Seven Hundred Years: A History of Singapore, by Kwa Chong Guan, Derek Heng, Peter Borschberg and Tan Tai Yong. Published by Marshall Cavendish
Even as Singapore marks 200 years since Englishman Stamford Raffles set up an East India Company factory there, the city state is promoting another date. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, a Srivijayan prince named Sri Tri Buana arrived at the island then known as Temasek and founded Singapura.
The motto of the bicentennial is “from Singapore to Singaporean”. The idea is that to understand what it means to be Singaporean today, the events from 1299 onwards need to be considered. Seven Hundred Years: A History of Singapore details this story.
The book is divided into chapters dedicated to each century, from the 14th to the 20th. These chapters all include a basic summary and are illustrated with maps, photos and paintings. There is even a colour fold-out showing a reconstruction of 14th-century Singapore.
After 200 years, the kingdom founded by Sri Tri Buana was destroyed at the end of the 14th century. Here the story gets confusing, as the Malay Annals have the last sultan of Singapore, Iskandar Shah, being kicked out by the Javanese Majapahit empire, while Portuguese records have Parameswara, a Palembang prince, causing the downfall of Singapura.
Parameswara is said to have come to Singapore, killed the sultan and seized power. He was attacked by a Siamese expeditionary force and fled north to establish Melaka (Malacca).
Singapore then fell into a period of obscurity. Melaka became the most important port in the region, first under Iskandar and his descendants who converted to Islam, then the Portuguese, who took the city in 1511. After this the focus of the Malay world moved to Johor.
Singapore, under the control of a Shahbandar, or harbourmaster, made something of a comeback during the Johor sultanate in the 16th century. It was a base for the Orang Laut (the sea people), who served as a navy for the sultans.
The Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British became important players in the region as the story of Singapore developed. The European powers’ interactions with Johor is the main subject of the chapter on the 17th century. As well as the Europeans, Aceh and Patani competed to control the strategic waterways around Singapore, key to trade in Southeast Asia.
Singapore again waned in the 18th century as the Johor golden age came to an end due to civil war. In 1718, there was a crisis as Tun Mahmud, successor to the murdered Sultan Mahmud, didn’t carry the sacred blood of Sri Tri Buana, founder of Singapore.
Tun Mahmud faced a serious challenge from Raja Kecik, who was born to a slave woman attending to the sultan on the eve of the regicide. The book says that the sultan was dallying with a young man, whom he preferred to his concubines. When the sultan spilled his royal seed, he ordered a slave woman to swallow it. She did and is said to have fallen pregnant with Raja Kecik and he was born with the royal “white blood” of Sri Tri Buana in his veins.
In the 18th century, the focus of the Malay-Johor world switched to the Riau Archipelago to the south of Singapore, where the Bugis were heavily involved in trade. Both the Dutch and the British tried to form alliances with various factions in this period, with the British presence increasing as the century came to an end.
Holland’s position was weakened when it was annexed by Napoleon in 1811. Raffles, after a stint as the governor of the short-lived British Java, wanted to set up in a strategic spot in the Strait of Malacca to challenge the once again independent Dutch. Singapore was not his first choice, but ultimately the most feasible. Initially administered out of Calcutta, 19th-century British Singapore soon outstripped Dutch ports in the region.
By 1826, Singapore had overtaken Batavia (Jakarta) as the main port for Siamese trade with the region. Singapore’s successful free port model did not escape the notice of the Dutch, who copied it for their regional ports.
Traders flourished, especially those from the well-established Straits Chinese community, and immigrants from India, the Middle East and elsewhere arrived. Eventually Singapore became the jewel in the crown of the British Empire in the East, but this iteration came crashing down with the Japanese taking the city in 1942.
According to the authors, the founding fathers of the independent Singapore, which emerged from the Malaysian Federation in 1965, chose not to discard the colonial figure of Raffles. He represented the idea of free trade and familiarity for the Western world then afraid the East would fall to communism.
A country’s idea of its own history changes – both as new sources become available and as the people require a new understanding of their past to help prepare them for an uncertain future. Seven Hundred Years shows history is a jigsaw that can be put together in a number of different ways.
China uses the model of 5,000 years of continuous civilisation to project its gravitas, even if this model is not the best way to understand the rise and fall of its many dynasties. With Singapore, whose fate has waxed and waned with the fortunes of the larger region, the cyclical model of history is the most appropriate.
However, there an underlying question to which the book assumes the answer: while a 700-year history of the Malacca/Singapore Straits region is fascinating, can the physical location of modern Singapore, with its long periods of obscurity, enable it to maintain its place as a central player in this saga?
Whatever the answer, Seven Hundred Years is an accessible and thorough introduction to this island at the bottom of the Malay Peninsula that has played a successful role in several cycles of global trade.
Asian Review of Books
