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6. Singapura as a Central Place in Malay History and Identity
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133 6 SingapuraasaCentralPlacein MalayHistoryandIdentity KwaChongGuan C H A P T E R PerceivingSingapore’sStrategicLocation In 1703, country trader Alexander Hamilton called at Johor en route to China, and visited the recently elected Bendahara Sultan‘Abdu’l-Jalil Ri’ayat Shah, whom he had known before the latter’s elevation to the Sultanate.1 Hamiltonrecordedthatthesultan: treatedmeverykindly,andmademeaPresentoftheIslandofSincapure, butItoldhimitcoldbeofnoUsetoaprivatePerson,tho’aproper place for a Company to settle a Colony on, lying in the Centre of Trade,andbeingaccommodatedwithgoodRiversandsafeHarbours, so conveniently situated, that all Winds served Shipping both to go out and come into those Rivers. The Soil is black and fat; And the WoodsaboundingoodMastsforShipping,andTimberforbuilding. IhaveseenlargeBeansgrowingwildintheWoods,notinferiortothe bestinEuropeforTasteandBeauty;andSugar-canefiveorsixInches roundgrowingwildalso.2 It was a century before the British East India Company recognised Hamilton’s prescience of mind, with Raffles’ foundation of a factory or 06SS21c.indd133 7/27/102:36:10PM 134 KwaChongGuan settlement at Singapore in 1819. As Wong Lin Ken, former Raffles ProfessorofHistoryattheoldUniversityofSingapore,hasargued: Singapore had no strategic naval significance until Britain, as the growingdominantnavalpowerintheearlynineteenthcentury,thought it necessary to have a place that could simultaneously command the Archipelago approaches to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Raffles’ acquisitionofSingaporewastheunforeseenlong-termresultofAngloFrench rivalry in the Indian subcontinent, the consequent rise of the British raj, and the need to defend its interest in the Bay of Bengal andthetransoceanicroutetotheArchipelagoandChina.3 Professor Wong unfortunately did not have access to Portuguese, Spanish or Dutch archives, otherwise he might have realised what Peter Borschberg has subsequently demonstrated, that these powers, two centuries beforetheBritish,hadplansforfortsintheStraitsofSingapore.4 HowdidSultan‘Abdu’l-Jalilandhispredecessorsandsuccessorscometo valueSingaporesolightly,incontrasttoPortuguese,SpanishandDutch recognitionofthestrategicsignificanceofthewatersaroundSingapore? Lackofresourcesandwill,however,ensuredthattheseearlierIberian interestsinSingaporeanditsenvironsremainedplans.ItisthustoRaffles thatthecreditof“discovering”inSingaporealocation“commandingthe SouthernentranceoftheStraitsofMalacca,andcombiningextraordinary localadvantageswithapeculiarlyadmirableGeographicalposition”goes.5 WeregenerationsofMalaysultansunawareofwhatAlexanderHamilton, thenIberianandDutchtraders,andfinallyRaffles,allsawinSingapore’s geographicallocation?6 ThischapterexplorestheplaceofSingaporeinMalayviewsofthemselves andtheirregion.Itshowsthattheymayindeedhavebeenunaware of Singapore’s strategic significance. But it was pivotal, and indeed in manyways,dominatedtheirnarrationofwhotheywereasapeopleand community.Singapore’splaceintheMalayworldofthe15thtoearly19th centurieswasnotcharacterisedbyitsgeographicandstrategiccentrality,but ratherbyitsmythicalunderpinningofMalayhistoricalconsciousness.7 This chapter’s exploration of Singapore as a central place in Malay socialmemoriesandmythsoftheiridentitywillbebasedaroundaclose reading of the history of the Melaka and Johor sultans, as narrated in the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals.These were later recognised as the pre-eminentexampleofclassicalMalayprosestyle.Alternativelyentitled theSulalatu’s-SalatinorPedigreeoftheKings,thetextisaseriesofloosely linkedepisodesandrecordsaboutMelakaandtoitscontinuityintheJohor 06SS21c.indd134 7/27/102:36:10PM [18.224.149.242] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 08:21 GMT) SingapuraasaCentralPlaceinMalayHistoryandIdentity 135 court.SingapuraisrecalledinthefirstsixepisodesoftheMalayAnnalsas the beginnings of Melaka, and of the dynasty to which most peninsular MalayanSultanatessubsequentlytracedtheirorigins.Thisessaywillfirst summarise...
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