The Singapore and Melaka Straits: Violence, Security and Diplomacy in the 17th Century

1 Landscapes, Seascapes and Imagination at the Southern Tip of the Malay Peninsula

17 C H A P T E R 1 Landscapes,฀Seascapes฀and฀ Imagination฀at฀the฀Southern฀Tip฀ of฀the฀Malay฀Peninsula Monsoons,฀Emporia฀and฀the฀Straits฀of฀Singapore The emporium of modern Singapore is located in a relatively narrow geographical zone. It spans from Southern Thailand in the north to the Strait of Sunda in the south, with two major maritime trading zones and monsoonal weather systems intersecting and overlapping. To the west there is the trading zone of the greater Bay of Bengal, and in the east the mainland and island ports of the South China Sea. Historically, this zone has been home to several prominent historical trading cities — from Srivijaya in the Middle Ages to Melaka on the Malay Peninsula, the northern Sumatran ports, Georgetown on the island of Penang since the late 1700s, and Singapore after the early 1800s. Long before the age of European colonialism, this region emerged as one of the historically most significant maritime meeting points in Asia, if not the world. The wealth generated by trade and commerce within and through this zone was almost legendary. By the late 1400s and early 1500s, merchants and traders from Western Europe had entered the stage. The societies that grew out of this interaction of goods, peoples and ideas were open and cosmopolitan in 01 S&MS.indd 17 12/31/09 3:29:01 PM Full map of Asia by António Sanches, 1641 (Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, 129 A 25 fols. 16verso-17recto) 01 S&MS.indd 18 12/31/09 3:29:36 PM Printed, hand-coloured map from the early 18th century depicting Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula (University of Leiden, map collection, 58 n. 4) 01 S&MS.indd 19 12/31/09 3:30:05 PM 20฀ The Singapore and Melaka Straits nature, providing a base or home — seasonal, transitional or permanent — to peoples from across Asia and beyond. Modern Singapore represents, in this sense, a comparatively recent addition to a long list of commercial emporia within this region.1 In the process of attracting trade and cultural interaction to its shores, this zone also became one of the most politically contested. One need only consult the annals of the Malay principalities of Sumatra and the Peninsula to appreciate how fragile the balance of power remained and how many different agents and factions contended for power and supremacy. As there were many centres of trade competing against one another, strategic location in this zone usually implied — and indeed still does — the ability to successfully attract commerce to one’s shores. By the time the first European colonial powers arrived in the Straits, the polity of Singapura had already been eclipsed by its rival Melaka, located along the western coast of the Malay Peninsula in the north.2 Little about this period of commercial transition was known to the early European chroniclers. The famed early 16th-century Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires has nothing to say about the reasons behind the decline of medieval Singapura. This contrasts sharply with information that can be gleaned from the work of the Portuguese chronicler João de Barros and implicitly the anonymous Dutch pamphlet Held-dadige Scheeps-togt (Heroic Maritime Expedition) printed in the early 18th century. According to Barros as well as the aforementioned anonymous Dutch pamphlet, there were both human and natural factors to explain the decline. The human factor is Parameswara, the founder of Melaka, who murdered his host Sangesinga at Singapura before moving on to settle down at Muar with his band of 2,000 thieves and hoodlums.3 The source of this claim is most probably of Malay or Javanese origin. The second principal cause was weather conditions, and this natural factor assumes centre stage in explaining medieval Singapura’s decline. Reportedly, the city was not as well-situated as Melaka to efficiently exploit the shifting monsoon winds that mark the different trading seasons.4 It is this locational disadvantage that supports Barros’ etymological deconstruction of the name Singapura. He claims it translates into Portuguese as falsa demora, which means “a place where you land but subsequently discover that it is not what you were looking for”. Singapura, it would appear, was not the ideal place for merchants to anticipate the seasonal change of the monsoon winds.5 01 S&MS.indd 20 12/31/09 3:30:05 PM Landscapes, Seascapes and Imagination 21 With reference to early modern European cartography and nomenclature...