into contact with these groups in different times, and the relations they established with the Chinese, who played an important role as brokers and middlemen between the city-ports of Southeast Asia and South China, were also distinct. A comparative approach on the Chinese presence in Melaka, Manila and Batavia in the 16th and 17th centuries provides a sharper image about the relevance these cities had to Chinese trade networks and the difficult relations the latter established with the European powers.

The Empire of the Malay Sultanate of Melaka is often referred to as an imposing and glorious empire of various administrative, economic, and physical aspects. The Melaka Malay City in the context of this paper refers to Bandar Melaka during the reign of the Melaka Malay Sultanate, which was originally from Bukit Melaka which houses Melaka Palace to the surrounding area. The purpose of this study is to examine and interpret the picture of the Melaka City based on the sources of Portuguese sketches and drawings which are believed as valid. The method focused in this paper is through debates on sketches and drawings obtained, then contrasted and combined with historical records relating to Melaka City or events related to the sketches and paintings. This research is a bit of a story, as well as describing the Melaka Malay Sultanate era before the Portuguese's conquest in terms of environmental, physical, and other related aspects. The implications of this study can be a catalyst for continuous and deeper research to know about Melaka City and skyline during the era of the Malay Sultanate. The study showed that the plan of Melaka city was not a planned city plan since the reign of the first Sultan of Melaka, but was a city that grows organically according to the current and growing needs of the Melaka Malay Empire. The layout features of the Melaka City are in line with its function as an entrepot city, hence the municipal rough plan match and resemble the picture of paintings and sketches described in most historical records. In conclusion, the Melaka Malay City before the Portuguese's conquest was likely to be a physical civilization and should be examined and explicitly evidenced in rebuilding the Melaka Malay civilization that had long been established.

The Dutch East India Company, also known by its historic initials VOC, was a chartered trading company that was active between 1602 and 1795. Formed by a merger of six smaller trading firms that traded in the East Indies and backed by a monopoly of trade, this proto-conglomerate emerged as a driving force in globalization, transregional investment, and early European colonization in Asia and Africa. The VOC operated as a profit-driven shareholder corporation and at the apex of its power, around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, maintained a series of factories and settlements stretching from Cape Town in Southern Africa, the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India, Bengal, to insular and mainland Southeast Asia and as far as Taiwan (Formosa) and Japan. Chartered companies possessed considerable investments and infrastructure outside Europe, especially with their administrative apparatus, contacts, business networks, and trading knowledge. This in turn laid the foundations for Dutch imperialism during the 19th century.
Keywords
early globalization, capitalism, international trade, Europe–Asia relations, Asian studies, diplomacy, colonialism, international law

Lazimnya apabila kita melawat sesebuah tempat yang bersejarah, perkara yang menjadi pesona dan tumpuan utama kita selalunya condong kepada kehalusan seni bina bangunannya.Selain daripada kehalusan seni bina, kita juga sering kagum kepada kesan-kesan sejarah atau makna yang terkandung disebalik monumen-monumen yang arkaik.Kekaguman kita juga sering terdorong akibat daripada perasaan hairan berdasarkan anakronisme teknologi hari ini yang sebenarnya sudahpun wujud pada zaman dahulu.Tidak dinafikan bahawa, latar sosial dan kegiatan perekonomian tempatan yang pernah dijalankan di kawasan tersebut turut menjadi suatu maklumat yang baik dan menarik untuk disampaikan kepada pelancong yang hadir.Perkara ini tidaklah menjadi kesalahan langsung terutamanya dalam sektor pelancongan yang memang sebenarnya bertujuan untuk menarik ramai pengunjung.Malah tempat-tempat bersejarah adalah faktor utama kedatangan pengunjung ke sesuatu kawasan pelancongan. Hal ini disokong melalui kajian Er Ah Choy (2013) yang mendapati kebanyakan responden yang berkunjung ke Melaka adalah bertujuan untuk melawat kawasan Bandar Warisan dan melihat tapak bersejarah, di samping menghayati pelancongan rekreasi yang dibangunkan oleh kerajaan negeri.Namun pada pendapat peribadi penulis, sejarah dan kepentingan sistem pengangkutan darat agak jarang dimaklumkan kepada pelancong.Sistem pengangkutan darat memainkan peranan penting dalam menghubungkan masyarakat bukan sahaja antara golongan pedagang, malah yang lebih lagi hubungan antara penduduk asal itu sendiri dalam melakukan aktiviti mereka sehari-hari.Tetapi mungkin sahaja perkara berkenaan sistem pengangkutan darat atau jalan raya ini sebenarnya menjadi topik khusus dalam kajian-kajian yang lebih bersifat ilmiah dan mempunyai kelompok tersendiri berbanding monumen-monumen bersejarahnya yang sesuai dengan masyarakat umum bersandarkan kepada naratifnya lebih popular. Walaubagaimanapun, penulis agak bernasib baik apabila perkara ini menjadi antara maklumat utama yang disampaikan oleh pemandu pelancong ketika menyertai program lawatan kerja lapangan ke Melaka anjuran Institut Kajian Etnik (KITA), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).Umumnya negeri Melaka memang kaya dengan sejarah.Malah penulis yakin bahawa hampir setiap warganegara Malaysia mengetahui tentang kewujudan kegemilangan Kerajaan Melayu di negeri ini.Justeru, tidak hairanlah terdapat banyak tempat-tempat bersejarah di Melaka yang menjadi tumpuan pelancong seperti Perkampungan Portugis, Kota Belanda, Kota A'Famosa, Pulau Besar, Perigi, Replika Keris, Pancuran Air Ratu Victoria, Bukit St. John, gereja-gereja, perkuburan barat, Batu Megalith, dan makam diraja (Ang Kean Hua 2015: 75).

This essay is an attempt at grappling with
some aspects of a complex historical textual
legacy in several languages involving two regions
of the Indian Ocean, namely the Western coast of
India—especially the Konkan and Malabar coasts in
the Arabian Sea—and the Straits of Melaka. It tries
to bring out the many intricate issues associated with
a perusal of the origins and trajectories of some texts
within the connected histories of the Indian Ocean.
In addition, it strives to point out the pitfalls of
traditional ways of looking at such texts, and suggests
instead how they might be alternatively understood
from perspectives that link them together with texts
that are normally seen to belong to other canons. I
also propose that calling the texts in question ‘Creole’
might help bring out aspects of their production and
the social histories in which they are embedded which
are not normally emphasised. My point, as will be seen
below, is that at least some of these aspects may be
useful in inserting the texts into larger Indian Ocean
histories.

The last century of China’s Ming dynasty (1368–1644) saw many troubles and challenges from abroad. Pirates raided the coast, Europeans challenged the traditional world order of the tribute system, and the everlasting threat from the northern steppe people continued to raise concerns for the state. This climate of uncertainty resulted in many Ming literati discussing foreign countries. During the last decades of the Ming, seven authors wrote monographs that can be considered a form of early Chinese “world history.” The authors describe the geography, the history, and the political systems of foreign countries and regions ranging from China’s close neighbors Japan and Mongolia to more distant lands such as Mogadishu and Europe.
This book by Elke Papelitzky studies each of the seven author’s knowledge and perception of the world and focuses especially on the countries connected with China at the maritime border: Siam, Malacca, and Portugal, combining a close textual and paratextual analysis with a biographical study to understand why the authors wrote the texts the way they did. This is the first comprehensive introduction to these texts contributing to an understanding of late Ming historiography as well as the perception of foreign countries by late Ming scholars.

Abstrak Artikel ini mekonstruksi strategi pembangunan negeri oleh Kerajaan Negeri Melaka ketika pelaksanaan Rancangan Malaysia Keempat (RMK-4) antara tahun 1891 hingga 1985. Tumpuan diberikan terhadap strategi pembangunan sektor pertanian dan perindustrian dalam membangunkan keadaan sosioekonomi masyarakat dan untuk meninggalkan jolokan 'sleepy hollow' terhadap negeri. Pencapaian usaha ini diukur berdasarkan kedudukan Keluaran Dalam Negara Kasar (KDNK) bagi negeri Melaka yang meningkat sehingga 47 peratus pada tahun 1990 berbanding tahun 1985. Walau bagaimanapun, kolerasi antara strategi pembangunan kerajaan negeri terhadap kedudukan ekonomi dan taraf sosial masyarakat masih tidak dikaji secara terperinci. Justeru, masalah kajian ini diselesaikan dengan menganalisis pembentukan strategi pembangunan pertanian dan perindustrian serta impaknya terhadap perkembangan sosioekonomi di negeri Melaka. Kaedah kajian kualitatif digunakan dengan menganalisis dokumen arkib dan kerajaan negeri bagi merekonstruksi fenomena ekonomi yang berlaku dalam tempoh kajian. Selain itu, ekstrak dari Suara Melaka yang merupakan akhbar rasmi kerajaan negeri turut digunakan bagi menggambarkan dengan lebih jelas penyampaian strategi pembangunan kepada masyarakat awam. Hasil kajian mendapati, strategi pembangunan negeri Melaka dipengaruhi Dasar Ekonomi Baru (DEB) untuk membangunkan taraf sosioekonomi luar bandar. Tumpuan diberikan oleh kerajaan negeri terhadap sektor pertanian disebabkan kebergantungan majoriti penduduknya terhadap sektor ini sebagai sumber pendapatan. Tambahan lagi, masalah perkembangan sektor perindustrian yang lembap sejak tahun 1970-an telah menjadikan sektor pertanian sebagai sektor utamaan, sehinggalah pembangunan pesat industri pada tahun 1990-an. Kesan langsung strategi pembangunan kedua-dua sektor ini terhadap permbangunan sosioekonomi ialah penawaran peluang pekerjaan dan penjanaan pendapatan tambahan untuk masyarakat luar bandar. Abstract This article constructs the State Government of Melaka development policies during the implementation of the Fourth Malaysia Plan (RMK-4) within the year 1891 to 1985. It is centre on the development strategies in agriculture and industrial sectors in developing the society socioeconomic and abandons the state sleepy hollow's satire. The achievement of this effort evaluated based on Melaka's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that increased to 47 per cent in 1990 compared to 1985. However, the correlation between the state government's development strategy and the community social indicator still are not studied in detail. Thus, the research problem solved by analyzing the development of agricultural and industrial development strategies and their impact on the socioeconomic development in Melaka. The

Suara Benar (1932-1933) merupakan akhbar pertama yang diterbitkan di negeri Melaka. Walaupun jangka hayatnya hanya mampu bertahan selama 6 bulan iaitu sebanyak 51 keluaran sahaja, namun Suara Benar ternyata memainkan peranan yang penting bagi menyedarkan orang Melayu agar mengejar kemajuan dalam segenap aspek meliputi politik, ekonomi, pelajaran serta persoalan agama. Sepanjang hayatnya, Suara Benar memperlihatkan kecenderungannya dalam membincangkan persoalan dan isu-isu agama. Antara persoalan agama yang sering menjadi topik perbincangan Suara Benar ialah masalah ketuk-ketuk. Di Melaka, isu ketuk-ketuk telah dimulakan oleh Shaykh Hasan al-Yamani yang mengharamkan penggunaan ketuk-ketuk kerana dikatakan menyerupai naqus yang digunakan oleh penganut Kristian. Polemik tersebut telah memecahkan orang Melayu di Melaka kepada dua puak. Antara ulama Melaka yang menetang pendapat Shaykh Hasan ialah Haji Abdul Latif bin Haji Tamby. Persoalan ketuk-ketuk juga turut menjadi insprirasi kepada penganjuran Muzakarah Ulama Melaka yang pertama pada 17 September 1932 di Masjid Kling, Melaka.

This chapter offers a revisionist perspective in the examination of the Melaka Empire (Melaka Sultanate) over a little more than a century between c.1400-1528. The historical reconstruction, based on pre-colonial Malay and early modern European source materials, differs from previous exposés in three key respects: first, Melaka’s rise in the early 1400s did not occur at the expense of medieval Singapore, but rather Melaka’s founding was a response to shifts in trading networks that may have been triggered, or exacerbated, by the forces of nature. Second, Melaka society and its institutions are primarily examined through the prism of two of its surviving legal documents: Undang-undang Melaka (Laws of Melaka; sometimes called Hukum Kanun Melaka) and Undang-undang Laut Melaka (Maritime Laws of Melaka). Third, the Melaka Sultanate did not eclipse with the Portuguese attack on the town in 1511 and the expulsion of Sultan Mahmud from his capital city. Rejecting the conventional Eurocentric view, the Melaka empire is argued to have ended almost two decades later with the death of the dislodged ruler and the founding of the sultanates of Perak and Johor by his two sons in 1528.

This paper is an attempt to initiate a critical reassessment of the traditional academic narrative concerning the early fifteenth century conversion to Islam of Melaka, the Southeast Asian entrepôt. To date scholarship has, and by choosing to rely principally on early Portuguese accounts (especially that of Tomé Pires), produced a narrative which has perceived this event as the result of intervention by the earlier regional Islamic centre of Samudra-Pasai. Here, however, and primarily via a re-examination of Pires, the hypothesis is developed that Melaka’s conversion was actually instigated primarily by Muslims from China – specifically by the Chinese Muslim, Zheng He – in the context of early Ming dynasty attempts to expand trade in the region.

This forthcoming book chapter in pre-publication draft (minus photographs) looks at some of the historical and sociological underpinnings of the urban space in both cities. It also considers the consequences of these for local understandings of history and heritage.