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MALACCA - DUTCH CONQUEST OVER THE PORTUGUESE IN MALACCA, 1641
The city of Malacca or also known as 'Melaka' is one of the thirteen states that belongs to Malaysia and it is located 2 degrees north of the equator by the shore of the Straits of Malacca between Singapore to its south and Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia to its north. Malacca is host to a wide and interesting collection of a diversified culture, minority ethnic communities, a unique blend of Eastern and Western architecture and a rich background of history. As far back as the early 15th century, Malacca was already the cradle of a modern civilisation with the existence of a multi-rational plural society and the center of trade in the region that was even envied by the Europeans. Traders and merchants of so many nations from east and west gathered in this emporium of trade that it was recorded that as many as 84 different languages were spoken here at the height of its glory.
Malacca's beginnings
According to the legends which have been recorded by the Malay Annals and by the Portuguese, a prince who is known by the title of Parameswara from a dying kingdom of Srivijaya in Indonesia came to Tumasik (the old name of Singapore), killed the ruler who paid tribute to Siam and reigned there for five years until the Siamese drove him out.
While in exile, Parameswara chose Malacca as his new kingdom because here, near the hill and along the river bank, a sm all but aggressive white mousedeer caught his attention when the mousedeer so intimidated his hunting dogs that they turned and fell into the water. The place where the weak can triumph over the strong, Parameswara decided, would be a good location fo a settlement. Parameswara became the first ruler of Malacca.
The original inhabitants of Malacca were fishermen and when Parameswara settled at Malacca in about 1400, he was soon joined by other refugees f rom Palembang and the town quickly grew.
Malacca had the advantage of being on the narrowest part of the Str aits where the deep water channel was near to the Malaysian side. The river m outh formed a small harbour overlooked by the hill on which the Sultan and his chief s could build a fortif ied stockade protected on the land Sign up to vote on this title side by marshes. At first, no doubt, piracy and fishing were the main occupations but soon trader began to call and the little settlement prospered. Useful Not useful
Before too long, Malacca became important enough to attract the attention of Siam and were forced to pay tribute to their king. At this time, the Ming Emperor of China were sending out fleets
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to request the Sultan to allow the Portuguese to trade there. However, the influential Gujerati merchants (from Gujerat, India) in Malacca realised that the granting of this request would ruin their trade. So, they persuaded the Sultan to r efuse permission. A party of Portuguese who were ashore were suddenly seized and imprisoned. Sequeira then withdrew his fleet but already had gained valuable information which proved useful later. In 1511 Alfonso d'Albuquerque who was Viceroy of all the Portuguese in the East, sailed for Malacca with a fleet of sixteen ships from Goa (India) and landed his men to capture Malacca by the sword and rescue his captured countrymen. There was a fierce fight for the bridge over the river mouth and the Portuguese were only successful at their second attempt to storm the city. Finally Sultan Mahmud and his Malay chiefs fled from the city, to which they were never able to return.
Alfonso d'Albuquerque immediately build a great stone castle by the bridge, to which the name name A Famosa (meaning the Famous) was given. The fort was to prove strong enough to resist all attacks from foes during the one hundred and thirty years that the Portuguese held Malacca. On the hill, rising behind the fort, the Portuguese built their houses, the governor's palace and their churches, while the native population of traders of many nations lived on the opposite bank of river. The Portuguese had captured the city and oust its Sultan and even till today, Malacca remains the only state in Peninsular Malaysia other then Penang that is not directly governed by a sovereign leader.
Dutch in the East Indies
Merchantmen from Holland and Zeeland, the two Dutch provinces which were leading the way on the Far East trade routes, were up against a powerful competitor. Portuguese traders made things as difficult as possible for Dutch intruders. Native rulers were warned against Dutch ships and cooperated as little as possible with the Dutch for fear of retaliation by the Portuguese who themselves were ruled by the Spanish king. A boycott had denied Dutch t raders Asian merchandise for their European customers. Sign upbecome to vote on this title When Spain settled its difference with the English, the Dutch had further isolated and threatened economically. Dutch ship owners and trading houses had responded to t he political Useful Not useful turn of events by searching their own route to the Indies, attempting to cut out the Iberian middlemen. Only with the establishment of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC Dutch East Indies Company) in 1602 to c oordinate the Indies trade, the Dutch had the opportunit
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(Siamese harbour on the east coast of the Malayan peninsula) and Ayutthaya, and a new one in Cambodia to be relocated to Batavia (now Jakarta).
Attack by the Dutch
Batavia was founded by the Dutch only in 1619, but Malacca's fame as a fabulous center of Asian wares was already a great lure for the Dutch, who at once began m aking plans to attack t he city. The Dutch first arrived in Malacca in April 1606 with the third fleet of the VOC to visit the archipelago, commanded by Cornelis Matelief de Jonge. The fleet consisted of 11 ships: Oranje, Nassau, Middelburg, Witte Leeuw, Zwarte Leeuw, Mauritus, Grote Zon, Amsterdam, Kleine Zon, Erasmus and Geuniveerde Provincien. Matelief de Jonge immediately set about making a formal pact with the Sultan of Johor, which was concluded in May 1606.
In the treaty, the Dutch undertook to expel the Portuguese from Malacca and in return the Sultan of Johor would allow the Dutch to keep Malacca and conduct trade in Johor. Interestingly enough both parties agreed to respect each other's religions, a condition seemingly very important for the Malays who had endured the Roman Catholic Portuguese intolerance of I slam and Muslim traders. The Dutch were sworn enemies of the Portuguese, were more powerful and, unlike the Portuguese, not obsessed with a hatred of Islam. There was common ground for an alliance between Malay rulers and the Dutch, probably because its rulers were desperate to get rid of the Portuguese obstructing trade in the Straits. The Portuguese had turned Malacca into a formidable fort, thus making a land attack difficult, they had also set up heavy guns on the hilltop overlooking the harbour to att ack approaching enemy ships. As Matelief de Jonge approached Malacca harbour, he captured some ships t o procure badly-needed provisions for his men, then settled down to a long siege of the city to starve it into surrender. The siege indeed made life rather difficult for the people in the city and surrender seemed only a matter of time.
It was at this st age that a Portuguese fleet led by Don Martin d'Alphonso de Castro, the Viceroy of Goa, appeared at Malacca on Aug 14, 1606. So the scene was set for one of the great sea battles in the archipelago. The Dutch and Portuguese fleets exchanged cannon fire and on Aug 16, 1606 the Portuguese fleet m oved towards Cape Rachado (now Tanjung Tuan, Negri Sembilan, Malaysia) where a fierce sea battle was fought. Sign up to vote on this title Useful Not useful The battle began in earnest the f ollowing day and ships engaged each other in a bloody fight. They began with heavy cannon fire to weaken the enemy and then boarded the ship for hand-tohand fighting. Unfortunately for the Dutch, the Nassau was caught at anchor and was boarded by
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failure. That first Dutch attack on Malacca failed for several reasons. The wind was against the Dutch ships, making it difficult to attack the enemy without getting entangled in close fighting for which the sailors were not well trained. The Dutch also failed to gain a firm footing on land outside Malacca and had insufficient m anpower to mount a frontal fr ontal attack on a cit y weakened by starvation. Had the Sultan of Johor helped the Dutch with his men and other resources, the outcome of this attack would have been different. The sea battle lifted the Dutch siege of Malacca, much to the great relief of its people. Little did they realise, though, that this had mer ely been a foretaste of what was to come in a little over three decades later.
The capture of Malacca
Malacca was of little use to the Portuguese after the spice trade and the command of the sea were lost but they hung on to the f ort stubbornly. Finally the Dutch decided to again try to capture the fortified city and again m ade an alliance with the Sultan of Johor. The Sultan was ready and eager to re-build the friendship of the Dutch when they came back and he committed greater resources to end the Portuguese rule in the Straits and agreed to join forces with the Dutch as well as Aceh to remove their common enemy.
The siege began in 1640 and it was a long and cruel six months before the Dutch and their allies captured the city at the beginning of 1641. The attack on the fort began in June 1640 by order of Antonio van Diemen, Governor General at Batavia and his Council, the Honours entrusting it to an experience and bold soldier Sergent Major Adrian Antonissoon. Unfortunately the brave Antonissoon was destined never to t aste the glory of the conquest of Malacca.
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. guns. At the end of July, Johor sent a fleet Sign up to vote on this title of 40 sails carrying about 1,500 m en and on 2nd August, Antonissoon having as many men again, partly Dutch, partly German, landed his combined forces north of Not useful (part of the Useful Tranquerah city north of the Fortress), 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
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were destroyed by this disease then by the hand of the enemy. By 1641, the stocks of provisions had run so low that cats, rats and meat of beast were consumed. Famine became so prevalent that it was reported that a mother killed her own child and after having kept it for two days, was drawn by pangs of hunger to eat it, to the consternation of all who had heard of it.
Women and children had been expelled from the Fortress. It is said that 7,000 persons died in th town and more fled in to the countryside so that the population which the Dutch estimated at 20,000 only 3,000 were left. One thousand five hundred Hollanders perished including thr ee successive commanders who fell victims to disease and the whole of the secret council have died also. Finally, the Dutch officers appointed Captain Minne Willemssoon Kaartekoe to the command. On 14th January 1641, after a day of public prayer, 650 men who were still healthy, soldiers with muskets and sailors with ladders advanced on the bastion S. Domingos of the A' Famosa, shouting their war cry, "Help us God". T he bastion S. Domingos f ell and then in succession, so did the other bastions and the indom itable A' Famosa was finally captured. Thus ending the 130 years of Portuguese rule of Malacca.
After this, the Dutch set about to rebuilt the Fortress and ruled Malacca for the next one hundred and sixty years - the longest of all it s colonial rule. From their new base in Malacca, the Dutch tried to control the trade passing through the Straits of Malacca and the export of tin from Malaya (the old name of Malaysia).
Dutch 'Malakka' The new European masters called t he place 'Malakka' but it was also popularly known then by the Dutch as "Slavenburg" (slave town) because of t he trade of slaves there. Administratively, Malacca was subject to the Hoge Regering (Supreme Government) in Batavia the seat of the VO C power in Asia, but it had its own dependencies which include Andragiri in Sumatra and the island of Riau (Bintan) located at the tip of the Malay peninsula.
The Dutch are said to have imposed a stifling monopoly on all indigenous commerce in the region Sign up to vote on this title during their rule of Malacca. This is believed to have adversely affected Malay traders but when contemporary historical records of the Dutch East India Company examined during recent Not useful Usefulwere researches, it shows a very differ ent picture, a picture of Malay traders trying to set up new trade centers in the Johor-Riau area to support Malay kingdoms. The Dutch rule of the 17th and 18th centuries have often been noted as a period of decline in the Malay archipelago. At least, t his is
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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 o 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.
Also, when tracing the demographic transformation of Malacca, it was shown that there was only a small number of Malay residents in Malacca under the Portuguese rule but numbers increased gradually after 1641, when the Dutch captured the city. Following this, t he first plural society in Malaysia came into existence with people from the Malay, Chinese, European and Eurasian communities mixing and living in harmony in Malacca.
End of the Dutch rule of Malacca
After about 160 years of Dutch rule, Malacca was handed over to the English and became part o the Straits Settlements. With the opening of the port at Singapore by the British, Melaka's economy fell into further decline.
In 1795 when the Batavian Republic was set up in the Netherlands under the aegis of France, authorities in British India decided on the conquest of most of the Dutch possessions in the East, including Malacca. On 26th August 1795 after only a token resistance, Malacca was captured by the combined English naval and military expedition under the j oint command of Captain Henry Newcome and Major Archibald Brown. T he English in the East India Com pany imposed a military garrison on the town. They appointed the Commandant of the garrison to act ex officio as Resident, but allowed the Dutch civil administration to continue more or less as before. Official records for the first period of British occupation (1795 - 1818) still continued to be kept in Dutch whereas after the permanent transfer to Great Britain (1825), they were written in English.
Malacca was made subject to the new Eastern Presidency of Penang in 1805. By the terms of th London convention of 1814, provision was made for handing back Malacca to the Netherlands Sign up toThe votere-imposition on this title of Dutch but the actual restoration only took place on 21st September 1818. Rule however was destined to be short-lived. A f urther treaty 17th March 1824 which effected Useful useful of Not an exchange of Dutch and British possessions in India and the East Indies, r e-assigned Malacca to Great Britain. Malacca was traded by the Dutch for Bencoolen (now Bengkulu, west coast of Sumatra). The British occupied Malacca at the beginning of April 1825 and the town was then
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are now completely painted red. Malacca's Dutch Square is now known by the common people as the Red Square.
Rumor has it that the old buildings at Malacca's Dutch Square were built using the bricks imported all the way from the Netherlands. It is said that the bricks were loaded in ships sailing fo Melaka and used for ballast. Upon reaching Melaka, they would unload the bricks to be used for the construction and replace them with merchandise for their return journey to the Netherlands. A this moment this has yet to be proven.
There are also residential homes at Heeren Street (now Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock) and Jonker Street (now Jalan Hang Jebat) that were built during the Dutch era, dating back between 350 and 200 years. Those streets form the Kampong Belanda, a Dutch quarter. Walk down these narrow streets in Malacca and not only you get a feeling of going back in time, but you can also find the Dutch influence on the architecture still faintly noticeable. Not only because of the un-Asiatic high doors, windows and rooms, but also because of their dimensions. The law in VOC times was tha real estate taxes should be paid according t o the width of the houses. So, very narrow houses were built, that were many meters long.
Climb up St. Paul's Hill in Malacca to the ruins of the St. Paul's Church and read the text on some of the Dutch tombstones there that stands between many others against the walls in the Church. One that stands out is the tombstone of Theodorus Van De Kerckhoven whose father was Jacob Kerckhoven - the 'Underfactor' in Malacca from 1660 to 1662. The translation is as follows, but it cannot do justice to the rhymed couplets of the inscription : "In his life he was his Father's and Mother's joy He loved his brother dearly One year less three days was this tender plant when God caused the soul to leave the body, and frequently after his internment people asked about him. On the 5th November, in the year sixteen hundred and six times ten was he borne to earth; in the Town of Malacca was the occurrence seen." The original Dutch text :
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