Asian Affairs

ISSN: 0306-8374 (Print) 1477-1500 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raaf20

Malacca and the throat of Venice

R. A. Longmire

To cite this article: R. A. Longmire (1984) Malacca and the throat of Venice, Asian Affairs, 15:2,
179-185, DOI: 10.1080/03068378408730147

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03068378408730147

Published online: 24 Aug 2007.

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 Review Article

MALACCA AND THE THROAT OF

VENICE
R. A. LONGMIRE
Melaka: The Transformation of a Malay Capital c. 1400-1980. Edited by
Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley. Oxford University Press. Kuala
Lumpur 1983. 2 volumes. Pp. 1600. Notes. Tables. Maps. Plates. Bibliog-
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raphy. Price £120.

ISSUED UNDER the auspices of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,

Singapore, this massive and fascinating study comprises contributions by
over fifty scholars from many countries, including the joint editors Dr.
Kernial Singh Sandhu, Director of the Institute, and Professor Wheatley
of the University of Chicago. Inevitably in an undertaking of this size and
scope, some contributions are stronger than others or have greater intrin-
sic interest but the overall standard of scholarship is high. Clearly it would
be invidious to select individual items for comment and this review will
therefore attempt to survey the work as a whole.
One preliminary point. The use of the Malay spelling for this illus-
trious city veers towards the pedantic. One might as well refer to
"Moskva" or "Krungthep" or insist on the French giving up their
"Londres". Whatever the mistakes of transliteration in the past,
" Malacca " has a time-honoured place in the English language and, pace
Malaysian susceptibilities, will be used throughout the following para-
graphs.
Known to the world at large almost exclusively by its Straits, Malacca
is now a somewhat sleepy provincial capital. Five hundred years ago,
however, it was one of the great ports of the world, synonymous with the
riches of the East and possessing a monopolistic hold on trade with the
West. Silks and spices, sandalwood and tin, gold and precious stones were
transported from its godowns via the ports of India and the Middle East
to Venice, then at the height of its powers, for distribution throughout
Europe. The Portuguese writer Tome Pires who lived and worked in the
city from 1512-1518 declared that whoever was lord of Malacca had his
hand on the throat of Venice.
Malacca's period of glory was to prove relatively brief, however. It was
founded about the year 1400 (the exact date and circumstances are
obscure). Its first ruler known by tradition as the Parameswara or
"prince-consort" may have been connected with the royal house of
Palembang, the capital of the former empire of Sri Vijaya. By 1403
Malacca was already known to the Chinese as a trading emporium for in
that year the Emperor Yung Lo sent a mission headed by the eunuch Yin
Ch'ing to make contact with the Malaccan court. In his turn the ruler of
Malacca sent envoys to request that his country be designated as a depen-
dency of the Middle Kingdom. Malacca was granted recognition as a
179
 180 MALACCA AND THE THROAT OF VENICE
country and was one of only four foreign states (the others being Japan,
Brunei and Cochin) to receive an imperial inscription to that effect. In
1409 the famous Ming Admiral Cheng Ho visited Malacca to confer the
insignia of kingship on the ruler and to arrange for a stone tablet to be
erected on one of the nearby hills.
For the first third of the fifteenth century Malacca, although growing
steadily as a trading centre, was essentially a Chinese naval base, an
official depot and ship-repair yard. This close relationship with China
protected the new state against the depredations of the Thais, to whose
King it also sent tribute, and of the Javanese. However, it was only when
the Ming Emperors gave up their policy of state trading in 1435 and
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relaxed their rigid control of the Straits trade that Malacca came fully into
her own.
In contradistinction to other ports on the Peninsular and Sumatran
coasts, which relied solely on the products of their hinterlands, Malacca's
location near the narrowest part of the Straits and the consequences of
China's initial interest in her economy ensured her rapid development as
an entrepot, dealing with the flow of goods from China, India and the
islands of what is now Indonesia. In those days of small sailing ships the
annual pattern of wind circulation was of crucial importance, the south-
west monsoon prevailing from April to July and the north-east monsoon
from October to January, and these factors also underlined the nodal
significance of Malacca.
Increased wealth brought increased political power. By the middle of
the fifteenth century the Sultans of Malacca had extended their control
northwards to include inter alia Selangor and Perak, formerly depen-
dencies of Kedah and tributary to the Thai King at Ayutthaya. At the
same time Malaccan power advanced southwards to Johor and Singapore
and across the Straits to the Sumatran coast. It reached its zenith under
Sultan Alau'd-din 1477-88, encompassing all the northern shores of the
Straits, the politically most important sectors of the southern shore, the
archipelagoes and islands straddling its eastern approaches and Pahang
and Terengganu on the eastern coast of the Peninsula. This was a true
thalassocracy; most movement was by sea since the equatorial rain forests
and rough terrain made transport by land extremely difficult. It gradually
became staunchly Muslim, the Parameswara having been converted from
Hindu-Buddhist beliefs and taking the name of Megat Iskandar Syah
some time before 1414.
On 24 August 1511 the Portuguese took the city by storm, thus bring-
ing to an end Malacca's independence after a little over a hundred years.
The capture of Malacca was an important stage in their drive to establish
a Christian empire in the East and to divert the spice trade from the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf to the route round the Cape of Good Hope
which they already dominated. Goa in India and Hormuz at the entrance
to the Persian Gulf were other strongholds in their grand design of con-
trolling the exits to the Indian Ocean, although they failed to win Aden.
Their motivation was well expressed by Alfonso d'Albuquerque, Governor
of Portuguese India at that time, who declared: " I hold it very certain that
if we take this trade of Malacca out of Muslim hands, Cairo and Mecca
 MALACCA AND THE THROAT OF VENICE 181
are entirely ruined and to Venice will no spiceries be conveyed except that
which her merchants go and buy in Portugal".
Malacca was part of the Portuguese empire for 130 years. This period
is not dealt with in detail on its own in these volumes, as are the Dutch
and British periods, because, as the editors explain in their introduction,
the Portuguese contributor was prevented at the last minute by illness
from producing his chapter. This is an undoubted lacuna despite refer-
ences to the period under various headings - administration, architecture
and trade, a masterly historical survey of Albuquerque's great fort (A
Famosa or "The Famous") and a trenchant summing up in the final
chapter.
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Yet this omission is not without a certain irony. Of the three colonial
regimes, the Portuguese have left the smallest trace. It was under them
that the slow decline of Malacca began, the port's trade never again
reaching the importance it had just prior to their arrival. Not only was the
political and economic stability of the previous century disrupted by the
European advance but other trading centres such as Aceh in Sumatra and
Johor in the Malay Peninsula began to offer competition. Despite their
grand aims, the Portuguese never succeeded in effectively monopolising
the spice trade and their resources, both financial and human, were too
limited to maintain so far-flung an empire. Their antiquated bureaucracy
was incapable of meeting the new demands thrust upon it, with the result
that salaries went unpaid, supplies ran short and defensive needs were
skimped. As a corollary, venality and corruption flourished and St.
Francis Xavier himself found it necessary to denounce the greed and
injustice of certain Portuguese officials, based on visits to Malacca in 1545,
1550 and 1553. Finally the enforced union with Spain in 1580 and sub-
sequent struggles by the Portuguese to regain their independence, which
they achieved in 1640, inevitably diminished the attention they could
devote to their possessions in Asia.
Meanwhile the Dutch, who had made their first voyage to the Indies in
1598 and founded Batavia as their main trading base in 1619, seized the
opportunity to deal their Portuguese rivals a crippling blow. Supported by
the troops of the Sultan of Johor and the sympathy of other Malay rulers
who hated the Portuguese hegemony, they captured Malacca in January
1641 after a protracted siege of five months. Despite its decline under the
Portuguese, the city was still one of the main entrepots of the East, its
harbour full of shipping and with a considerable concourse of merchants
from many different lands. However, the Dutch did not so much wish to
acquire and develop its wealth as to deny its geographical advantages to
any rival. Nor were they motivated, as their predecessors were, at least in
part, by a crusading zeal for Christianity. Some of the churches built by
the Portuguese were re-dedicated as Lutheran shrines but in the main the
Catholic population was left to worship as it wished. Little or no attempt
was made to convert the Muslims.
Malacca's commercial decline accelerated rapidly under the Dutch. It
was run by the United East India Company, the policy of which was to
accord Batavia priority. Malacca's interests suffered accordingly and a
combination of high tolls, annual quotas (e.g. for tin) ami low fixed prices
 182 MALACCA AND THE THROAT OF VENICE
drove foreign merchants away to other ports outside the Company's
control, particularly to Johor, the main Dutch ally in the region. By 1656
Malacca's trade was at a standstill and only a few years later the possi-
bility of abandoning the town was discussed. This was rejected because of
Malacca's strategic position in the Straits but henceforth it was regarded
as a guardhouse for the Company's interests and was merely required to
pay its way.
There were, however, basic weaknesses in the Dutch position which
made the attainment of even these limited aims a matter of some difficulty.
Malacca was not a large town, even judged by the modest standards of the
seventeenth century. Its population amounted to 2000 in 1641 and about
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6000 in 1707, the Dutch community numbering only a few hundred

people. The government never really controlled more than four miles
south, five miles north and six miles inland from the town centre. Beyond
that lay impenetrable tropical jungle. Costs were high, building materials
expensive and life for the average Company employee was not easy. Indi-
vidual Dutch merchants appear to have prospered, as did the Chinese
community which grew from less than 400 in 1641 to about 2,000 by the
middle of the eighteenth century. In general, however, neither the Dutch
language nor Dutch culture made any impact on Malacca, the only excep-
tion being in architecture, e.g. the delightful town hall and central square
which remain to this day.
By the end of the seventeenth century, the Governor-General in
Batavia could write that" it has been known for a long time that Malacca
has been more a place of necessary residence and garrison than of trade ".
Additional complications soon arose. Malacca had long kept out of the
squabbles of the Malay rulers elsewhere in the Peninsula and followed a
policy of strict neutrality. In the first half of the eighteenth century,
however, the Bugis, part pirates part mercenaries from Celebes, became
established on the island of Riau whence they attempted with some
success to dominate the entrance to the Straits and generally to meddle in
Malayan politics. In 1756 they blockaded Malacca for seven months but
were eventually beaten off. The appointment of a series of active Gover-
nors secured some amelioration in Malacca's economy during the next
two decades but the improvement was not maintained. In 1783-4 war
broke out between the Dutch and the Bugis. A Dutch fleet failed to take
Riau and a subsequent siege of Malacca by the Bugis was only called off
when a chance shot killed the Buginese leader.
Dutch prestige was now at a low ebb following the losses sustained
during the fourth Anglo-Dutch War 1780-84. Quite apart from that,
however, the competition from British traders had grown steadily during
the previous decades. The founding of Penang by Francis Light in 1786
signified the end of Malacca's pretensions to be a major entrepot. In
February 1795 the Stadthouder of Holland, then in exile in England,
signed the " Kew Letters " permitting the British to occupy Dutch posts in
the Indies to avoid their falling into French hands. The Dutch Governor
Couperus surrendered Malacca to a British fleet on 15 August 1795.
As a result of these events, Malacca slipped from history. In 1807 the
great fort was demolished on the orders of the British East India
 MALACCA AND THE THROAT OF VENICE 183
Company which had decided to withdraw its garrison from Malacca and
concentrate on the development of Penang instead. Nothing remained of
what had been the town's chief glory except a single gate and a small
stretch of wall. With a population of less than 20,000 Malacca was now
becoming an economic backwater, although it was still the focal point for
local trade and continued to maintain reduced links with Siam and China.
It reverted to Dutch control in 1818 under the Terms of the Treaty of
Vienna which concluded the Napoleonic Wars. However, the founding of
modern Singapore the following year administered the coup de grace to
Malacca's commerce. Customs duties and harbour fees in 1823 amounted
to less than one seventh of what they had been in 1815. Henceforth
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Malacca was much in the shadow of Singapore and, to a lesser extent, of

Penang. The Dutch, unable to make ends meet, ceded the town to the
British under the terms of the Treaty of London of 1824. Two years later it
was united with Singapore and Penang to form the Straits Settlements,
which became a Crown Colony in 1867.
As the nineteenth century progressed, Malacca became merely a feeder
port for Singapore. But it found a new role, and a certain degree of
prosperity, in agriculture, as a result of the development of what is now the
state of Malacca of which it remains the capital. Agricultural exports,
including copra, gambier, pigs and poultry now formed the staple of its
trade, which by 1902 had increased five-fold since the British takeover in
1825. The coming of the railway in 1904-5 and the world rubber boom of
1905-1919 further added to Malacca's well-being, although it resulted in
an over-reliance on this one crop. Malacca was therefore particularly hard
hit by the slump in rubber prices in the early 1920s and had barely
recovered when the world financial crisis of 1929 caused the bottom to fall
out of the rubber market bringing unemployment and hardship. Moderate
prosperity was restored in the mid-1930s when the price of rubber stabil-
ised and a certain diversification away from cash crops to rice-growing
had taken place.
The population, although not as cosmopolitan as in the heyday of the
port, continued to embrace several races, Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eur-
asians and Europeans. Rather curiously there seem to have been very few
British living there at any time. There were no British merchants or plan-
ters in mid-nineteenth century Malacca. In 1891 there were 113 Euro-
peans, and as late as 1931 only 330, presumably most of them British. By
contrast the Chinese were much in evidence. As early as the 1820s they
made up one third of the town's population. Many subsequently switched
their commercial operations to the expanding economy of Singapore but
kept their links with Malacca. The latter became a sort of Chinese Brigh-
ton to which they returned on holiday or retirement. By 1931 the Chinese
formed seventy per cent of the population. The best known representative
of this community was Tan Cheng Lock (1883-1960) Malaya's most active
constitutional reformer of the inter-war years and the first President of the
Malayan Chinese Association on its inauguration in 1949.
Malacca played no active role in the Second World War. The Japanese
overran the town in January 1942 without any fighting. A few bombs were
dropped but the damage caused was slight. After the initial nervousness
 184 MALACCA AND THE THROAT OF VENICE
the population went about its everyday tasks. Despite shortages, black
market activities and inflation, an initial reign of terror unleashed against
the leaders of the Chinese community by the Kempeitai and the extortion
by the military authorities in Singapore of a " gift" of MS50 million from
the Malayan Chinese community (Malacca's share being MS5-5 million),
the town was described by one resident as " the most livable place in the
whole of Malaya during the occupation". Here as elsewhere disillu-
sionment with the "New Order" set in early and the Japanese were
quickly seen to be no better and in many cases a good deal worse than the
ousted British. One great blow to the local economy was the dismantling
of Malacca's only railway line to provide parts for the construction of the
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notorious Burma/Thailand and Kra railways. But Malacca was fortunate

in its Japanese Governor Tsurumi, a former diplomat of moderate views,
whose fluent English enabled him to communicate directly with the
people, and who frequently spoke out for them against what he considered
to be the excessive demands of the military administration. He was well
liked and respected by the residents who turned out in large numbers to
see him off when he returned to Japan in July 1944. Another reason for the
general peacefulness throughout Malacca State was that the terrain did
not favour Communist guerrilla activity against the Japanese.
After the war the Straits Settlements Colony was dissolved. Together
with Penang, Malacca became part of the Malayan Union in April 1946,
later modified to become the Federation of Malaya in February 1948.
During the Emergency (1948-60) Malacca played only a limited role,
possibly owing to the general weakness of the Malayan Communist Party
in the area. The first locality in the whole country to be declared " White "
i.e. free from Communist activity was in Malacca State.
Constitutionally Malacca continued to be regarded as a separate
colony in relationship to the British Crown until 1957 when the Federa-
tion of Malaya gained complete independence. It became part of the
Federation of Malaysia on the latter's formation in 1963. Like Penang,
Sabah and Sarawak it has a Governor, federally appointed for a four year
term, not a Sultan as in the other nine states of the Federation. Otherwise
it conforms to the general pattern with a State Legislative Assembly and a
State Executive Council under a Chief Minister (appointed by the
Governor), in addition to representation in the central government.
Present-day Malacca remains a modest place, the capital of one of the
smallest Malaysian states. Its population (86,400 in 1971) makes it the
sixth city in the country (it was fourth immediately after the war). This
slippage in position reflects not only the fact that Malacca lies away from
the main axis of Malaysia's economic development, which runs from
Johor through Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh to Penang, but also the relative
neglect it has suffered at the hands of the central government. During the
past two decades the Malacca region has been largely by-passed in the
national development policy. In the Third Malaysia Plan (1976-80), for
instance, it ranked twelfth (out of thirteen) in the table of recipients of
government allocations. On the other hand, a new modern jetty has been
built of recent years and new industrial estates have been established
including two Free Trade Zones. The port of Malacca, however, handles
 MALACCA AND THE THROAT OF VENICE 185
only about two to three per cent of the total trade of Malaysian ports. It
enjoys reasonable road communication but the railway was never re-built
after the war. The mainstay of the state's economy continues to be agricul-
ture, with rubber by far the most important commodity; rice, the second
most important crop, contributes only one-tenth of the total value of
agriculture production. A combination of pressure on the land and a lack
of natural resources (e.g. tin) makes Malacca one of the poorest states in
the Federation, although its " poverty " would not stand comparison with
that of, say, India or Bangladesh.
And what of the future? Judging by the volumes under review, none of
the contributors sees Malacca as an area of dynamic growth. A certain
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amount of new industry will be developed, but even so industrial pro-

duction is scheduled to provide not more than twenty per cent of the
State's Gross Domestic Product by 1990. There appear to be good pros-
pects for the continued development of agriculture, with Malacca perhaps
emerging as a sort of market garden for Singapore and Johor. Some
optimism is expressed over the town's prospects as a tourist centre. At first
glance its claims to the traveller's attention appear to be a bit thin.
Nothing is left of its brief era of independence, and next to nothing of the
Portuguese era. The remaining Dutch buildings are few in number and
small in scale. In British times the town was a provincial backwater.
Malacca will never be another York or Chester, one feels, but in a country
with extremely few mementoes of the past it stands out as an existing link
with the national roots. Its situation and layout and its mosques, churches
and temples give it an undoubted charm, as this reviewer can testify from a
brief visit twenty years ago.
These beautifully produced volumes do Malacca proud and provide a
treasure store of information on many aspects of the town's history, trade,
economy, architecture and racial composition. The Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies is to be congratulated.