One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song
THE FIRST DECADE (1819-29)
WHEN the British flag was hoisted on the plain (somewhere in the vicinity of the Esplanade) in Singapore, the population of the island, according to Captain Newbold,1 amounted to about 150 fishermen and pirates living in a few miserable huts: about thirty of these were Chinese, the remainder Malays. The Malays were most probably the Orang Laut (the descendants of the aborigines of Johore before the Malays crossed from Sumatra) who had accompanied the Dato Temenggong Sree Maharajah,2 Ruler of Singapore, from Johore in 1811. Dr R Little3 conjectured that when the island was made an English settlement it contained about 200 to 300 Malays. He was silent as to whether there were any Chinese settlers on the island at the time. Had there been any, it seems curious that neither Raffles nor Abdullah Munshi4 should have made mention of the fact. We know, however, that Major Farquhar,5 who was appointed the First Resident by Sir Stamford Raffles, sent the news of the settlement to Malacca by a sampan, and asked the Malays to come to Singapore, urging them to bring fowls, ducks, fruits and provisions of all kinds for which they would obtain a ready sale. Letters to the same effect were also sent by some of the Malays who had accompanied Major Farquhar in the expedition to Singapore.
Abdullah tells us that the news that there was pro-[7]fitable business to be done in Singapore spread like wildfire among the inhabitants of Malacca; and in spite of the severe measures taken by the Dutch authorities there to prevent any person sailing for Singapore, and also in spite of the petty pirates who would take fowls and even fishing boats from the anchorage at Malacca and who lay in wait in the Straits of Cucob for their victims, ‘hundreds found their way to Singapore, fleeing from the punishments in Malacca and the want of employment, combined with the oppression of the Hollanders: some laboured at wood-cutting, others at house-building, others shopped, each to their business’.6
It seems pretty certain that a number of Chinese were among the new arrivals from Malacca, for the Hikayat Abdullah records that when early in June 1819 Sir Stamford Raffles had, after consultation with Mr Farquhar, decided to break up the hill ‘at the end of Singapore point’ and fill up the swamp on the south bank of the river (Boat Quay and up to the Police Court), two or three hundred coolies, Chinese, Malays and Klings, were employed at the rate of one rupee a day each man, some digging and carrying the earth, others breaking the rocks which were very plentiful and large in the hill – each one to his special work ‘as if a battle were raging’.7
On the 11th June 1819 Raffles wrote to the Duchess of Somerset:
My new colony thrives most rapidly. We have not been established four months, and it has received an accession of population exceeding 5,000 – principally Chinese, and their number is daily increasing.8
On the 25th June, shortly before his departure, Raffles gave minute written instructions to Major Farquhar of his duties as Resident. With regard to Police and Administration of Justice he directed that ‘the Chinese, Bugguese and other foreign settlers are to be placed under the immediate superintendence of chiefs of their own tribes to be appointed by you, and [8] these chiefs will be responsible to you for the police within their respective jurisdictions.’9
The Resident was also instructed to construct without delay a bridge across the river so as to connect the cantonments with the intended Chinese and Malay towns on the opposite side of the river. On the following day an Arrangement was made and signed between Raffles and the Sultan and Temenggong providing for the Government of Singapore, by the 2nd Article of which it was directed that
… all the Chinese should move over to the other side of the river, forming a kampong from the site of the large bridge down the river towards the mouth: and all Malays, people belonging to the Temenggong and others, should also remove to the other side of the river, forming their kampong from the site of the large bridge up the river towards the source.10
The large bridge referred to in the above Arrangement stood, it is conjectured, on the site where Elgin Bridge is now, and the Chinese kampong evidently became the present Boat Quay, as it occupies the position pointed out.
There does not appear to have been any record of the Chinese or other ‘chiefs’ of the various native kampongs who were directed to be appointed by the above Arrangement to receive complaints and to deal with grievances of those under their respective jurisdictions, and who were themselves to attend every Monday morning at the Rumah Bichara.11
Although the Supreme Government of India, in the very early days of the Settlement, failed to realise the vision of its founder that Singapore would one day become the emporium and pride of the East, and in a letter dated 11th January 1820 to the Resident gave him to understand that Singapore was to be considered as a military post rather than as a fixed settlement, we are told that the year 1820 found people of all nations coming here: Chinese, Arabs and a few Europeans. Chinese traders who had before 1819 resorted to such places as Manila and Brunei found it safer and more [9] profitable after that date to visit Singapore in their junks and in time to settle down here. Chinese people in both these places had been ill-treated. Capt Campbell of HMS Dauntless reporting the massacre in Manila on 3rd December 1820 stated that the natives, incited to rise under the belief that an epidemic that was then raging was owing to foreigners poisoning the wells and tanks, slaughtered all the English, French, Dutch and Americans whom they could find, including eighty Chinese. In the case of Brunei, the Singapore Chronicle12 recorded that towards the end of the eighteenth century its foreign trade fell almost entirely away, because the government of the country had become tyrannical, rapacious and piratical, and Chinese vessels did not venture to approach the coast. With the cessation of Chinese trade, the Chinese population rapidly declined, and the pepper gardens in which many of them had been employed were neglected.
In the space of a little more than a year from the foundation of the Settlement, Sir Stamford Raffles writing to friends in England said that ‘this port, from being an insignificant fishing village, is now surrounded by an extensive town, and the population does not fall short of ten or twelve thousand souls, principally Chinese’.13
We shall see later that those figures were an overestimate, but there is no doubt that the port was increasing in popularity in so phenomenal a manner as to make some people lose their heads when attempting to prophesy its future prospects. Thus Col Farquhar in a private letter dated 31st March 1820 to Raffles expressed himself:
Nothing can possibly exceed the rising trade and general prosperity of this infant colony, indeed to look at our harbour just now, where upwards of twenty junks, three of which are from China, and two from Cochin China, the rest from Siam, and other vessels are at anchor, besides ships, brigs, etc, a person would naturally exclaim, ‘Surely this cannot be an establishment of only twenty months’ standing.’ One [10] of the principal Chinese merchants here told me, in the course of conversation, that he would be very glad to give $500,000 for the revenue of Singapore five years hence. … The swampy ground on the opposite side of the river is now almost covered with Chinese houses, and the Bugis village is become an extensive town.14
With Chinese forming such a large element of the inhabitants, a great many of whom were addicted to the opium and gambling habits, the idea occurred to the Resident to follow the lead given by Penang and Malacca and establish opium, spirit and gambling farms, thereby obtaining revenue for police purposes. In spite of a strong protest from Raffles, then at Bencoolen, the farms were sold, realising monthly $395 for four opium shops, $100 for arrack shops and $95 for gaming tables. A little later, the gaming tables were placed under the special control of the ‘Captain China’ and a tax levied on them. The proceeds of the gaming tax were applied to keeping the streets clean. The farm revenues were kept as a separate fund and applied to local purposes until May 1826 when they were ordered to be paid into the Treasury.
The arrival of the first junk from Amoy in February 1821 was the occasion for a dispute between the merchants and the Resident. It would seem that the Sultan had been in the habit of receiving presents from the masters of vessels calling at the port, and when the tai-kong of this particular junk, having obtained timely information of the new order of things, would not pay