Colonisation of Malaya

Enter the British

MalayaBritain became interested in the area in the 18th C.The British were looking for goods to trade with China.1786 the English East India Company acquired Penang Island from the Sultan of Kedah.

MalayaSir Stamford Raffles occupied Singapore Island off the southern tip of the peninsula in 1819; and trading rights in 1824.Singapore’s location and good harbour made it the economic centre of Britain’s political thrust into SEA.The English attracted Chinese immigrants to the island and Singapore soon became the centre of Chinese economic activity.

MalayaBritain was by know the major industrial power in Europe.Britain obtained Malacca from the Dutch by treaty in 1824.Britain now governed major ports of the Strait of Malacca, collectively known as the Strait Settlements.The British Colonial Office took direct control in 1867.

MalayaWhen the Suez Canal opened in 1869 European technological superiority swept over SEA.The Sultanates were ill prepared and powerless to stem the tide of British influence and Chinese migration.The Chinese established closely knit communities and established important trading cities such as Kuala Lumpor and Ipoh.

Malaya

The Chinese & Malays became leading elements in an inadequately integrated sociopolitical structure, a frame work that produced chronic communal friction.

MalayaBritish attraction grew with the discovery of Malaya’s mineral wealth.There was concern about the political unrest.During the 1870s, in a bid to solve political unrest the British employed “British Residents” (advisers).The first attempts at political intervention were crude and incompetent (the first British resident to Perak was murdered).

MalayaGradually the British refined their techniques and appointed more able Residents.Most notable was Sir Frank Swettenham.Swettenham was appointed the first Resident-General of the new Malay Federation in 1896

MalayaBy 1909 the British had pressured Siam into transferring sovereignty over northern Malay states of Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan and Perlis. Johor accepted a British Resident in 1914.Britain had now achieved formal or informal colonial control over nine sultanates.The various states kept their identities but were increasingly integrated to form British Malaya.

SarawakSarawak’s first contact with Europeans was under the white Raja Sir James Brooke in 1841.Brooke was appointed the Raja of Sarawak by the Sultan of Brunei after Brooke aided him in the quashing of a revolt.

SarawakBrooke inaugurated a century of rule by a remarkable English family.The Brookes viewed themselves as the protectors of Sarawak’s peoples.Sarawak eventually acquired the status of an independent state under British protection.

SarawakRelations with Britain were often strained, because the Brookes incorporated territory at the expense of the declining Brunei Sultanate.The present day boundaries of Sarawak were achieved by 1906, by then Brunei had also become a British protectorate.

SabahSabah (North Borneo) was the last region to be brought under British control.There was short lived American activity in the 1860s.By 1846 the British had control of the offshore Labuan Island

SabahIn 1872 William Cowie founded an east coast settlement at Sandakan.By 1881 the British had obtained rights to much of Sabah and launched the North Borneo Company, which ruled the British protectorate from 1881 to 1941.The companies 60 year rule established the economic, administrative and political framework of modern Sabah.