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ODIANGA Loving & Speculative Chronicle of Francis Joseph Pillay (My Dad), told against the long and colourful passage of the Chetty Malacca community through the history of Malacca.

By Gerald F Pillay

Chapter Two

The Chetty Malacca History -

Beginnings: Chetty Malacca

Who are the Chetty Malacca1? As near as may be surmised, we are the product of the monsoons and human nature, the outcome and survivors of history. The famous geography dictum applies: at the Equator, the seas unite and the jungles divide.

The first strike must go to the monsoons. These steady winds blow across the Indian Ocean from India to South East Asia for six months, and then reverse direction. They do exactly the

1 There are many derivations and spellings of the name. I use the Malay-language format, with the adjective following, and my own choice of spelling. For some reference to the origins of the name, see page 11

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same thing across the South China Sea, creating a parallel history, but we are not concerned with that here. What is pertinent is that the monsoon winds were responsible for generating continuous streams of Indian merchant traders from the Coromandel coast to and fro South East Asia and beyond, from as far back as the first centuries of the last millennium.

The second strike goes to history. When the prince of Srivijaya, Parameswara, founded the port of Malacca in 1402 in the sheltered waters of the straits, it immediately attracted the monsoon traffic from both sides of the peninsula, the Chinese and the Indians. For the latter it was in fact the nearest safe port of call. Among the earliest Indian arrivals were wealthy and influential Tamil Hindu merchant traders, identified in some sources as coming from Panai in Tamil Nadu. It is reported that these successfully gained comparative advantage, were much respected, and in time became the largest and most influential Indian community in Malacca. One of them even served as Dato Shah Bandar (harbour master).

The third strike goes to human nature. By custom of those times, Indian women were not allowed to travel abroad. Soon, our Tamil forebears discovered the monsoon to be unseasonably long, while the charms of our beauteous Malay damsels grew utterly irresistible with time. The influence and wealth of the foreigners may or may not have provided some attraction. Religion was no barrier as Malay culture at that point had grown from Hindu roots. Commentators seem to suggest that the ruling powers gave their blessings to the unions. So, our ancestors happily married each other, setting up local domicile. These were the beginnings of our community. I formed the impression they occupied the higher positions on the social ladder.

More Beginnings: Birth of Malacca

When we come to Malacca, we owe it all to a mouse deer. But before that we must briefly mention Srivijaya, which provided the human agency for the founding of both Temasek and Malacca through the scions of its illustrious royal house.

In the mid-seventh century, there arose in Sumatra, centred in Palembang, the mighty Buddhist-Malay Kingdom of Srivijaya. By the end of the same century, it embraced most of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula up to Siam, and parts of the Malay Archipelago. By the eleventh century it had extended its suzerainty to West Java, and thence across the islands to Manila, embracing the Moluccas, the Sulu Archipelago and the Visayas – the last were named after it. Arab accounts state that the empire was so large that in two years the swiftest vessel could not travel round all its islands. Located astride the Straits of Sunda and Malacca, it controlled all traffic between India and China, and exacted a toll on all shipping passing through. Its capital was the première trade emporium of its time. Srivijaya became renowned for Buddhist scholarship and learning, and it was the source-springs of Malay culture. Srivijaya maintained diplomatic and tributary relations with China, and friendly relations with among others the Chola Kingdom of the Coramandel. But, relations with the latter deteriorated in the twelfth century, and the Cholas went to war against Srivijaya, eventually conquering Kedah. Decades of internecine warfare with the Javanese Kingdom of Majapahit also weakened it, and its vassal states broke away. Finally, it was vanquished by the latter in 1368.

In 1324, a prince of Srivijaya, Sri Maharaja Sang Utama Parameswara Batara Sri Tribuwana (also known as Sang Nila Utama) founded the Kingdom of Temasek2, which he ruled for 48 years. He was confirmed as ruler over Temasek by an envoy of the Chinese Emperor in 1366. He was succeeded by his son (1372–1386), grandson (1386–1399) and lastly his great-grandson Paduka Sri Maharaja Parameswara (1399-1411) In 1401, Parameswara was expelled from Temasek following its destruction by the Majapahit. He travelled north to Muar, then Ujong Tanah and Biawak Busuk, before founding Melaka in 1402. According to the Sejarah Melayu, the prince saw a mouse deer outwit a dog when he was resting under a

2 The Sejarah Melayu (translated Leyden, 1821) states that Sang Nila Utama named it “Singhapura”.

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Malacca tree. He took what he saw as a good omen and decided to establish the capital of his kingdom there. He called his kingdom Malacca.

Malacca: Sultanate & Empire

At the foundation of Malacca, the people were virtually all Hindu. According to the Sejarah Melayu, Parameswara dreamt that Mohammed came to him, proclaiming the Islamic creed. Afterwards, Parameswara dreamt again, this time of a man named Sayyid Abu Al-Hassan who lectured him about the religion. Later the same man arrived and converted him, whereon he adopted the name Sultan Iskandar Shah. An alternative report states that In 1409 3, the prince (now king) became a Muslim due to his marriage to a Muslim princess from Pasai. His marriage encouraged a number of his subjects to embrace Islam.

Sultan Iskandar Shah (or Parameswara as he was still referred to) carried out far-reaching reforms. These enhanced Malacca as a peaceful destination and centre of trade. Traders from the surrounding region and from as far away as India, Arabia and China traded in the port. He also laid down the formalities of the Malay court ceremonials and regalia that have been adopted by succeeding Malay royalties all over peninsula, including the Nobat, and the white and yellow umbrellas for royalty. He also started the system of administration based on a hierarchy of court officials. With this stream-lining, trade and commerce rapidly developed in Malacca.

The Official Website of Malacca records that in 1403, the first Chinese trade envoy led by Admiral Yin Ching arrived in Malacca. In 1409, Admiral Cheng Ho, Commander of the Chinese Imperial fleet, arrived in Malacca on the first of his seven voyages to the Indian Ocean. And, in 1411, Parameswara journeyed to China with an entourage of 540 and met the Ming Emperor Yung Lo. Parameswara maintained the highest level relationship with China. I can do no better than quote the following in full to explain this:

At the same time, Malacca had a good relationship with Ming, resulting in Zheng He's visits. Parameswara had met the Ming emperor to receive a Letter of Friendship, hence making Malacca the first foreign kingdom to attain such treatment. In 1409, the sultan paid tribute to the Ming emperor to ask for protection against Siam and Malacca was made as protectorate of Ming China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_Sultanate

In 1414, his son visited China, when he informed the Emperor that his father had died. His was recognised as the second ruler of Malacca by the Chinese Emperor. His adopted the name Sultan Megat Iskandar Shah, and he ruled Malacca from 1414 to 1424.

The third ruler of Malacca was Raja Tengah or Radin Tengah. According to the Sejarah Melayu, he embraced Islam and took the title Muhammad Shah. Other scholars believe this could also have been due to him marrying a Tamil Muslim wife. On his decease In 1444, he was succeeded by Raja Ibrahim.

By this time, there could have been some tension in Melaka between the growing Tamil Muslim community and the traditional Hindu Malays, for Raja Ibrahim does not seem to have embraced the new religion but instead adopted the title Sri Parameswara Dewa Shah. He ruled for less than seventeen months - in 1445, he was stabbed to death. He had an elder half-brother, by a Tamil Muslim common woman, called Raja Kasim. He assumed the throne (in 1456), taking the name Sultan Muzaffar Shah. - signalling a new golden era for the Melaka Sultanate4.

3 The Official Website of Malacca gives this date as 1414, but this seems improbably.

4 Raja Ibrahim was also known as Sultan Abu Syahid Shah. He was a practicing Hindu. His taking a Hindu title represented a traditionalist reaction in Malacca against Islam, the new

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http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/parames.htm

The small city state would now become a Sultanate and an Empire. Sultan Muzaffar Shah appointed the famous Tun Perak as his Bendahara, styled Bendahara Paduka Raja - a man deeply respected by the Sultan's Malay subjects and a man he knew had the charisma, ability and courage to build his Empire. Tun Perak would shape the history of Malacca for the next 40 years and serve as Bendahara under four Sultans. Malacca quickly mounted a series of military campaigns subjugating the surrounding states and in east coast Sumatra. In 1459, on his decease, he was succeed by his son Sultan Mansur Shah, The latter successfully attacked and conquered Kedah and Pahang, both vassal states of Siam, which launched several attacks on the new kingdom previously. The list of the other states who were conquered or became vassals included Johor and Muar in the Peninsula, and Jambi, Siak and (briefly) Pasai in Sumatra. At its height, Malacca ruled most of Peninsula Malaya and a great portion of eastern Sumatra. Like its predecessor Srivijaya, it controlled the Straits of Malacca. It was also the centre of Islam. Muslim missionaries were sent by the Sultan to other communities in the Malay Archipelago, such as in Java, Borneo, and the Philippines. For most of South East Asia at that time was Hindu.

Mansur Shah's reign was the peak of Melaka's meteoric rise to Empire and became the golden age of Malay folklore and culture. It was recorded that by this time, Melaka alone, had 40,000 inhabitants, including almost all the known races in the world.

It was during Mansur Shah's reign that Hang Tuah, the ultimate Malay hero and symbol of honour, courage and loyalty was made Laksamana or Admiral

http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/parames.htm

The Chinese relationship continued and strengthened under the new sultan.

In the year 1459, a princess Hang Li Po (or Hang Liu), was sent by the emperor of Ming to marry Malacca Sultan Mansur Shah (ruled 1459–1477). The princess came with her entourage 500 sons of ministers and a few hundred handmaidens.They eventually settled in Bukit Cina, Malacca. It is believed that a significant number of them married into the local populace. The descendants of these mixed marriages are locally known today as Peranakan and still use the honorifics Baba (male title) and Nyonya (female title).

In Malaysia today, many people believe it was Admiral Zheng He (died 1433) who sent princess Hang Li Po to Malacca in year 1459. However there is no record of Hang Li Po (or Hang Liu) in Ming annals. She is mentioned only within Malacca folklore and Malay annals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He#In_Malacca

In 1477, Sultan Mansur Shah died, and his son succeeded him as Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah. But he mysteriously died 11 years later, of poisoning. There was a resurgence of Tamil Muslim politicking, led by Tun Mutahir, the son of the previously deposed Tamil Muslim Bendahara Tun Ali. Sultan Alauddin's elder son was by-passed in favour of his younger half brother, the son of Mutahir’s own sister. This young man became Sultan Mahmud Shah in

religion. After his death, he was given the title Sultan Abu Syahid, which means the Martyred King.

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1488. When Tun Perak died in 1498, his brother, Tun Puteh, succeeded him, only to pass away soon after. Finally, in 1500, Tun Mutahir assumed the post, with the title Bendahara Seri Maharaja. He became the grandest and most powerful of all the bendaharas, accordingl to the official Malacca website..

We might conclude this episode with another quote commenting on the state of affairs in Malacca then:

Melaka's State continued to flourish but the court was now thronged and dominated by Tamil merchants, ready to buy their way to royal favour. Their monopoly in trade made them despised by other traders and the Malay chiefs and common people hated the arrogant and greedy "Jawi Pekan" strutting like rulers.

http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/parames.htm

But Malacca’s greatest glory was in the flowering of Malay culture, literature and society. It was a remarkably cosmopolitan society. Malays, Muslim Indians, Hindus, Chinese, Javanese, Turks, Arabs, Burmese, Siamese, all flocked to share in its peace, stability and prosperity. Malacca became the focal point and entre-port for the smaller regional boats to exchange goods and discharge their spices and local produce, and for long haul ships to collect and discharge their cargo for India and China – and beyond

I will conclude with the following statement from the same source

It was the first and most memorable civilisation to have emerged from the peninsula - and none have equalled it since.

http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/parames.htm

Then, on 1 September 1509, a Portuguese fleet under Admiral Diego Lopez De Sequeira sailed into Malacca.- the first European fleet to have ever dropped anchor into Malay waters. That moment was to become a dramatic crossroads in the history of the Malay Peninsular and, ultimately, the fate of all eastern Asia. More of this later.

Life in the Malacca Sultanate

The following description conveys the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the port and city, of which our ancestors formed a resident and constituent part:

“As a centre for trade, the port of Melaka (Malacca) was a good harbour complete with godown facilities to store goods. Foreign traders from different countries lived in separate residential areas. As a result, the port drew Chinese junks, Moslem merchants, Javanese, Bengalis and Arabs. Merchants from Persia, India and the Indonesian regions also flocked to Melaka every year. Goods from the East and the West were sold in Melaka through out the seasons

”There were also Armenians, Venetians and Turks who came through the Indian ports of Surat and Cambay, which were major markets linked to Melaka.”

“The long journey from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean and then to Melaka took 18 months and the trips were full of danger. The Venetians were aware of these dangers. Their trade between Indian ports, and Melaka, was conducted mainly by Indian merchants, and only a few Venetians were able to

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penetrate the Melaka trade. Occasionally Indian merchants persuaded the Venetians to carry their goods in European ships; they also formed companies of merchants to sail to Melaka. In these companies, Gujeratis and Western traders sailed for Melaka in March. On their return journey they stopped in the Maldives Islands to trade with the locals”.

http://eprints.usm.my/9045/1/EUROPEAN_TRADERS_IN_REGIONAL_TRADE_OF_MALAY ARCHIPELAGO,_1681_to 1792.pdfYEOH LIAN HEOH

It may be noted from the preceding that there was continuous Tamil involvement in the affairs of Malacca, by way of business, religion and politics. It was common for both international and local alliances, whether for political or religious purposes to be forged by marriage. More than one Sultan had Tamil ancestry. I suspect that If Tun Sri Lanang,, the compiler 5 of the Sejarah Melayu, had had an Hindu chronographer to assist him, we might have had an equally intriguing recital of involvement of the Hindu Tamils, the ancestors of our Chetty Malacca, It seems that at the beginning they were in the ascendant. There is mention that one of our ancestors was in fact made Shah Bandar or port-master of Malacca – probably at the beginning in the time of Parameswara when he depended on them. The Sejarah Melayu narrative also makes reference to prominent Klings6 who were wealthy and well thought of. From the context, they seemed to be Hindu Tamils. Among those mentioned was a “kelinger who settled in Malacca and became Shahbender or chief of port, and he was named Raja Mudeliar,” I could not ascertain whether this was one and the same as the earlier report. Another “kelinger”, Ilu Menu Nayen by name and a shopkeeper by trade, generously distributed gifts on festive occasions There is no explicit reference anywhere that the Tamil Hindus did actively support the Malay Hindu opposition. However, what seems clear is that their rivals, the Tamil Muslims, swept the field politically and tried to dominate trade. It is not hard to imagine that our ancestors were quite cheesed off in the end.

There is no specific information available, but it may be imagined that our ancestors continued otherwise to engage in their maritime trade during the Sultanate, still plying between the Coramandel and Malacca as the Hindu royal fleets still controlled the Indian Ocean at this time. They might or might not have been carrying on regional entre-port activities as well. They probably also controlled a fair share of the shore-based infrastructure having been first in the field, including the supplies and services involved in chandlering. There is no reason to suppose they did not continue to form an important backbone of the commercial strength of Malacca. The Sejarah Melayu references certainly suggest that some at any rate were financially influential.

Despite the loss of leverage as the rivals merchants (Muslim Tamils and Gujeratis) dislodged our ancestors from their former positions of political influence, it would appear that the Chetty Malacca survived, thrived and shared in the prosperity of the sultanate. We may note that notwithstanding the hot-house religious atmosphere permeating political and business affairs, by and large the ancestors of the Chetty Malacca they kept their faith. It has remained the cornerstone of their identity to this day.

The question arises whether with the advent of Islam our ancestors began to experience difficulty in marrying Malay ladies. I go along with the tenor of various descriptions of the time that the new religion may have taken many years to penetrate the population, from royalty down to the common folk. Customary norms and practices would have continued much as they were before. The Official Website of Malacca states that Islam was made the official religion only in 1446, Thus, we may suppose that our ancestors continued to marry locally with the Malay population in parallel with the growing nucleus of their own Chetty Malacca women. Loss of their political position may have reduced their clout, but they would still have been

5 The Sejarah Melayu is said to have been compiled around in 1621 in Johore at the behest of the Sultan, descendant of the last Malacca royal family, and was completed in Aceh where Tun Sri Lanang was a prisoner.

6 See Footnote 17 on Page 25 for a full note on “Klings”.

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sufficiently well-off to support their charms. Inter-marriage seems to have been quite the thing at all levels in Malacca, judging by the Sejarah Melayu, and has continued to be popular ever since. We may observe that the Chinese Peranakan would also have grown over the same period, As has been well established over the years since, our ancestors have never been adverse to the charms of Peranakan women and married them freely. And so our ancestry would have continued to enrichen during the time of the sultanate. There were as yet no Eurasians.

Portuguese Malacca: The Chetty Malacca prosper

The first contact by the Portuguese with Malacca was in 1509, as mentioned earlier. They would not have inspired joy and celebration among the Malays, because the Portuguese’s ships were loaded with cannon and their men armed to the teeth. It was perhaps already common seafaring knowledge that they had appeared still smoking from their capture of Goa not many months before, and that their mission was conquest of strategic trade routes. In any case the Gujerat merchants are said to have instigated against them. They would have reported the Portuguese’s hostility to Islam from their warfare they conducted on the west coast of India. Thus, while the visit was overtly exploratory and to open trade relations, the Malays had every reason to look with suspicion upon them. In the upshot, the expedition was captured and imprisoned.

In June 1511 Alfonso d'Albuquerque, Viceroy of all the Portuguese in the East, arrived at Malacca from Goa with the entire army and navy of Portuguese India, made up of 19 ships, 800 European men and 600 natives (Indians).

“Albuquerque on arrival immediately demanded the rescue of the Portuguese. The Sultan tried to gain time to strengthen the town defenses. He was well aware of the small number of Portuguese troops and was confident on his powerful army of 20.000 men and 2.000 guns.

Albuquerque wasted no time. At dawn of 25 July 1511 the Portuguese attacked the town concentrating the assault on the bridge on the river dividing the town. After a fierce battle the bridge was conquered, but at nightfall they were forced to retreat. After some days of preparations, on 10 August 1511, the Portuguese renewed the attack. Albuquerque had the assistance of some Chinese junks that were anchored in the port. The use of a junk offered by the Chinese merchants was decisive, as this junk was used as a bridgehead. This time the attack was successful in establishing a bridgehead in the town. There were then several days of siege in which the Portuguese bombarded the city. On 24 August 1511 the Portuguese again attacked only to discover that the Sultan had escaped. With Malacca now in Portuguese hands, they sacked the town, but following Albuquerque’s orders, they respected the property of those who sided with them.

B. W. Diffie and G. D. Winius in the book "Foundations of the Portuguese Empire 1415-1580" write: "the capture of Asia's greatest trading city by a mere 900 Portuguese and 200 Indians must rank as an event in the history of European expansion no less stunning than the better known conquest of Tenochtitlan by Hernando Cortés".

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/eng/asia/malaysia/malacca/portuguese.html

As has been said before, whoever controlled Malacca controlled the Straits. Malacca became a key guardian of the Portuguese’s spice route. This strategic function was the principal reason for its capture, besides the prize of a glittering port and the capital of the then greatest empire in the region.

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Over the next one hundred and thirty years, Malacca continued to reign in this role, but now under the Portuguese It was not by any means a peaceful time. From his base at Johore, the former Sultan of Malacca and his successors repeatedly attacked Malacca in 1517, 1520, 1521 and in 1525. At last, in 1583, a peace treaty was signed. Malacca was also repeatedly under siege in 1550, 1567, 1571 this time by Johore and Aceh. A major sea attack by Johore in 1587 was only overcome by re-enforcements from Goa. The prize and obsession that Malacca was to the Dutch may be gathered by the fact that with only its third voyage out, the VOC launched an attack on it in 1606, in alliance with Johore - just four years after the company’s formation. It would be the first of many.

To defend themselves from the surrounding Malay kingdoms, who were still smarting from the loss of their prized port to the infidel Christians, the Portuguese immediately set about building a citadel on the east bank of the Malacca River, the site of the Sultan’s former istana. This fortification was called "A Famosa" meaning The Famous), and was finished in November 1511 On the hill, rising behind the fort, the Portuguese built their houses, the governor's palace and their churches, while the Asian population of traders of many nations lived on the opposite bank of the river.The Portuguese proceeded to surround their settlement with a walled fortress (Fortaleza de Malacca). This encompassed the hill and over-looked the harbour. This fortress in its final form had 6 Bastions and 4 Gates. It was completed in 1588. Soon after the conquest, Ruy de Brito Patalim was appointed Captain of the "Fortaleza de Malacca" and about 500 Portuguese soldiers were left as garrison.

Albuquerque established a new administration, minted a new currency and built a wooden chapel on the hill. Adjoining the citadel, a stone church dedicated to "Nossa Senhora da Anunciada" was erected in 1521, and later re-dedicated to "Nossa Senhora da Assumpção". On 4 February 1558 this church was consecrated as a Cathedral. Many Portuguese "casados", mostly artisans, merchants or farmers, settled in Malacca. In 1532, the Confraria da Misericórdia (Confraternity of Mercy) was founded and a wooden hospital for the poor was also built. In 1545, Saint Francis Xavier visited Malacca on the first of his five sojourns in the city. Malacca was used as his base in the East and from there he attempted to get permission to travel to China. In 1548, he set up the first school in Malacca, named St Paul's College, for the Portuguese Catholics and newly converted locals. 1552, the "camara" (Municipal Council) of Malacca was set up. In 1553, Saint Francis Xavier died on Sancian island. His body was buried in St. Paul's Church for nine months then transferred to Goa. .

An early report during this period suggested that Malacca continued to be a cosmopolitan metropolis under the Portuguese, with a population of over 50,000; some 84 languages could be heard according to one count (Pires, 1510 Summa Oriental). It should be mentioned that Malacca also had a slave population. A report somewhere suggested that previously the Sultan had had about 3,000 slaves. Slaves were a widespread and marketable commodity. They comprised those captured as the prize of war, jungle tribes and unprotected micro-communities captured by raids, people sentenced to slavery, and of course people bought and sold in the slave markets. They served in a wide range of jobs, from domestic servants to agricultural and menial workers. No doubt The Portuguese captured a good handful of slaves at the fall of Malacca.

When the Portuguese attacked Malacca, the Tamil Hindus stayed neutral. But one faction led by Naina Chetty supported the invaders against the local Muslim alliance. It is because of this that the Portuguese did not destroy their property and generally showed the Chetty Malacca favour. It is further reported that Naina Chetty was granted the appointment of Bendahara (Chief Minister), but with less power than his predecessors under the Sultans. This office was held by his family for some time. I read no specific reports, but we may imagine that the Jawi Pekan lost their positions of influence. In fact they seem to fade from the history of Malacca.

In this milieu, the ancestors the Chetty Malacca prospered. We may begin to say that the community had by now established their identity as Chetty Malacca, and we shall begin talking of them as such. There is no indication that they owned slaves, but it could be expected at

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least the more well to do and those in business did. Slavery was common in India, and they could have brought their own slaves over. It is reported that the Chetty Malacca grew in wealth, and owned and occupied the best residential properties in preferred suburbs across the river from the fort including what was later to be named Hereen Street by the Dutch, and in adjacent Tranquerah. Here’s peep into what it was like:

“Tranqueira

Tranqueira was the most important suburb of Malacca. The suburb was rectangular in shape, with a northern walled boundary, the straits of Malacca to the south and the river of Malacca (Rio de Malaca) and the fortaleza's wall to the east. It was the main residential quarters of the city. However, in war, the residence of the quarters would be evacuated to the fortress. Tranqueira was divided into a further two parishes, São Tomé and São Estêvão. The parish of S.Tomé was called Campon Chelim (Kampung Keling in Malay). It was described that this area was populated by the Chelis of Choromandel. The other suburb of São Estêvão was also called Campon China (Kampung Cina). (Chelis = Chetty Malacca)

Erédia described the houses as made of timber but roofed by tiles. A stone bridge with sentry crosses the river Malacca to provide access to the Malacca Fortress via the eastern Custome House Terrace. The center of trade of the city was also located in Tranqueira near the beach on the mouth of the river called the Bazaar of the Jaos (Jowo/Jawa i.e. Javanese).

Emanuel Godinho de Erédiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Malacca

While the community took identity fully as Chetty Malacca and grew, as surely as the Portuguese Eurasians and the Chinese Peranakans did, there was also attrition, for in individual cases some would have converted to Christianity or Islam to win their lady of choice. It is in fact reported that the mosque in Temple Street, alongside the Chetty Malacca Hindu temple, was built by Chetty Malaca converts to Islam.

It has to be remembered that all the above happened in the distant past – well before the British East India Company (EIC) or the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) were born, in 1600 and 1602 respectively!.

There were other visiting Indian traders. They included a sizeable number of merchants from Gujerat, a Muslim state in West India, the original traders in spices supplying Europe through Venice. I was curious not finding communities of local domicile of these Indians, counterpart to the Chetty Malacca. My own take on this is that they did indeed marry and were easily assimilated into the local Malay Muslim communities. Even up to today, Indian Muslims marry freely with Malays, and their children more often than not identify themselves as Malay. Mohamed Mahathir, the former Prime Minster of Malaysia, was I am told of Indian ancestry but called himself Malay. The one reference I did find of a reference again to the Jawi Pekan. They were Indian Muslims who married Malay women but maintained a separate identity. Apparently they were affluent, retained their own culture and practised their own form of Islam. Apart from their role in sultanate times, they arose mainly in Penang in British times, some two hundred years in the future. .

As might be expected, over time, the Tamil Hindu community brought over their artisans, domestics and menial workers, who themselves built local families. This accounted for the stratification by economic class and wealth of the Chetty Malacca community, even discernable these days. While slaves were caught and sold in abundance in India to slave

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traders, I have so far not heard that it was the practice for families and businesses to have domestic slaves working for them. The caste system did pretty well in their place. So I conclude they did not bring slaves over to Malacca. A factor consolidating the local community was that local wives and families were not assimalable into the structure of Indian society even if brought back to India. There was therefore no point. The two worlds remained happily apart. Finally, history intervened again, to seal the processes, with the conquest of the last Coramandel Hindu Kingdom (Vijayanagar) by Muslim conquerors in 1642. Contact with their homeland, was progressively severed, their ships not longer enjoyed the protection of the Hindu royal fleets, and they lost their maritime trade. The Hindu merchants in fact began to lease or sell their ships to the Muslims, and looked for solace in the ready arms of their local partners and landwards for their economic future. This did not mean some of them did not sneak back to enjoy double marital bliss. But even before this strand of events could reach its termination, Malacca was conquered by the Dutch in 1641. That event was to truncate and transform everything.

According to the Tamil-English Dictionary by .V Visvanatha Pillai, the word setu means merchant. This is thought to be the genesis of chitty Our ancestors therefore became known as Chitty Malacca - Chetty Malaca in our more natural local Malay colloquial language. This has been supported by the fact that the Gujeratis called their higher echelon merchants classes “sertjis”. This was no doubt to measure up socially with the Chetty Malacca. There is no better proof of human nature than human vanity. We in turn always take pains to point out that we are totally different from (albeit much poorer as a whole than) the Tamil chettiars who came in at a later time and who were and still are familiar to our brethren in modern Malaysia as their clients in their professional business of money-lending.

At the turn of the century, the population of Malacca was variously estimated at 20,000. Eredia estimated that the Christian population in 1613 was as around 7,400, Most of these would have been Eurasians (mestiços), or Orang Serani (Christangs) as they came to be called. The Portuguese married easily into the local communicates as they were about to do in Brazil, facilitated by the Catholic Church, which would in any case have insisted upon baptising the children. Conversion and marriage was also the route for slaves to attain freedom. By this time, the Eurasians had had 100 years to create their own community. There were eight parishes in the town. I have no figures, but judging by the fact that our ancestors had a hundred years head-start on the Eurasians, we can conclude that the Chetty Malacca population should have been at least not less than that of the Christians, taking into account that the Eurasians would be more advantageously placed by their affinity to the ruling power in securing brides. Most of the others would have been Peranakans Chinese. I have not checked out the parallel history of the Peranakan Chinese, but I would say their numbers were always greater than that of the Christians. It is probably true that the Malays by and large stayed out of town and were mostly not counted as part of the city’s population. I did not find any reference to any Malay elite in upper colonial society. If during Portuguese times, our ancestors found it harder to marry Malay ladies, it could have been because of the latter reason, and also because the Malays had by and large moved out of town into the kampong. The figures I quote are from different sources, were estimates, and don’t add up. My aim is solely to give an impression of the broad ranges and relative proportions of the people, including the Chetty Malacca.

Enter the Dutch

Formed in 1602, The Dutch East India Company or VOC was a joint stock company operating under the protection of the Dutch Republic. From the outset, the VOC set out to capture the monopoly of the spice trade. The meant the source territories, the trading posts, entre-ports and the international route. Among their prime targets was Malacca.

One of their first actions was to take over the Portuguese fort of Ambon, in the heart of the Moluccas, in 1604. They founded the first Dutch permanent trading post in Bantem, West Java in 1611, and in 1619 it established Batavia (now Jakarta) as their permanent capital. After an initial scramble for trading posts, the newly formed British East Indian Company (EIC) withdrew and left the islands to the Dutch. The latter proceeded to complete their conquests of

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Odiang: Chapter Two - The Chetty Malacca History

the ocean routes in style. They captured Galle and Colombo in Ceylon7 from the Portuguese in 1640 and 1658, respectively. In 1641, after 6 months’ siege, in alliance with the Sultan of Johore, they captured Malacca, ”the Pearl of the Portuguese Crown” as they called it. In 1643, they replaced the Portuguese on Dejima island in Nagasaki Bay, Japan. In India they took Negapatnam (Coromandel) in 1657 and Cochin (Malabar) in 1663. However, repeated efforts to take Goa failed. The Dutch were to go on to establish control of Formosa and Mauritius, and set up other trading posts in Persia, Siam, and China. In passing they established a victualling out-post at the Cape of Good Hope. The last, together with Mauritius, enabled their ships to re-supply and opened up their own direct access from and to Europe. The VOC also developed a growing intra-Asian trade, as well as plantations in Formosa and the East Indies. The VOC was enormously successful and became the largest and most powerful trading company in the world.

Battle of Cape Rachado

Ever since I was small I had heard tell that, once upon a time, there was a great big sea battle just over the horizon, slightly to the west off Tanjong Kling,. Indeed this was the Battle of Cape Rachado. It is a tale close to my heart, so I make no bones about describing it in detail here. Those not interested may skip this section. But I can tell you it was a spectacular battle, overshadowing the other famous battle in this area, the Sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, on 10 December 1941.

On 12 May 1605 the third fleet of the VOC to visit the archipelago sailed out of Holland. Comprising an armada of 11 ships commanded by Cornelis Matelief de Jonge, its mission, kept secret even from the sailors, was to seize Malacca. They passed Malacca on 30 April 1606 and arrived at Johor on 1 May 1606 where de Jonge proceeded to negotiate terms of alliance with Johor. The pact was formally concluded on 17 May 1606 in which Johor agreed to a combined effort to attempt to dislodge the Portuguese. Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch and Johor agreed to respect each others religion; the Dutch would get to keep Malacca and the right to trade in Johor.

On 4 August 1606 de Jonge started the offensive, by besieging the fortress and city. However, the Dutch, with only a small force, could not afford a land offensive, while their Johor allies were unsure of their ability against Malacca and did not fully commit their resources. Events took a turn when on 14 August 1606 a Portuguese fleet from Goa arrived, led by the Viceroy of Goa, Dom Martim Afonso de Castro, with a flotilla of 20 ships. The siege was lifted when they engaged the VOC fleet off the Malaccan waters. The two fleets traded cannon fire and the Portuguese ships began to move northward drawing the Dutch away from Malacca. On 16 August 1606, off the Portuguese lighthouse at Cape Rachado, the battle between the two fleets was joined. After a couple of days of cannon duels, on the morning of 18 August, with the wind in favor of the Portuguese, de Castro ordered the Portuguese to sail forth for the grapple. De Jonge ordered his ships to turn and sail away to evade boarding. However, the VOC ship Nassau, failed to turn quickly, and ended up isolated. The Portuguese dashed forth and boarded the Nassau. De Jonge ordered his own ship, the Oranje, to quickly turn around to rescue the hapless Nassau, but the awkward maneuver sent the Oranje into a collision with the Middelburg. While the Dutch captains were busy disentangling their ships, de Castro's ship, the Nossa Senhora da Conceicão boarded the Nassau from the other side.

In the meantime, another Portuguese ship, the São Salvador, drove towards the entangled VOC ships and pierced headlong into the Middelburg, but was immediately itself grappled by the Oranje from the side, which was in turn rammed from its open side by the Nossa Senhora das Mercês. The entangled duo had now become a quartet. A furious battle raged between the hopelessly entangled ships, with point-blank cannonades quickly setting the ships ablaze, Into this confusion entered the galleon of Dom Duarte de Guerra, who sought to toss a line to help tow the des Merces away from the burning Oranje. But the winds were unfavorable and instead the rescuer found itself drifting straight across the bows of the entangled ships. Just

7 Conforming to editorial policy mentioned earlier, I have kept the old place and country names wherever applicable.

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then the Mauritius decided to join the fight and pierces Dom Duarte’s ship from the other side. The battle had reached its height in the sextet of burning, interlocked ships. Jonge deemed that the losses suffered were too much and ordered the Dutch fleet to disengage and abandon the fight. The battle was won by the Portuguese, but marked the beginning of a serious threat to their dominance.

The Dutch arrived at the Johor River on 19 August 1606. Overall the Dutch lost Nassau and Middelburg. 150 Dutch were killed and more wounded, Johor allied losses amount to several hundred. The Portuguese lost São Salvador and Dom Duarte de Guerra's smaller galleon while suffering 500 deaths (Portuguese and allies).

It was the biggest naval battle in the Malay Archipelago, just off my hometown, between two naval superpowers of the time with 31 ships involved (11 of the Dutch VOC and 20 of the Portuguese). Although the battle ended with a Portuguese victory, the ferocity of the battle itself and the losses sustained by the victor convinced the Sultanate of Johor to provide supplies, support and later on much needed ground forces to the Dutch,

The Portuguese victory came to naught when the Dutch, having repaired their ships, returned to Malacca two months later to find the Portuguese fleet having left, leaving only 10 ships behind. The Dutch subsequently sank all 10 ships. The last must have been clear writing on the wall of what was to come, coupled with the news of the Dutch activities in the region. One commentator has remarked that had de Jonge won, Malacca would have become the VOC capital, not Batavia.

Fall of Malacca: Near Extinction of the Chetty Malacca.

The Dutch made several fruitless attacks on Malacca between 1623 and 1627. It would be less than 10 years on that the Dutch would begin their final blockage, from about 1633. This led to the siege and assault which started in Jun 1640, and the capture of Malacca on 15 January 1641. I did not read anywhere that there was a Portuguese naval rescue forthcoming, nor indeed did one arrive.

By the time of the final blockage, it may be presumed that the visiting population of traders would have come down to a trickle, and most expatriates and wealthy foreign-domiciles such as the Chinese, Indians and Arabs, would have left, At that point the local population would have concluded on their own that there was not going to be another Portuguese armada to rescue them. Perhaps some wealthier and better connected Chetty Malacca left as well. It is hard to imagine where the average Chetty Malacca would have gone. If they did go, it must be presumed that they insinuated themselves into the surrounding Malay states; while those with shipping and influence might have emigrated to other parts of the archipelago, belonging to the Portuguese, Dutch or Malays; perhaps to India. But there are no historical records or traces of them being elsewhere. In a century from now, micro-research around Malaysia, Indonesia and perhaps India may unearth linguistic and other connections. Overall, I have always felt that the Chetty Malacca have strong cohesion and respond to good leadership. There is no reason to suppose this was not the case then. Their community leaders, backed by the Hindu establishment, would have protected them and guided them how to evaluate and respond to the coming invasion. If they stayed, they were in for apocalyptic levels of experience of war, starvation, disease and devastation, which would in the end eradicate and exterminate most of them, as far as I can see.

At the time of the final Dutch attack, it is reported that there were in Malacca, a garrison of about 50 Portuguese soldiers, more than 300 Portuguese "casados" (Portuguese men settled in Malacca) with their families and 2.000 or 3.000 “mestiços” (Eurasians) and Native inhabitants. It must be presumed that the last would have included our dear ancestors and the Chinese Peranakans, probably again in proportionate numbers of about 1,500 to 1,000. It may be presumed that slaves were not invited into the garrison.

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Odiang: Chapter Two - The Chetty Malacca History

The last attack on Portuguese Malacca was begun in June 1640. The Dutch force consisted of 2,063 men, including over 400 natives, 12 Dutch ships and 6 sloops. At first the Dutch bombard from the sea and cut off seaward communications.

Twelve ships and six boats in half-moon formation blockaded the shore to cut off supplies, keeping a cannonade to which the Portuguese Governor of Malacca, Manuel de Souza Countinho replied bravely and patiently with his heavy guns. At the end of July 1640, Johor sent a fleet of 40 sails carrying about 1,500 men, and on 2nd August, the Dutch commander Antonissoon, having as many men again, partly Dutch, partly German, landed his combined forces north of Tranquerah. They expelled several hundreds of the Portuguese troops from the first bastion, entered Tranquerah and drove the defenders back into the Fortress. Within a pistol shot of A' Famosa, the Dutch erected two batteries with sixteen 24 pounders, which made breaches in the strong bastion and damaged the great Keep. St. Paul's Church and many other large buildings within the Fortress were damaged beyond recognition. In reply, the heavy Portuguese guns on St. Paul's Hill left not one house in the Dutch occupied zones in Tranquerah intact. During the battle, the Johor forces destroyed the paddy fields, fruit and vegetable gardens in Malacca, and helped maintain a constant blockade at sea so that they frustrated the repeated attempts of Portuguese boats to get through.

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/eng/asia/malaysia/malacca/portuguese.html

Some supplies did come through and Malacca survived the siege, but the situation was growing desperate. There was no food. The hounds of famine and disease were upon them.

The ensuing famine inside the walled settlement and fortress as well as in Melaka’s sprawling suburbs was severe: house pets, rats, and mice – dead or alive – fetched exorbitant prices, as did chicken and uncooked rice, providing they could even be obtained. So did leather from shoes and discarded tools. One story even has women digging up the bodies of their dead babies from the graveyard for food. Those who managed to survive starvation were swept away in the hundreds by dysentery and the plague. Just days before the surrender, the Portuguese expelled women and children, the sick and the old, outside the city gates. The expellees quickly found their way into the camp of VOC, infecting the Dutch soldiers with the plague. Within weeks, the fatal disease had carried away two leading military officers, unleashed confusion in the military campaign, demoralized Dutch troops and inevitably threatened the very success of the protracted and costly military enterprise.

http://www.borschberg.sg/index_files/Melaka1641.pdf

On 14 January 1641, Dutch commander Willmsoon Kartekoe ordered the last desperate assault. The Portuguese defenders made a fierce final resistance in the Fortaleza Velha and the Dutch were finally driven back. The two commanders then sued for an honourable truce, with Malacca falling to the Dutch, while the Portuguese gained safe passage to Nagapatnam, then still in their hands.

The price of Dutch the conquest was high in almost every respect. The damage to the city from artillery shelling was considerable. The suburbs to the north and south of the fortress were almost completely destroyed by fires (deliberately set by the Portuguese). Within the walled settlement, many, if not most of the buildings suffered serious damage. As Special Commissioner Joost (Justus) van Schouten’s detailed report completed in September 1641 bluntly remarks: “All the houses have suffered from leakages and many including some very fine buildings will soon come down entirely if they are not repaired quickly. For some buildings it

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was too late. Several structures caved in during repair and salvaging works burying and killing Company slaves on site.

http://www.borschberg.sg/index_files/Melaka1641.pdf

Over half of the Dutch forces were lost through the war, but mainly through malaria, dysentery and the plague.

Portuguese Melaka was not so much brought down by Dutch military might and the bravery of soldiers fighting under the Company’s command, as what I shall refer to here as the “Black Trinity”, namely war, famine and disease.

http://www.borschberg.sg/index_files/Melaka1641.pdf

On the Portuguese side, the number of survivors was small and the statistics were chaotic.

Dagh-Register Batavia (1640-41), entry for 28 February 1641, p. 201, estimated an original population “inside and outside the city” at twenty thousand and the number of survivors at about 1,500-1,600. The concrete figures provided by the official VOC census are as follows: 52 Portuguese casados and their families and seven members of the Roman Catholic clergy (ominously listed as clergymen with their family!); a total of 261 Portuguese subjects and mestiços remained within the city walls. Added to the population of Melaka’s suburbs and the household slaves, the figure rises to 863 souls. But these figures are hardly reliable, as the official VOC documentations speaks of Dutchmen marrying Portuguese widows, and more widows being taken slaves by the “Malays”. It is lamented that the “Malays” have received more than they deserve, besides the big profit made by appropriating thousands of Christian slaves during and after the siege, while the saletes (orang laut) are blamed for enslaving a great number of “Malaccans”. http://www.borschberg.sg/index_files/Melaka1641.pdf

Hardly anyone was left alive of the individual local communities. If we interpret the VOC census figures correctly, the headcount of survivors was 1,123, of whom 261 were within the walls and 863 in the suburbs. Of the former, 59 were Portuguese and clergy, leaving 202 who were apparently mainly mestiços (Eurasians).This leaves us to divide the 863 outside the walls into mainly Peranakan Chinese, say 500, Chetty Malacca say 300, and so as not to lose sight of them, 63 slaves. Of the Chetty Malacca, we cannot tell whether they were merchants, artisans or domestics. What we can tell is that we are all descended from these few survivors, the equivalent of some 30 families of 10 each, who paid hell for their right to be our forebears. The later infusions, if any, would have been few and far between as far as I can make out. It may be presumed that the better connected Chetty Malacca were able to get themselves behind the walls of the Fortaleza; the rest would have perished if they had not taken to the bushes and been saved by their fellow-Malaccan Malay friends, perhaps relatives of wives and daughters-in-law, perhaps grand-parents..

Dutch Re-Construction of Malacca

The Dutch took Malacca not for its entre-port trade, but to secure control of the Straits. But, there was also the trade of Asia’s biggest port to look forward to. And, there were its fabled riches to be plundered, and slaves to be picked up. Except for the strategic location, the final cost was beyond calculation and probably beyond the benefits. Here’s an account:

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Firstly, the citadel ‘A. Famosa’ was completely destroyed and the Fortaleza Velha was almost wholly erased by the Dutch bombardments. As the guardian of the Straits, Malacca was neutralized. One commentator described the scene as “like Jerusalem after the Romans”. The Dutch had to virtually rebuild the fort. In fact they did just that, and expanded it. They added two more Bastions and raised and completed the walls in many places. The crest that one sees on the only remnant portion today, namely Porta de Santiago, is the VOC crest. They even re-named the parts of the fortress. The job was not completed until 1588.

Secondly, when the Dutch landed in Tranquerah, the Portuguese applied a scorched earth policy. They put fire to everything – and that would have included all the wood–and-tile homes of our ancestors. To complete what the fire did not do, the Portuguese then bombarded the suburbs to rubble, when the Dutch encamped in Tranquerah and proceed to surround them. As a result of their blitzkrieg -

“The suburbs are entirely ruined. There is hardly a house standing. All the dwelling places on both sides of the [Melaka] river are also totally destroyed.”

Leupe, “The Siege and Capture of Malacca”, p. 113.

A modern commentator might have said “just like Sendai after the Tsunami.” The population had to rebuild their homes from the ashes. This was not made easier by the fact that the Dutch commandeered all the slaves for re-building the fortifications and other civil works. The latter would have included purging the town clean, restoring public health support, getting the port working again and putting the administration in place. They did so with remarkable expedition, for the Stadthyus, the government offices and the Governor’s residence, was completed by 1651 and it still stands today among Malacca’s proudest historical monuments.

Thirdly, there was the question of plunder. By custom, free plunder was allowed for the first day, but it lasted for several days totally out of control, with solders and allies killing one another for booty. In the upshot, little was officially recovered. It appeared the Portuguese managed to take away much of their wealth. It was further presumed, rightly I think, that much was hidden or buried. I am sure our ancestral grandmothers buried all their gold and jewels and told one another and the temple priests where, in case they died. Otherwise our ancestors could not have rebuilt themselves at all, and would have been candidates to be slaves.

Fourthly, a port without trade and ships is a dead port. But the port facilities had to be restored. Traffic resumed only slowly. The Dutch’s objective was that the new Malacca should be encompassed within the regulations, restrictions and monopolies of the Dutch system, but they were forced to allow continuity of some of the past free trade past to stimulate commerce. However, Malacca would not be allowed under any circumstances to outdo Batavia. This set a natural limit to its recovery. Asian continental and region ships did begin re-appear, but only a fraction of former volumes.

And finally, there were the problems of the local population. On the one had, the city

needed the locals to activate the functions of the port-city. On the other hand, each group had separate needs.

Dutch and the Portuguese Eurasians

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Of first importance, the Dutch needed to win over the Portuguese Eurasians, to become their natural allies and hand-mates in running the place. The former were of course Catholics, On the other hand, the Dutch Reformed Church was intolerant of other religions, especially Catholics. At first, the provisions against priests of other religions were rarely enforced in a strict sense. But, the Catholic priests who visited Malacca still regarded the Dutch as the heretical enemy and they encouraged their flock to resist. Due to continuing subversion, in 1665, the Dutch decreed that all Catholic priests were banned from entering Malacca and all forms of public preaching for the Roman Catholic faith were to cease. By 1666, Governor Balthasar Bort began to strictly enforce his anti-Catholic legislation.

The Portuguese Eurasians in turn formed the “Irmaos de Igreja” (Brothers of the Church), a secret brotherhood of lay-people, to ensure the continuance of Catholicism in Malacca. A French Jesuit bound for China who visited Malacca in 1698 wrote that "Catholics are obliged to go far into the interior of the forest to celebrate the sacred mysteries (i.e. Mass)". Dutch persecutions against Roman Catholics were still adhered to up to the end of the 17th century.

The Dutch did not look with contempt upon the Portuguese Eurasians. In fact, they regarded them as "the natural Malaccans". The Portuguese Eurasians remaining after 1641 together with their Portuguese-speaking slaves and their progeny subsequently became the backbone of the “Portuguese” community in Dutch Melaka. From 1702, and the Dutch administration began to take on a more liberal outlook towards the Catholics there, applying a policy of regulated tolerance. The Dutch were to adopt this throughout the islands. They also soon reversed the policy of imposing the Dutch language, and accepted Portuguese and the local Malay patois as the language of everyday life. Soon the divides became irrelevant as the Dutch inter-married with the Portuguese Eurasians and proceeded to create a loyal Dutch Eurasian community, both Protestant and Catholic, in addition to the by now loyal Portuguese Eurasians.

In the long years of Portuguese rule, every marching and missionary order of the Catholic Church set up an outpost, monastery, convent, house, hospital or church in Malacca - which became the springboard of missionary work in East Asia. The story of St Francis Xavier is well-known. My father, I and Leslie bear his name. The following excerpt gives a realistic picture of what the Dutch found:

“First, in view of the severely reduced size of the Catholic population surviving in Melaka and its immediate surroundings, the majority of monasteries and churches would be closed and converted to other functions...... The Franciscan monastery and the monastery of Santo Antonio were singled out for conversion to residences and a boarding house for Company slaves. The two parish churches Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe and St. Jeronimo could be repaired, “but are of no use to the Company unless they are made into residences.” The Dominican monastery was slated to become a hospital, the Jesuit monastery “a school and library, as it is in a secluded and quiet place” and the church of the Misericordia was to be converted for future use by Dutch Protestants. The Church of St. Paul’s had already been used by the Dutch Protestant community. As for the main Cathedral, some of the walls were reported to feature large cracks, thus rendering parts of the building unsalvageable. For this reason, parts of the Cathedral were torn down and the remainder transformed into an arsenal. This was an undignified end to what was under Portuguese rule the undisputed centre of Melaka’s Roman Catholic spirituality.”

“All these clergymen lived on alms, tolls, by burying the dead, performing ordinary or requiem mass and other church services.” And “[T]he monastery [of St. Paul] was very wealthy in houses and properties in and outside Malacca which were rented to foreigners. It had also a few gardens, two very big and beautiful orchards, part of which was let and the other part was inhabited by its own slaves, who were working that estate. Considerable alms

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were collected always from the quick and the dead and consequently it was the wealthiest monastery in Malacca.”

http://www.borschberg.sg/index_files/Melaka1641.pdf

Soon after they won their “religious freedom”, around the year 1710, Catholics in Malacca built the Church of St. Peter's at Bunga Raya, located just outside the town on land donated by the Dutchman Maryber Franz Amboer. It is where my father and I were baptised. Around the same time the Catholics in Malacca established the Chapel of the Holy Rosary, located along the river bank in Bunga Raya. The Dutch for their part had taken over the church on the hill behind the fort and re-named it St Paul’s Church, as well as another Portuguese church destroyed by the was near the river. They built Christ Church in 1753.

Resettlement of the Chetty Malacca

Apart from religion, the Dutch grasped the need for fair treatment of the inhabitants, both locals and foreigners, to revive economic life. One recommendation was: “To pacify the Portuguese and black burghers, placards should be posted in the name of the Governor General declaring that all inhabitants may retain their possessions and properties in safety. Such a declaration will make them more confident and they will start working for their living and the place will prosper.” This however, ran counter to another recommendation which read “In our opinion, the best policy is to give all the houses, landed properties, and grounds on loan to the inhabitants of Malacca without distinction of nationality for a certain period, after which rent should be paid at the fair price. In this way the company would reap good benefit from the conquest of Malacca. It is not clear which they adopted. Judging from events, it seems they did both. In the upshot, they re-settled the Chetty Malacca in an area off Gajah Berang and just outside Tranquerah, designated as Kampong Tujoh (7 th Precinct), where our ancestors were encouraged to take up agriculture. Kampong Kling, their prestigious former abode, which had been utterly destroyed, the Dutch re-named Kampong Belanda (Dutch Village) encompassing Heeren Street and Jonker Street, for their own occupation. In time the Chetty Malacca owned substantial tracks of Kampong Tujoh. They could have bought these or been forced to trade their Kampong Kling properties for these. However, they had no tradition of agriculture and we are told that most of them soon abandoned it and moved back into the town to pursue urban trades and monthly paid jobs. It was said they achieved some fame as goldsmiths. Nowhere have I found what education they had, and I presume none. The civil service was thus denied to them, both by the Portuguese and the Dutch. Along the way they had lost their Tamil and only spoke the Malay patois of the market place.

Dutch and other Communities

Needless to say, our ancestors would not have buckled under the proscriptions of their religion as at first meted out to the Portuguese Eurasians, nor indeed would the Peranakan Chinese. There is a brief report by another Jesuit priest that the Dutch did not forbid the exercise of their religions by indigenous peoples and other native groups

First cut Internet searches did not reveal the numbers of Peranakan Chinese in Malacca or what they did by way of economic activity over the years both in Portuguese and Dutch times.. My impression is that they were always a larger community than the Chetty Malacca. Comparisons would have been interesting. It is however reported that plagued by chronic shortages of skilled labour and personnel, the VOC set out to encourage the settlement of Chinese craftsmen, artisans, shopkeepers and farmers. I notice one report that the famous Cheng Hoon Teng Temple in Temple Street was built from as early as 1645, only four years after the capture, and 136 years before our own Chetty Malacca Temple on the same street. If nothing else, the Chinese must have had clout and hid their wealth well.

My impression was that the number of Malay residents in Malacca town itself increased after the Dutch captured the city in alliance with Johore. One commentator said that following this

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the first plural society in Malaysia came into existence with people from the Malay, Chinese, Indians, European and Eurasian communities mixing and living in harmony in Malacca. By and large the Malays lived in the kampongs, outside the city. One difficulty in dealing with their numbers is that it was never clear how far inland the territorial jurisdictions extended with both the Portuguese and the Dutch. My overall impression was: not much beyond the town limits. This issue would finally only be resolved with the British demarcation of the state.

Stock-taking 1667

By 1667, the population in the entire district of Melaka controlled by the Dutch had risen to 7,560 souls according to Van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, II. p. 334. The following figures from a more official source give a less flattering picture:

European, Free Asian, and Slave Populations of Various Establishments of the Dutch East Indies in the Late Seventeenth Century (Estimates in Italics)

Company Servants

Total European Population

Free Asian Population

Slave Population

Total

Ambon (1689) 816 914 58,352 10,761 70,027Batavia (1699)**

3,853 6,119 44,820 25,614 72,700

Ceylon (1684) 3,055 4,000 278,859 2,363 290,000Malabar (1686)

641 698 679 745 2,122

Malacca (1680)

545 595   2,350* 1,134 ** 4,624

* This figure was not given, and but has been calculated from the table by subtraction.

** Figures from another source give the total slave of Malacca as 1,853, of whom 168 were company slaves. The total of slaves traded in Malacca was given as 90-180, of which 8-16 were the Company’s. The total Dutch slave trade for the year (for the Dutch East Indies) was given as 66,346. Malacca was a “slavenburg” ( slave market) but not a big one. The slaves came earlier from the Coramandel and later the islands around.

http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jwh/14.2/vink.html

Using the second set of figures, and setting aside the slave population, we had a population of 3,490 in 1667. This reflects a robust annual population growth rate of 4.57% pa in the intervening 26 years. in fact this rate might be called a (higher than normal) “rebound” rate after the catastrophic losses from the siege, often the case in survivalist situations. It could also reflect that some who fled began to return, including Malays. The latter would have been counted under the Free Asian Population. Their numbers would have been small at this point in Malacca’s re-building, with its continuing orientation seawards and not landwards. We also have no way of telling what the numbers might have been. Hence, this element is not accounted for and the Free Asian Population is taken to mean the Peranakan Chinese and Chetty Malacca (who would have made up most of the Indians then). The reported figures also clearly suggest that the European population numbers included the Eurasians. On this basis and maintaining for present purpose the survival proportions of 1641, the Free Asian Population would have comprised some 1,645 Peranakan Chinese and 987 Chetty Malacca, making up 47.1% and 28.2% of the total population, The Chetty Malacca are deemed to have grown at the same annual rate as the population.

Temples & Mosques: Chetty Malacca & Others

The Dutch came to realize that the practice of different religions by the population could be, and in this case was, conducive to harmonious living and positive work attitudes. It seemed

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this was the answer to the need of the Chetty Malacca. And it seems our ancestors molded themselves into a coherent community with good leadership, and were apparently in the end much appreciated by the Dutch. This may be evidenced by the fact that the Dutch granted the community a piece of land, in the heart of the town at Temple Street8, for the purpose of putting up a Temple. The Temple was built in the year 1781 and was and is known as 'Sri Poyatha Venayagar Moorthi Temple’. The temple is dedicated to Vinayagar or Ganesha, It is the oldest Hindu Temple in the Malay Archipelago. It was under the trusteeship of the late Mr. Thaivanayagam Chitty, the leader of the Chetty Malacca.

They have since built the following other temples: 'Sri Muthu Mariamman Temple' in 1822, Sri Kailasanathar Temple' (Saivan) Kovil) in 1887; Sri Kaliamman Kovil' in 1804, and 'Sri Angalamman Paremeswari Temple' in 1888. All of them are in the Gajah Berang and Bachang areas. There are also 'Grammangal Kovils' or Shrines built in the interior of the territory near padi fields owned by the Chetty Malacca in Gajah Berang. The Shrines include Linggadariamman Kovil, Amman Kovil, Dharma Rajah Kovil, Kathaiamman Kovil and Iyenar Kovil. It kept them busy and happy. Many of the lands abandoned were given over to the temple authorities as “Temple lands”.

Some of the Chetty Malacca had embraced Islam during the Dutch time and were also given a piece of land to put up a Masjid (Mosque) on the same street, known as 'Masjid Kampong Kling' which name still remains up to the present time9. There is one report which states that at this time the Dutch generously offered to the Chinese (Babas) a piece of land to put up a Chinese Temple, now known as 'Cheng Hoon Teng Temple'. (Another report suggests it was built in 1645). All of these buildings are in the one and same straight road. That is why the road was known as Temple Street.

The Masjid Kampung Hulu, built in 1748, is one of the still functioning mosques in Malacca besides Masjid Kampung Kling and Masjid Tengkera (Tranquerah).

We are indebted for much of the information on the Chetty Malacca in the whole review, and particularly in this section, on the History of the Malacca Chetti Community by Mr. B Sithambaram Naiker, written in 1976 and posted posthumously in 2005 on the Internet at http://chetti-malacca.blogspot.com/. Mr. B. S. Naiker, or Uncle Embong as I had always known him, was a close friend and compatriot of my Dad. Eleven years apart, their careers paralleled each other, and he died in 1986, at 75, exactly the same age as my Dad almost to the day in 1975.

From the Ashes: The New Malacca

From the ashes of Portuguese Malacca emerged a “new” colony managed under the rule of the VOC, and launched into the 18th century but much smaller, not much above one-tenth of what she was in her heyday. There was no great resurgence of entre-port trade to earlier levels. The Dutch were caught within the dilemma of enforcing their monopolistic restrictions in favour of Batavia and bringing Malacca back to economic life for the benefit of its population. Malacca did take life as a port again, but at a modest level. In an impressive piece of research 8 I have always known it as Temple Street, and so I name it. It seems others know it as

Goldsmith Street and later Jalan Tokong. That’s their privilege.

9 One historical thread on the Internet suggests that Indians from the kingdom of Kalinga on the Coramandel Coast used to visit Kedah in the north of the Malay Peninsula in and about the third to the seventh centuries; they were known as Klings. It seems the word crept into the Malay language, so that our Tamil ancestors from Patna, Tamil Nadu, who arrived in Malacca later, were referred to by this name. And it stuck. From my experience among my relatives when a small boy, it was more common to hear the old folk say “kita orang Kleng” (we Kleng people ) than (kita orang Tamil). Certainly the Malays, the Peranakan Chinese and the Eurasians called us “orang Kleng”. With the arrival of the new Tamil labourers for the rubber estates and for public works, who were also called “orang Kling”, the term took on a derogatory connotation, and our forebears, more so among the English educated, dropped the appellation in favour of Chetty Malacca (and its variations), Baba Indians or Peranakan Indians.

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using the Malacca Port Shipping Lists as primary documents, one researcher found there were 4,615 incoming entries and 4,360 out going entries of European ships between 1681 and 1792.This worked out to 1 foreign-going ship movement per 4-5 days or 6-7 per month. This was enough to sustain a reasonable level of complementary visits by local and regional ships. The latter were many times more than foreign-going vessels, maintaining the lively second tier entre-port functions that had always existed. They acted as an intra-regional and local clearinghouse for non-designated produce and local needs.

“This evidence proves that the local trading community patronising Malacca's port did not vanish even after it came under Dutch control. The local traders were happy to return to the port because of its central position in the region. It was a place where traders from both mainland and insular areas met in brisk trade for many generations. In fact, local traders were an important source of income for the Dutch in Malacca. Commodities such as rice, rattan, dried fish, sago, salt, locally woven cloths, tobacco, tin, plates and cups, Chinese ceramics and Chinese ceremonial gold paper, spices such as pepper, nutmeg, clovers, and cinnamon among many other items to meet the necessities of daily life, was traded here.

The majority of traders who visited Malacca were Malay and Chinese. There were other groups of Asian traders, such as the Javanese and Indians, as well as Arabs and Armenians and the Portuguese and Dutch traders operating between Asian ports. But their number was small in comparison with that of the Malay and Chinese traders who amounted to nearly two-thirds of all traders. These two groups were engaged in a lively competition for trade in the Indonesian archipelago.”

http://eprints.usm.my/9045/1/EUROPEAN_TRADERS_IN_REGIONAL_TRADE_OF_MALAY ARCHIPELAGO,_1681_to 1792.pdfYEOH LIAN HEOH

Unfortunately, Malacca acquired no new functions, such as acting as the gateway for exploitation of hinterland resources or participating in the handling of the new generation market traffic except perhaps tangentially. It was not geographically in the new regions of supply. Even the tin which the Dutch began to extract from the Malay Peninsula was being taken out from Linggi and Pangkor, nearer the sources in the north, and from Siak in Sumatra, So it seems Malacca and our ancestors settled down, perhaps with relief, to a stable state between population growth and an essentially localized economic activity. There was time to build temples before the next colonial powers turned up. I like to think though that our ancestors, being the descendants of the original monsoon merchants, did begin to take to the sea again as the Dutch became distracted by their European pro-occupations, and did their share of privateering in and around the region. Reports indicate that white burghers (Dutch Eurasians) and “black burghers” began to do this out of Malacca; I can’t imagine the latter referring to anyone else but our ancestors. I like to think further that perhaps in 150 years, if their forebears could find their way from India to Malacca, some of them if not the whole community, could have found their way up the colonial social pyramid to enjoy the status of black burghers, and perhaps thereby also reestablish themselves in Tranquerah if not Heeren Street.

I close the account of the Dutch era by mentioning that when the Bugis attacked Malacca in or about 1756, all the different local communities, the Eurasians, the Chinese, the Tamils and the Malays came together and bore arms to help the Dutch in the defense of the city. I like to think that this represented some success of their policies and measures to build the prosperity and support of the peoples. In my review of Malacca I did not find this happening before.

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The strength of the Dutch lay in two sources. One was the intercontinental shipment of spices and other products to the European markets. The second was intra-Asian trade. Their economic mode, like that of the Portuguese, for both streams, relied on supplying goods of high-value and low volume in inelastic demand and not time-bound, safely collected or extracted and safely delivered by the ships of the time. These were relatively small and sail-driven. Most merchantmen carried more tonnage in cannon and arms, as well as soldiers, than payload. Hence, their preoccupation with the capture of sources of supply and protection of supply routes. As they sailed into the 18 th Century, the VOC was blown along by strong cross currents of change

Collapse of the Dutch

First, in 1647, the British East India Company (EIC) lost its monopoly of the eastern trade in a court judgment. As a result, British privateers took to the eastern waters marauding against the Dutch. From about the 1670s, due to external political factors, the latter lost their Japanese and Chinese trade in silks. Then they lost their trading posts in the Near East. These eroded their intra-Asian trade. At the same time, the European demand for the traditional spice products declined. The markets of the world began changing. There began two-way and cross-continental demand for new products. Among these were new raw materials like coffee, tea, cotton and more sugar. These were low value high volume products, requiring new larger ships with greater payloads and greater speeds. New sources of supply came on-stream, for both traditional and new products. At the same time, there were new manufactured goods like textiles, machinery, etc in search of markets. The Dutch lost their supremacy over world trade. The third Anglo-Dutch War of1752-4 interrupted their trade with Europe. New competitors entered the field, among them the French East India Company and the Danish East India Company. In a mighty effort to re-orientate themselves, the VOC between 1680 and 1720 resized their ships and expanded their fleet, almost doubling the size of the company, during what has been described as their Golden Age. They also cut other costs and losses, such as by withdrawing from India. Basically, they were left with Ceylon and the Malay Archipelago. But, with their large military establishment, their large fleet, and their far flung territories to protect and administer, they were monstrously over-structured and unable to enjoy economies of scale. They had become a behemoth. The marginal gains of the expanded operations were less than the marginal costs. In all this, they stuck to their monopolistic restrictions which required all designated products of the Indies to be shipped via Batavia. As a result, many new outlets were opened in the region, by-passing the Dutch and trading with their competitors. The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War 1780-1784 struck the mortal blow. Their fleet was halved. They had borrowed money for the expansions and were unable to pay. It is said there was corruption and payment of unjustified high dividends. The VOC went bust and ceased on 31 December 1800 – a mere 19 years after the 'Sri Poyatha Venayagar Moorthi Temple was built by our ancestors.

Enter The British

But, before that, the French had invaded Holland in 1795, and the Dutch thought it best to place Malaca, among their other trading posts in the East, in the hands of the British. During these years Sir Francis Light founded Penang in 1791 and Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819 At the end of the wars, by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 between Britain and the new Kingdom of Netherlands, Malacca was ceded to the British and the Malay Peninsula was recognised as their sphere of influence, in exchange for Bencoolen with the East Indies recognised as the Dutch sphere of influence, the dividing line being the equator. And with these developments our dear ancestors became British subjects and were catapulted into the world of the British Empire.

Malacca was joined with Penang and Singapore to form the Straits Settlements under the East India Company (EIC). In 1826, the three Settlements were incorporated as the Fourth Presidency of India. In 1830, the Presidency was abolished and the Straits Settlements were placed under the Government of Bengal. In 1832, Singapore became the headquarters. In

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1867, the Settlements became a British Crown Colony directly under the Colonial Office, which was extended with the addition of Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands to Singapore, The EIC had already ceased in 1858, and India had become a British Crown Colony in 1857.

Regrettably, one act of perfidy needs to be record here, which might well have terminated this history of our ancestors if not halted. Malacca having lost its entre-port importance, the EIC had decided also to erase it as a strategic threat - in case it fell into unfriendly hands (at that time the French). In 1806, it ordered that the fort be demolished and the population be transported to Penang. The brainless company lackey in charge of Malacca at the time, one Major William Farquhar, proceeded to carry out the first part. Not surprisingly our ancestors and others put up a stiff resistance to the second part. What they should have done is shoot him out to sea in Dutch cannon. Fortunately, Sir Stamford Raffles who was visiting Malacca at the time, wrote immediately against the order. By the time the decision to revoke it reached Malacca, all that was left of the fort was one gateway (Porta de Santiago) Fortunately, he did not blow up the Stadhys as well, as this nitwit might well have done thinking it was part of the fort. This Farquahar (may his name live in infamy) was subsequently left by Raffles to start off the new free port in Singapore in 1819, and made a fine mess of that as well, until Raffles replaced him with Crawford.

New Horizons: Chetty Malacca in the British Empire

The journey of the Chetty Malacca through history is like a community of space travelers alighting upon different planets through forces outside their control. Bearing in mind the time-slip of 300 years, they were in a future totally different from their previous two. They were again in a free trade world. Their Malacca had become territorially one third of three parts, up and down the Straits. Their own state was now a firmly delineated triangular piece of land between Johore and Negeri Sembilan, with all the Malays living therein making up the new total population, all equal citizens. As a port, Malacca fell under the shadow of Penang and later Singapore. By the time the Settlements became a Crown Colony, Singapore was already one of the biggest free-ports of Asia. On the other hand, as one of the three Straits Settlements, Malacca enjoyed the entire civil, social and development benefits that the British introduced in response to local needs, especially of Singapore, in proportionate if not equal measure On the one hand, they were ruled from the Colonial Office in London. On the other hand, they now were part of the largest empire in the world, “on which the sun never sets” as they used to say. They could now peg their own opportunities with that of others in the world, like Singapore and Penang for a start, and not remain holed up in Tranquerah. Whilst everybody now spoke English, this was the lingua franca of the world. Previously, they were second class subjects as best. Now they were entitled to a British Passport as a “Citizen of UK and the Colonies”. They could travel with unrestricted access to Britain and throughout the Empire. Above all they were now protected by the Rule of Law for which the British have been famous, in particular the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code taken from British India. And they now enjoyed the freedom to appeal to the Queen against any injustice of any court in the land. That’s a lot to wake up to on any Sunday morning. It would take some years for them to appreciate their entitlements and for these to emerge as realities of their daily lives. But, the Chetty Malacca had finally arrived.

British Malaya

With the Straits Settlements established and coursing along towards prosperity, the British turned their attention to securing their stretched hinterland. This became the over-riding priority, for it soon became abundantly clear that the fortunes of their free ports depended on how successfully they cornered the tin boom on the mainland. The industrial revolution in Europe was creating a large demand for tin, especially in Britain. Europe in turn was looking for markets for industrial goods. The arrival of steamships and opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 transformed the speed and capacity of maritime trade. It was equally a question of how efficiently the ports serviced the two-way needs of the mainland. The British concern was further prompted by the increasing inability of the Malay states to cope with the growth due to

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inadequate infrastructure, and particularly due to the chaos caused by the large influx of Chinese miners and workers with their secret societies, triads, etc. So the British jumped in. In short this is what happened:-

Kedah Kedah had no tin, but it had Penang. Under threat of invasion from Siam, Kedah agreed to cede Penang to the British in 1791, in return for British help to fight off the Siamese. In the event, the British failed to do so, and Kedah asked for the island back. In the ensuing war, Britain invaded Kedah and captured Province Wellesley as well (mainland opposite Penang) in 1800. In 1821, Siam conquered Kedah and held it until the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 when it became an Unfederated Malay State of British Malaya.

Johore . This state also had no tin (to speak of) but it had Singapore. In 1819, the British secured an agreement by which they acknowledged Tengku Hussein as the legitimate ruler of Singapore (as against Tengku Abdul Rahman the younger brother who held the throne of Johore) if he allowed them to establish a trading post in Singapore. Tengku Hussein secretly reached Singapore, where he was quickly installed as Sultan (of Johore). Thereafter, Johore worked closely with the British who resolved major succession issues in 1855. But it remained an Unfederated Malay State.

Perak . This state had tin. Lots of it. It was found in fact to contain the larges deposits of alluvial tin ore in the world. In 1826, the Siamese ordered Kedah to attack it. The immigration of Chinese from Penang and elsewhere flooded the place. Again there was a rivalry between brothers for the throne. The boiling conditions of the “tin rush” were threatening the stability of the industry, the state and British interests. The Straits Settlements Governor (Ord) was sacked because he failed to act effectively – chose the wrong brother. Finally, the new Governor (Andrew Clarke) got it right. By means of the Pangkor Treaty of 1874, they acknowledged the right brother (Raja Abdullah) as Sultan, and Perak accept a British Resident and became a British Protected State. Until 1874 the British restricted themselves to trade and avoided becoming involved in Malayan politics. The treaty of Pangkor marked the beginning of British political control of Malaya.

Selangor . This state also had loads of tin, in widespread locations. The reigning Sultan was fortunate to have capable relatives and help, whom he assigned to develop several mining settlements, including Kuala Lumpur (with the help of Capitan China Yap Ah Loy) and Klang. There were disturbances, a civil war and acts of piracy. The Sultan asked for, the British appointed a Resident and Selangor became a Protected State in 1874.

Negeri Sembilan. This state, a confederation of nine smaller states, was a major producer of tin, and there was constant pressure for leverage among them. About 1873 a power struggle erupted at Sungai Ujong, when one of the popular chieftains challenged the newly incumbent head of the state (Dato' Kelana). The latter sought British aid. The British and he signed a treaty which required him to rule Sungai Ujong justly, protect traders, and prevent any anti-British action there. In the same year, the British sent an expeditionary force from Malacca, which defeated the challenger. Sungai Ujong accepted an Assistant Resident and Negeri Sembilan eventually became a British Protected State in 1876.

Pahang This state had no tin. The British became involved in the administration of Pahang after a civil war between two candidates to the kingdom's throne between 1858 and 1863. Pahang accepted a Resident in 1888, when it also became a Protected Malay State.

By 1876 three Malayan States each had a British Resident or advisor, and the fourth did so in 1888. The Sultans remained and were duly respected. They continued to discharge formal responsibilities as heads of state and over customary and religious matters. In all other respects, the British were effectively given complete authority. In 1896, Perak, Pahang, Negeri

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Sembilan and Selangor were formed into the Federated Malay States, in a move designed to centralize administration for greater efficiency and coordinated development. By the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909, Kelantan, Kedah, Perlis and Terengganu were relinquished to the British sphere of influence. They had earlier accepted British advisors in 1904 and Johor followed in 1914. These formed the Unfederated Malay States. The whole, including the Straits Settlements, became known as British Malaya

Chetty Malacca: Social History

There is scarcely anything on the Internet about the social history of our ancestors during the Portuguese and Dutch periods, and only glimmers in the Sejarah Melayu about the Sultanate times. For each period, we might have been interested to know what education they received or was available, did they pay household taxes and were counted as citizens, were they called up for combat service, how they kept their accounts, were they stratified into occupational classes, and if so what, etc. Unfortunately, I have almost a blank sheet. I would very much appreciate being guided to information that may in fact exist. As I see it, much research awaits to be done. Four hundred years is a gold mine in historical terms.

So, it is necessary to conjecture a little what it was like, at least in Dutch times, after their near extinction when they were starting from scratch. They could not have wallowed in ignorance and complete obscurity for 150 years. It is helpful to establish their probable occupational structure. Surely the majority of the workforce for the public sector, such as there was, had to be local. Probably the standard colonial structure operated: Dutch manager, Eurasian administrators and clerks, Chinese for accounts, and a mix of others as technical, craft and manual workers, with of course a Malay syce and Sikh watchman - the model even in immediate post-war Singapore. To my knowledge, there was no Malay royalty in Malacca; if there was we might have expected the Dutch to give them special treatment and probably appointed them to special offices or posts, particularly with respect to the Malay population. Of course, there were as yet no Tamil coolies in those days. So, where did the Chetty Malacca fit in? We had a clue when the Dutch first sought to turn them into agriculturalists. Considering their elevated social profile under the Portuguese, this must have been quite a shock. Not surprisingly, they gave it up and drifted back into the town to take up independent crafts and monthly paid jobs. We may assume that they filled the lower rungs with the less successful Chinese and those rural Malays who did leave their kampongs. This structure would also have obtained generally among the Dutch businesses. Asian businesses would be run by their own people. We have not as yet mentioned slaves, who made up 34.6% of Malacca’s population in 1667 and still existed at the end of Dutch rule. We can conjecture that every employer had them and most of the established families too, not excluding the church and the Chetty Malacca. The Company certainly had them.

The administration and public records of the government, as well as of the Dutch firms, must have been conducted in Dutch. The rest of the country would have operated in the languages of the locals and in the Portuguese and Malay patois used in common by all locals. Over 150 years, the Dutch must have run some schools to supply the components of the workforce that had to be literate in Dutch. This meant at least primary school, with secondary school for the essential few – probably Dutch and Portuguese Eurasians at least. I could not find information to what extent they provided this education for the Chinese, the Chetty Malacca and the Malays. I found no reference to Christian or other mission schools existing in Dutch times – except for one mission school set up in 1819 and closed down when the first English school opened in 1826. It seems probable that the policy was that no education need be provided to the locals at large; there was no need for them to be educated or educated to the same level as the Dutch (or even the Eurasians). Education was not a social measure. This was the White South Africa’s primary tool of suppression in Apartheid times just before its end – as I saw for myself in Soweto in 1990 on a World Bank mission. At this point I therefore leave it as an open conclusion that there was no access to public education for the Chetty Malacca.

By the fact that the Portuguese Eurasians, the Peranakan Chinese and the Chetty Malacca had lost functionality in their mother-tongues, it may be inferred that that they did not run vernacular schools of their own, either. It may be presumed that the pastors of the Dutch

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Reform Church did administer and teach their religion in Dutch, while the Catholic Church did carry out the ministration and religious education of their flock in Kristang, their oral Portuguese Creole, with priests from Portugal and Goa, The Peranakan Chinese and the Chetty Malacca used their common Malay patois in everyday life, including prayer. Both would have relied on imported clergy to run their temples. There is no evidence that the temples provided education for their people. The only group that would have done so would have been the Malays, who would all have been Muslim. The Muslim authorities usually ran madrasahs or religious schools for their children. I have no information whether in fact they did so at this time, and if so whether the Dutch treated them differently and subsided their education. One problem would have been that the outputs would not have fitted into the upper workforce structure. The education would have been in the Malay language and orientated towards religion. So, again, we have nothing for the Chetty Malacca.

.We are left to assume therefore that the majority of the Chetty Malacca had no access to formal education, and no Dutch beyond street talk and arithmetic. They would not have fitted into the higher echelons. We may assume that the top percentile would have gone into business, got rich and paid taxes the Dutch could not ignore. They would have arrived at the dining tables of the Dutch via the social ladder and maybe even held some civic appointments. They would have had command of Dutch, even education self-provided. These gentlemen would obviously become the leaders of the Chetty Malacca community, and instrumental in some ways in protecting them and dispensing benefits. The gentlemen who got the temple going was obviously one such person.

We may take it there were also no trade schools. Skills were basic in the economy of the times, such as iron-mongering, wood-working, cooking, tailoring, agriculture and animal husbandry. These would have been handed down within the family and community, perhaps through some form of apprenticeship. For the average Chetty Malacca, his best prospects of advancement would have been through the trades, to self employment and small business. An outstanding example would have been their traditional jewelry and gold craftsmanship for which the Chetty Malacca were well known.

Stock-Taking Again, 1795

Some 128 years down the road since the last estimate, it is time to establish how many Chetty Malacca there were, whom it was the privilege of the British to receive into their empire.

In 1795, when British occupied the Settlement, they reported that Malacca had a population of less than 20,000 and her trade and agriculture were at a low ebb, “while the writ of government extended no more than a mile or two from the town”.

No other figures are available, but this estimate is timely. For one thing, it prompts us to speculate what the population growth was like in the very long period of 128 years’ intervening, in fact the main component of Dutch rule. For another, it provides a benchmark against which to see the future changes under British rule.

Bearing in mind that the whole of the following is hypothetical, firstly, we have to deal with the slave population. For our purposes, we make an assumption that it remained the same over the period. With this we arrive at our target population of 18,866 in 1795. This represented a population annual growth rate of 1.32 % pa over the period. This is pretty sedate, and reflects a stable population and a generally stagnant Malacca over most of Dutch rule. New arrivals would be few and probably out-balance losses due to emigration (youngster leaving for jobs elsewhere).

Next we need to identify a Malay component in this total, as our premise is that there would have been a steady influx of Malays from the surrounding areas drawn by the employment prospects of supporting the urban nexus. We arbitrarily set the total Malay component in 1795 at a timid 20% of the population, which works out to be 3,773. That leaves us 15.092 to

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account for. Keeping the 1667 proportions unchanged, we arrive at a distribution of Europeans & Eurasians 3,713 (19.7%), Chinese 7,113 (3.7%) Indians (4,268 (22.6%) - and Malays 3 773 (20%). Making one more assumption, that not less than 90% of the Indians were Chetty Malacca, we finally and arduously reach the conclusion that the number of our revered ancestors who joined the British Empire was 3,841 or thereabouts. At that point they made up 22.8% of the population, excluding slaves. They would have been near equal to the Eurasians and slightly more than the Malays. Over a century, they would have become a mature and settled community, probably with some pretensions to wealth. They were therefore a significant minority group with some clout that had to be reckoned with. This explains why they were given land to build their temple.

This seems a valid picture to go along with, until someone is able to offer alternative data and insights to conclude otherwise. It should be mentioned here that at this point, within the parameters applicable to it, the Chetty Malacca community had also reached the maximum extent of its growth.. After this, its numbers in Malacca would decline, due to changes in the variables affecting it. The Chinese population was the largest, but again we may postulate that a small percentage, like the Indians, were new imports. The large new arrivals of these groups would happen only a century later.

New Colonialism

Aghast alike at the levels of wealth amassed by the colonial powers and the excesses of exploitation (raw materials, forced plantations and slaves), new attitudes took shape among the growing educated public in the mother countries of the colonial powers about their humanitarian responsibility to subject peoples. Concerns were heard about “the White Man’s Burden” and their “debt of honour”. Slavery was abolished by the British in 1833 and by the Dutch in 1863. In both their cases, the home governments took over the colonies from the former companies, and they were susceptible to the new public opinion. Congruently, industrialisation required new and more raw materials and export markets. In the new economics, the capital investments involved were larger and more long-term. These factors called for more secure and more comprehensive occupation, administration, and social and infrastructural development of the colonies. These factors further happily called for and justified proper attention to education, and to social services. Most cogently, the colonies were and would be generating the money to pay for all this. Apart from their social uplifting, there was a broad-based need to have adequate educated strata among the local population to undertake. the various occupations of increasing diversity and levels of skill, whether in the public service, the technical services, primary production, shipping, commerce, public health, and even in education itself.

The Dutch did change their colonial orientation and practices, injecting greater responsibility towards their subject peoples. It would be nearly a century late for our Malacca brethren, but this extract provides a wholesome close to the Dutch episode of this history:

During and after the Dutch secured their hegemony throughout the Indonesian archipelago, they systematically eliminated slavery, widow burning, head-hunting, cannibalism, piracy, and internecine wars.[13] The Dutch formed a privileged upper social class of soldiers, administrators, managers, teachers and pioneers. They lived linked to their native subjects, yet separately at the top of the rigid racial and social castes they set up in Indies society.[24] The Dutch East Indies had two legal classes of citizens: First the European class; second the Indigenous (Dutch: Inlander, Malay: Bumiputra) class. A third class: Foreign Easterners (Dutch: Vreemde Oosterlingen) was added in 1920.[25]

In 1901 the Dutch adopted what they called the Ethical Policy, under which the colonial government had a duty to further the welfare of the Indonesian people in health and education. Other new policies included irrigation programs, transmigration, communications, flood mitigation, industrialisation, and protection of native industry. [7] Although more

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progressive than previous policies, the humanitarian policies were ultimately inadequate. While a small elite of secondary and tertiary-educated Indonesians developed, the overwhelming majority of Indonesians remained illiterate. Primary schools were established and officially open to all, but by 1930, only 8% of school-aged children received an education

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies#Social_history

In the new colonial world, labour was becoming the major constraint in the absence of slavery, particularly for mineral extraction and large-scale plantation agriculture. This was followed by the need for technical manpower. The latter were needed to survey the land, and engineer and maintain the transport networks, etc. Later, more would be needed to support the posts & telegraphs, the electrical grid and eventually the telecommunications infrastructure. The colonies entered a new phase in which they experienced large-scale influx and imports of external labour and technical workers, to support their rapidly expanding economies. In British Malaya, including Malacca, the population structure would be totally changed.

There was one commentator on the Internet who with a grand historic eye described the “invasion” as he called it of the British into Malaya in the 19 th Century. I wished to quote it but unfortunately I lost the reference. He conveyed the notion that they (the British) arrived in waves and echelons. In the beginning came the administrators, the law-givers and the law enforcers. These were followed by echelons of civil engineers, land surveyors, water and port engineers, and probably the public health people. In the second wave would have come the economic echelons and commercial interests. The first groups among these would have been tin mining engineers, and subsequent echelons would nclude the planters. These would have been followed by the entrepreneurs and bankers. In the third wave would have come the medical, social and education professionals. The last among these would have been the religious and missionary echelons. With the progress of time, a fourth wave would include engineers to install and maintain the “national” networks like the post and telegraphs system, the railways, the roads, the electrical system, and telecommunications network. The sequence is of course poetic. The echelons and waves both overlapped in time and ran in parallel, some merging into others.

Transformation

From Malacca’s transfer to the British to my Dad’s birthday (on 23 December 1900) was 76 years. The world and Malacca were dramatically transformed. The tin boom brought the railways, the telegraph and electricity. The rubber boom brought roads, motor cars, and bicycles, Both brought opened up the country, brought wealth and opportunity. Malacca became a part of Peninsula Malaya, not just a backwater port. We may here briefly note some of the changes which I had to check out to form my conclusions:

When my Dad was born, the modes of transport were the horse and carriage, the rickshaw, the bullock cart, the buffalo cart, and the perahu (boat) for riverine movement. The roads were not metalled. In the town the road surfaces were cobbled and stone compacted. In the kampongs, they would have been earth compacted, and farther afield, they would have been dirt tracks. I doubt there were any “trunk” roads. I doubt one could have gone by land (presumably by stagecoach) from Malacca to Penang or Johore Bahru - maybe to Kuala Lumpur, with a struggle. But, things were in the process of change. These were already impacting Malacca’s neighbouring states and would soon draw her in.

Firstly there was a “tin rush” in the Peninsula hinterland. This put pressure on all surrounding ports, to move the tin out and to deliver machinery and other supplies in. While Singapore and Penang grew as the principal long-haul termini, Malacca among others served as local entre-ports and points of collection and delivery. Malacca was now back in the world of free trade. There would have been a resurgence of business talk and a rising a tempo of expectation

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The original tin mining operations were orientated towards the rivers, used to convey the payload to the nearest port. Global demand led to development of short railway lines from the mining centres to the nearest ports. The first railway line in Malaya was from Taiping to Port Weld, opened in 1885. This was followed by the Kuala Lumpur- Klang line in 1886. Next came the Seremban-Sungei Ujong to Port Dickson line in 1891, followed by the Tapah to Telok Anson line in 1893. Finally the connection from Ipoh to Prai was opened in 1899. In 1901, the FMS Railway was formed by absorption of the state companies. Following this the inland nodes were quickly connected up by a trunk line down to Gemas by 1905. Eventually the line would be extended to Johore Bahru by 1909.

On 1 December 1905, The Malacca State Railway (MSR) officially inaugurated the FMS Malaca Branch line to Tampin. The following piece of history is well-worth reliving:

“At 6.30 a.m. The Hon. Mr. Bland and Messrs. R. C. Fryer, Firmstone, Lupton and Darbyshire (the constructing engineer) met at Kubu station and proceeded thence to Tampin, the junction with the trunk line, where they arrived at 7.40.

On the return journey they were joined by Messrs. Fleming, D. O. Tampin, Goldthorpe, Jones and Reid, and the whole party, on their arrival at Malacca, at 9.41 proceeded to the Residency to breakfast.After breakfast the Hon. R.N. Bland proposed the health of the Queen, and then proceeded to congratulate Mr. Darbyshire on the way the construction of the line had been expedited. Mr. Fleming responded to the toast and the visitors after having a short look around Malacca left by the 1 o'clock train.”

It was the Queen’s Birthday.

From the Straits Times, 4 th December 1905.

The same newspaper trumpeted:

“It is now possible to leave Malacca at 1 p.m. and arrive in Penang at 6.21 on the following day instead of taking two to three days by steamer, also and this, I think, is the great convenience. Passengers to Seremban and Kuala Lumpur from Singapore can land at Malacca, catch the 6.30 a.m. train, and arrive at their destinations at 9.5 a.m. and 11.12 a.m. respectively by this greatly accelerating their arrival.”

Note 1: The MRS was absorbed by the FMSR in 1906. Note 2: My friend, Ian McCubbin of Goosetrey UK and of the Great

Western Railway fame, would expect me to record that the MSR had four locomotives, two Hunslets 850 & 851 Class A, and two Kitsons 4289 & 4290, Class G)

At that time, my Dad was four years old, a few days short of five – about Christian’s age at the writing of this (Jul11). He would grow up with the Blast and Woof-Woof-Woof of the steam locomotives a familiar sound over the years. He loved the railway, and I recall very many happy evening drives with him and Mummy to Kubu Station just to see and hear the trains arrive and depart. We did the Tampin trip several times, but I do not recall that either we or Dad alone travelled to Penang or Singapore by train. The latter became possible when the Causeway was commissioned. The first train carrying goods traveled across the Causeway on 17 September 1923, followed by the

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first passenger train on 1 October in the same year. The Malacca line was ripped up by the Japanese occupying forces during World War II to build the Burma Railway. It was never replaced.

Among the related happenings we should mention the first motor car built by Daimler

& Benz in 1886. The modern (safety) bicycle was invented in the 1890s, and in 1889 John Dunlup invented the pneumatic tyre for both. In 1893 Ridley planted the first seedlings of the Havea Braziliensis (rubber tree) in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and in 1902 bitumen or asphalt was first introduced in the world to “metal” a road. Suddenly the world needed rubber. I am proud to trumpet the fact that the first man to lead the response was Tan Chay Yan of Malacca. There is no better way to savour this momentous development than to read this piece from the web:

“Tan Chay An was the first rubber planter in Malaya. Despite opposition, he pioneered an industry which transformed the region’s fortunes and used his enormous wealth to support worthwhile causes such as education.

Tan was educated at Malacca High School. In 1891 he inherited from a tapioca farm at Bukit Lintang near Malacca. He joined the Malacca municipal commission aged twenty-one and three years later became a justice of the peace, as his father and grandfather had been.

In 1896, Tan visited his friend Henry Ridley, director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, whose advocacy of commercial rubber cultivation was widely scorned. Rubber forests in Africa and the Amazon were being exhausted and Ridley saw opportunities in Malaya. Encouraged by his friend Lim Boon Keng, Tan agreed that there was potential so Ridley gave him seedlings of the indigenous Rambong (Ficus elastica) and the untested, imported Para rubber tree (Hevea Brasiliensis). Tan planted these on 43 acres cleared from his Malacca property, creating the first rubber plantation in Malaya and Asia’s first Asian-owned one. He sought to convert hostile planters from comestibles, offering them seeds from his pocket.

Two years later, seeing how the rubber plants flourished, he formed a syndicate with other Chinese entrepreneurs to manage a 3,000-acre estate at Bukit Asahan obtained under favourable terms from Malacca’s government. His display of sheet rubber at that year’s Malacca horticultural fair won a trophy and sparked wide interest. This exhibit and other factors such as the demand for rubber arising from the worldwide growth of bicycling and motoring prompted more planters to follow Tan’s lead.

His rubber won a gold medal at the 1903 Hanoi Exposition and the following year he shipped the first one thousand pounds of rubber to be exported from Malacca. By 1905, with rubber exempted from export duties, the settlement shipped 18,500 pounds and Bukit Asahan was the world’s largest Hevea plantation. Around 1905 Tan reached an agreement with the new London-based Malacca Rubber Plantations Ltd to sell for $2 million the Bukit Asahan estate, which had been created with $200,000, while retaining an interest in the new company.

This deal both convinced local growers that their future was in rubber and attracted European companies to Malaya. By 1910 there were thirty-five European and Chinese companies growing rubber on tens of thousands of acres across Malaya. The industry which Tan had started despite opposition produced around half the world’s rubber by 1920 and brought unprecedented prosperity to Malaya and Singapore, through which most of it was shipped. “

http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1628_2009-12-31.htmlNational

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It is perhaps worth mentioning that Sime Darby, Malaysia’s flagship corporation, was among the companies that first set up their plantations in Malacca.

Rubber was soon to overshadow tin and was far more widespread. It needed a network of roads, metalled roads. The early roads served as feeders to connect to the railway lines. Then they opened up the country, which allowed access to new territories for occupation, agriculture, plantations and other economic activities. For the first time, the whole population began to enjoy greater mobility within their jungle-clad country. The first metalled road ran from Taiping to Port Weld, completed in 1901. I could not find when the roads in Malacca were metalled. I also could not find out when the first motor car was introduced in Malacca or Malaya. What we do know is that Singapore enacted automobile registration legislation in 1903. This would presage similar legislation in Malacca very shortly. The same year saw the establishment of the Federated Malay States Automobile Club and, in 1907 the Singapore Automobile Club. By 1908, there was a metalled road between Kulim and Province Wellesley. Similar extension took place along the Johore railway to the south. We may imagine that the Malacca roads, the trunk roads at least, were well paved by the close of first decade – while my Dad was still in primary school. Ford's first local advertisement in the Straits Times appeared on 20 December 1909. 

Samuel Morse invented the telegraph and his code in 1850. Most people are familiar with the telegraph line as an ubiquitous item along the early railways as they were developed, among other things because they were needed for signaling and messaging. However, I imagine that public telegraph facilities happened when the first public post offices were opened. This appears to have happened in Malacca in 1854. In 1877 both Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison submitted their patents for the first telephone. The records show that the first telephone exchange (50 lines) was installed in Singapore in 1879 and in Kuala Lumpur in 1891. Malacca probably had at least one working telephone when Dad was born.

The earliest record of power generation has been traced back to a small mining town in Rawang, Selangor. Two enterprising individuals Loke Yew and Thamboosamy Pillai (Chetty Malacca?) installed an electric generator in 1894 to operate their mines, marking the first use of electric pumps for mining and the beginning of the story of electricity in Malaya. In the same year, private supply for street lighting purposes was extended to Rawang town, and in the next year to the railway station in Kuala Lumpur. In 1905, the Singapore Electrical Tramway Limited built the first power station at MacKenzie Road. It not only provided power for its network of services but also supplied electricity for municipal needs. The Tanjong Kling Power Station in Malacca is one of the oldest power stations in Malaysia but I could not find the date it began.From all this I conclude that Malaca would have been at least partly electrified by the end of the decade, in the public places and perhaps streets but probably not down to household supply; definitely not at Meringu Lane – judging from later evidence.

With the many landmark developments taking place, Malacca would have experienced

a resurgence of spirits and fortunes. One might well speculate that the people, including our Chetty Malacca, would have been buoyant and ready to take part and find a place for themselves in the scenario expanding before them. Certainly, it would dawn on young Odiang as he grew up that the world was full of promise, and he should not miss the boat. Nenek Kathai would have realized that the passport to the new world for him was an education.

Education: Passport to the New World

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At the beginning, the EIC’s interests were purely commercial. One did not run educational programes for people at trading centres. There were however different pressures at work on the British on the spot.

Firstly, they found an increasing need for an English-educated middle-level workforce to help run the country. The need was of much larger dimensions than facing the Dutch before. Needless to say, this was complemented by an upsurge of demand for such education. Underlying the latter was the realization that, learning their mother tongue apart, an English education was the prerequisite for employment, social mobility and well-being.

Secondly, the British were under pressure from diverse Christian groups to carry out missionary work. It was the new policy to allow them to do so. Education has always been the first step to enlightenment, So the missions built schools. The Straits Settlements, and Malacca in particular, had already evolved what we would these days call a plural society. The education system had to cut across all local communities. Because of the multi-racial composition of population (and no doubt because of the ready availability of religious materials in the language), they built English-language schools. This suited the British.

Thirdly, as the British penetrated the Peninsula, they found themselves with a majority population of an homogenous indigenous people, the Malays, who already possessed a royal court language and culture and a tradition of education through informal and formal schools, including religious schools. The Malays were overwhelmingly in agriculture, lived in the rural areas, and were Muslim. The British needed to evolve a policy to support Malay vernacular education as a separate and special exercise. In time this would become the major issue of British Malaya.

Fourthly, there was the parallel demand for vernacular schools from the other ethnic groups, particularly the Chinese, who formed the majority of the populations in the Straits Settlements. The British allowed them to provide their own vernacular schools.

It was only with transfer to Crown Colony status in 1867, did the British confront education as a full responsibility. In 1870, a Select Committee of the Straits Settlements recommended as follows:

1. To appoint an Inspector of Schools, Straits Settlements.2. To reform the existing Grants-in-aid system, which mainly applied to English

schools whether they be missionary or privately run.3. To greatly extend and improve vernacular education, especially Malay

vernacular education.

The primary focus of the British effort was on the English schools. There were two types: the first was the government English school managed by the government where all expenses were paid for by the government; the second was the government-aided English school which received grants-in-aid and was controlled by its own governing body. Mission schools fell under the second category. Both categories admitted pupils regardless of race or religion, from primary one up. The mission schools usually charged a small school fee. Over time there would be privately initiated English schools, and they were accorded the same treatment as mission schools

The Anglican mission led the field. They opened the first three English schools, namely the Penang Free School in 1816, the Malacca Free High School in 1826 and the Singapore Free School in 1823, then commonly called “Protestant Free Schools.”. Here’s an insight into how things went in Malacca:

The school was professedly an English school, but classes were also held inPortuguese, Chinese and Malay. After instruction in their own language, the pupils were transferred to the English classes. In 1875 the trustees came to the conclusion that they could no longer carry on with the funds at their

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disposal and decided to hand over their school funds and property to the Straits Settlements government. Three years later (1878) the Government took over the school and renamed it “The Malacca High School”.

Note 1: All three became government schools in time, the first government school in each case and in time the première educational institution in their states and countries respectively. The last became Raffles Institution. Incredibly, before 1870, there were no government English schools

.Note 2: It is noteworthy that after the Dutch government took over from the VOC they did begin to provide schooling – as they proceed to do in the Indies. The startup of Malacca High School was directly related to the closing of the Dutch-Malay school which was established in January 1819 by a Christian missionary during the Dutch reign.

Note 3. Munshi Abdullah relates in the Hikayat Abdullah10 that in 1818 an English missionary, W. C. Milne, set up an Anglo-Chinese College near the Tranquerah Gate, which provided education in English and Chinese, He was closely associated with it teaching Malay and doing translation work. The college was moved to Hong Kong in 1843 to become a seminary.

Next we come to the educational highlight of this history. I make no apology for reproducing in full the article in the Star on-line of 20 Jun 2010 about St Francis Institution (SFI), the alma mater of my Dad and myself:

THERE are two key years in the colourful and chequered history of St Francis Institution (SFI) - 1872 and 1902.

The humble origin of SFI is traced back to the opening of the attap-roofed St Mary’s School, close to Praya Lane along Jalan Banda Hilir, in 1872.

Managed by the then parish priest of St Francis Xavier Church, Fr Maximillian De Souza, this school ran on funds from the French Missions. Students who had to pay a nominal monthly fee of three cents, in adherence to the government of the day’s ruling that grant-in-aid schools should charge fees.

In 1880, St Mary’s was relocated to bigger premises and renamed St Francis School. However, financial difficulties forced the school to shut down in 1902, but not for long.

Within months, encouraged by the then bishop of Malacca, the LaSalle religious brother community revived the school with a pioneer batch of 102 students. American cleric Maurice Josephus, who had served the school for a year previously, became the new principal.

From then on, it was a story of moving from strength to strength in various aspects including student enrolment and upgrading of school facilities.

Banda Hilir, which had a seafront, was chosen as the ideal site and in 1906 rose the old “U” building which forms the nucleus of SFI today.

In 1914, a three-storey block of classrooms and a dormitory were built”

The Dames of St Muar had earlier established the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) in 1860. The Italian Canossian Institute founded the Convent of the Sacred Heart in 1905. The Methodist Episcopal Mission established the Malacca Anglo Chinese School in 1910. The sister school, the Methodist Girls’ School, had been established six years earlier in 1904; in

10 Munshi Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah, translated by A. H Hill, JMBRAS, June 1955,

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the year following, in 1905, the mission had also founded the Suydam Girls’ School. So, when my Dad was ready to consider an education (c.1906), in English there was only the one government boys’ school (High School) and the one mission school (St Francis’ ). Not to be left out, the Government would go on to establish the Bandar Hilir English School in Malacca in 1908 and the Tranquerah English School in 1925. A research paper reported that in 1932 Malaca still had only 3 government and 2 aided (English) boys’ schools; there were 3 mission girls schools, but even at that date no government girls’ school..

We should close this review of the English schools in my Dad’s time by reporting that the University of Cambridge Location Examinations was introduced in Singapore in 1892, but Senior Cambridge classes were only initiated in St Joseph’s Institution in 1927. It is therefore not possible to say conclusively whether my Dad would have taken the exam, round about 1917-18. In normal circumstances, pupils would have to complete the run up syllabi in the earlier secondary classes over a 3-4 year period, not counting the teacher training to take the pupils through and the availability of textbooks. High School was likely to have started first.

From EIC times, the Malay schools had received some support, and from 1858 they were monitored. Although the Select Committee Report related to the Straits Settlements, it had a profound impact on the educational development of the Malay States, as many of the officials in the Malay States during the first decade of residential rule were either seconded or transferred from the Straits Civil Service. The Report recommended a large extension of Malay schools. This did take place. However, for reasons explained further on, they only provided 4 years’ primary education..

The British were concerned with the de-stabilising effects of “over-education” on the traditional way of life of the Malay peasantry. With no appropriate means of employment for secondary school-leavers in the kampongs there would be urban drift. It could also lead to the emergence of political discontent. They even saw no need to provide English. In the upshot, they introduced a secular school system of four years’ primary education. The package included some academic subjects like history and geography, and arts and crafts suitable for their world. Over time, the Roman script (Rumi) got introduced alongside the Arabic script (Jawi). Incredible as it may sound, there was no secondary tier, caput. The British planners actually meant for the Malays to remain in their rural world, this in a new century that was already changing dramatically and with their urban non-Malay counterparts enjoying increasing opportunities of secondary education and employment in government and business. Any decent thinking Malay or local would have said “Mana Boleh? (How can!)” Be it as it may, such was the policy implemented. The British set up several teacher training centres throughout the country, trained the teachers at the primary level and posted them to the rural schools. In 1922, the Sultan Idris Training College was established, as the apex and resource centre of the system – but again at the primary level. in 1926 it acquired a Malay Translation Bureau tasked with the preparation, revision reprinting and translation of books and the training of translators11. The only available option for the Malays to further their education beyond the rudimentary level was by switching, at the fourth grade for boys and third grade for girls, to the Malay Special Classes in government English schools. After two years of intensive coaching in English, they were then allowed to proceed to secondary education in English. However, such opportunities were not many. Malays were further fearful of conversion to Christianity in the mission schools.

11 Dussek. He was not only committed to educate teachers as well as train them, but also to raise the standard of Malay vernacular schools gradually until secondary education was possible and to press for the use of the Malay language as the language of the government. Though his proposal to establish Malay secondary schools and to increase the use of Malay in the government failed to materialize. Dussek‟s Malay policy at the SITC was possibly the most significant British contribution to the growth of Malay nationalism prior to World War II.

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“Thus, education of rural Malays was largely confined to four years of rudimentary education. Many Malays remained entrapped in rural areas without any possible means of upward social mobility.

The response was poor. so much so that the British had in 1890 to introduce compulsion through the Malay rulership. Thus, by 1900, while the Straits Settlements had a total of 29 English boys’ schools with a combined enrollment of 6,155, there were 141 Malay boys’ schools with an enrollment of 6,591. The corresponding figures for girls’ schools were 10 English with an enrolment of 1,373 and 28 Malay with an enrolment of 753. Figures for 1916 indicate that as against 191 schools overall in the Straits Settlements there were 365 in the Federated States but still only 137 schools in the Unfederated States. The schools in the latter two would have been predominantly Malays schools. As a quite independent strategy, the British started the Malay College at Kuala Kangsar in 1905. It was a residential school for the Malay nobility and elite. It provided a distinctly English education, leading to the Cambridge exams. The object was to prepare the pupils with an English orientation, draw them into the structure of colonial administration, and so cement British control of the Malay population.

The Chinese vernacular schools were left to develop independently by the clans and associations. These relied on China imported textbooks and teachers, and later had to be regulated with political developments in China. The British extended grant-in-aid to them where they qualified. The Pay Fong School, established in Malacca in 1910 is an outstanding example of an eminent Chinese school. I did not find reference to any Tamil vernacular schools established in Malacca at that time. In time Tamil education would emerge as a concern for the new generation which would grow out from the influx of Tamil labourers for the rubber estates and public works.

By my Dad’s time, the value of education would have been fully apparent to the local population. I have no doubt that if the Chetty Malacca understood one thing with any clarity, it was to send their children to school. When they boiled down their options, we can see that they would not be interested in Chinese education. There were no Tamil schools to speak of, and they would not be particularly interested in them in any case having lost the language. The Malay schools were in the rural areas and only up to primary four. The choice would have been the English schools. These were in the urban areas. They admitted pupils of every colour and creed, from age K1 up, with no language or other pre-requisites, and free.. They took them through to secondary, and opened the doors to employment. The situation would have been the same for the Peranakan Chinese who would similarly have preferred the English schools to the Chinese schools. It is no surprise therefore that my Dad went to an English school.

When Nenek Kathai took that decision, there were already 8 cohorts of children, Chetty Malacca kids among them, who would have completed 10 years of schooling, some less. The first cohort (from High School).would have completed 10 years in 1836, and would already be over 60 years in the workforce and near 80 years old. When Dad stepped into SFI, there would have been 4 levels of seniors ahead of him. Of course not all Chetty Malacca children would have gone to school. There would be many too poor to afford the alternative cost of not working at home, in the field or in the shop. But perhaps over the same 80 years, the proportions would have increased, as incomes in the community rose. During the Japanese Occupation, when we lived among the Chetty Malacca community, I noticed that probably a majority of my Dad’s peers had been to school up to varying levels.. Among his seniors, it was less, and among his juniors more. A few had gone for further or professional education. I could not tell about the children, because there was only Japanese school. A good number did not seem to be going to school. It was a time for survival, with all hands to the plough.

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Chetty Malacca Women

And finally, what about the women? In my observations during the above period, I found the Chetty Malacca ladies ranged in roles from simple housewives to consorts and matriarchs. In their first role, they formed the core of the family. They ran a tight ship at home, enforced frugality and ensured practice of the religion. As matriarchs, they collectively decided the community norms and pronounced judgment upon individual behavior. What offended the matriarchs was infradig. They never met in committee, but always seemed to know what the other is thinking. As consorts, they carried themselves off with all the comely elegance for which they were justly known. When both were dressed in their fineries, they stood up to their counterparts, the Peranakan ladies, In fact both sets of ladies dressed remarkably alike. I never got the impression that these ladies needed an education. They were in complete mastery of their domains. Their functions overlapped of course, with different weightages for the various age groups, and accordingly to wealth. As a small boy my criterion for judging them was simple: by the excellence of their kitchen and by the excellence of their cakes. The kitchen of Achi Manga was tops.

But, education of the women folk was creeping in. Some of the young girls were already being sent to school about my time, and it would become progressively standard in the post-war world. We would progressively see them as clerks, sales-girls, nurses and teachers, etc. They would fill the professional ranks, and some become politicians. What we ought to point out is that the opportunities for them to attend school already existed. There were in fact more girls’ English schools than boys’ schools from before my Dad’s time.

Stock-Taking 1877-91

Finally, it is time again to do a headcount of the Chetty Malacca.

The first British population tally of Malacca was the Census 1871. I have not been able to view this document. It is reported as being flawed in classification, methodology and other features, and it was not used as a basis for subsequent census. But one thing was fixed: whereas earlier its boundaries barely extended beyond the town and suburbs, in 1877 the area of Malacca was established as 648 square miles, more or less what it is today. Extrapolating from different secondary sources, I managed to reconstruct some probable figures. The total population of Malacca at that time was probably 77,056, of which 17,132 12 were Chinese (22.0%), 3168 were Indians (4.1%), 50,659 were Malays (65,2%) and 6,797 Other Malayans (8.7%). The annual rate of growth was a respectable 1.82 pa over the intervening 76 years .Spectacularly, the Malay population grew by 13.4 times to 50,659. It now made up 65.2 % of the total population. We can at once say this was largely due to incorporation of the surrounding rural area into the state. The Chinese population also grew, but dropped to 22.0%. We have to note that the Indian population dropped both in absolute numbers from 4,268 to 3,168, by a thumping 25.8%, and by proportion. They now constituted only 4.1% of the population. There were no appreciable changes in the make up of the Indian population; so we may take the total as comprising mainly Chetty Malacca. The Chetty Malacca population therefore declined, and they lost position as a significant minority community.

For a better perspective of what was happening, we need to look at the figures from the Census 1881 and 1891. The first was an improved state-only exercise, while the second was a comprehensive one covering the Straits Settlements. I have had the opportunity to see the latter, which contained the comparative data for 1881. The figures are in the table below:

Abstract of Population - Settlement of Malacca 1881-1891

Serial Nationality 1881 1891 1891

Total % Total Town %

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1 Europeans 40 0.0 134 0.1 88 65.7

2 Eurasians 2,213 2.4 1,756 1.9 1,684 95.9

3 ChineseI. Straits-born 5,264 (5.6) 4,971 (5.4) 3,425 68.9

2.Total 19,741 21.1 18,161 19.7 8,409 46.3

4 Malays & Other Natives of Archipelago1. Malays 67,513 (72.1) 68,127 (73.9) 5,025 7.4

2. Jawi Pekans 867 183 1073. Total 69,390 74.3 70,325 76.3 5,359 7.6

5 Tamils & Other Natives of India1 Tamils 1,728 (1.8) 1471 (1.6) 797 54.2

2. Total 1,891 2.0 1,647 1.8 877 53.2

6 Other Nationalities1. Arabs 220 95 53 55.8

2. Total 304 0.3 147 0.2 86 58.5

6 Grand Total 93,579 100 92,170 100 16,503 17.9

We may note the following:

The population peaked at 93,579 in 1881 at an annual growth rate of 1.82% pa, and then it dropped slightly to 92,170, giving a overall annual growth of 1.50% over 96 years.

The Chinese population grew up to 1881 reaching 19,741, and then dropped to 18,161 in 1891, finally arriving at a reduced 19.7% of the total population. .

The Indian population continued its drop, from 4,268 in 1795 to 1,891 in 1881 and 1.647 in 1891. The Tamil component is now identified separately. It also dropped to 1,728 in 1881 and 1,471 in 1891. All the Chetty Malacca folk would have declared themselves as Tamil. There were no significant changes yet in the demography of the Tamils. So, we can comfortably conclude that the Tamils recorded were mainly Chetty Malaca. Both Nenek Kathai and my Grand-pa Sangaran Pillay would have been counted in both census. Our ancestors now represented a mere 1.8% of Malacca’s population.

The Malay population grew normally to 67,513 I 1881 and 68,127 in 1891, the latter forming 73.9% of the population.

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Odiang: Chapter Two - The Chetty Malacca History

For the first time, the two census identified the Straits-born Chinese. In 1891 there were 4,971 Straits-born (Peranakan) Chinese, 2,213 Eurasians, and 1,471 Tamils (Chetty Malacca. These proportions confirmed the relative sizes of these communities from historical deduction.

For the first time, the Jawi Pekan were also identified. They were the counterparts of the Chetty Malacca (the Tamils Muslims who inter-married and settled down as locals). They were relatively small in number, 183 in 1891.

The Europeans apart, all Non-Malay local communities showed a decline between 1881 and 1891, both in absolute numbers and proportions.

The Census 1891 showed that the majority of the non-Malays lived in the town while the overwhelming majority of the Malays lived outside. The Eurasians were highly concentrated in the town. The Peranakan Chinese were also more in the town. Nearly half of the Chetty Malacca had moved out of the municipal area.

The big question is why the historical communities of Malacca were declining. Among the factors affecting them in common, the most probable were the rise in educational levels and the inadequacy of employment opportunities in Malacca. The young people simply needed to move out to find their fortunes. Malacca simply could not sustain its educated, Singapore and Penang on the other hand were bursting with growth as the modern generation kingpin entre-ports of the new world economy. Kuala Lumpur and the other Malayan towns offered opportunities to partake of the tin boom and the resultant economic activity. It should be noted that at this point the rubber boom and the road system had not yet happened, while the railways were just being put into place. The Chetty Malacca, being small and overall not too wealthy, would not have had the kinds of business nuclei in Malacca that could retain their young, and so would tend to lose more. It is also possible that having lost their wealth and social position, the Chetty Malacca as a whole found it harder to acquire recruits to inter-marry into their community. On the other hand, there may have been seepage and loss of identity through conversion to Christianity or Islam and subsequent marriage within their new religion. With the education of men outpacing women, the education disparity between the sexes may have contributed further to this seepage. It is clear that at the turn of the century the Chetty Malacca were a dispersing community

1891 is a good point to take a last back-bearing. Thereafter, with the opening up of the land, Malacca would experience the inflows and outflows of Chinese, Tamils, Malays and others as part of the new economy of Malaya. It would not be possible to identify the historical communities of Malacca any longer. Suffice it say, to close this chapter, that the Chetty Malacca then proceeded over the next century to migrate to Malaya/Malaysia and Singapore In the latter, they settled in numbers and now have a community there larger and more prosperous in Singapore. From there, a good number have migrated overseas.

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