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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 April 2011
Much of the history of the people of the Straits of Malacca in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is still unknown and perhaps unknowable, given the lack of source material. However, some aspects of political history are becoming clearer. It has become apparent that this period witnessed a fundamental change in the political structure of the area; able in the past to support empires and cultures of no small renown, the Malay world by the nineteenth century had disintegrated into a mass of petty states, leaderless and disorientated, a power vacuum that the British Empire was eventually forced to fill. Symptoms of this change first became discernable in the early eighteenth century, during the reign of the last Malay Raja Muda of the Johor Empire (1708–18). Johor was then still a powerful force in the Malay world, ruling a widespread area from Siak in Sumatra, through the coastal areas of the Malay peninsula (roughly, in modern terms, from Selangor south, then north again as far as Trengganu), plus the islands of the Riau–Lingga archipelago and Siantan. The sea was still a connecting, rather than a dividing force in Malay politics. In 1708 the administration of this empire fell to Tun Mahmud, who was to be the last Malay to hold the office of Raja Muda in Johor. He was by all accounts a remarkable ruler, under whose guidance Johor attained, for a while, great power and prestige.
The author wishes to thank Dr Virginia Matheson for her comments on this paper. An earlier draft was read to the 2nd New Zealand Conference on Asian Studies at Christchurch in May 1977.
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14 The Malay texts were written probably as examples for the future, and to record (or manufacture) the prowess of a dynasty. See Matheson, Virginia, “Concepts of Malay Ethos in Indigenous Malay Writings”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies X, 2 (Sept. 1979): 352–56Google Scholar; and Bottoms, J.C., “Malay Historical Works”, in Malaysian Historical Sources, ed. Tregonning, K.G. (Singapore, 1962), pp. 38–39Google Scholar.
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21 Hughes, “A Portuguese Account”, p. 111. Hughes notes that Winstedt had not previously known of this account.
22 Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor, p. 16. Many similar statements occur in the text.
23 Ibid., pp. 221–25.
24 Ibid., p. 226. “The eagerness of the Johor ruler to gain favour in Batavia reflected the growing threat to his kingdom from both external and internal enemies.”
25 Lewis, “The Dutch Bast India Company”, p. 125.
26 Ibid., pp. 126–30.
27 Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor, p. 191. This theme is repeated on p. 267: “Only during the large-scale Johorese betrayals … did he fully appreciate the deep wounds ….”Also p. 313: “Only in the betrayals … did the new ruling house realize….”
28 Ibid., pp. 153–58.
29 Meilink-Roelofsz, M.A.P., Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between 1500 and about 1630 (The Hague, 1962), pp. 40–45Google Scholar.
30 Wolters, O.W., The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1970), p. 39Google Scholar.
31 Ibid., p. 160.
32 Lewis, “The Dutch East India Company”, pp. 265 ff.
33 Ibid., p. 113.
34 Winstedt, “A History of Johore”, p. 47.
35 Kol. Arch. 1668, Governor Pieter Rooselaar's Report, 1709, p. 27.
36 Lewis, “The Dutch East India Company”, p. 114.
37 Ibid., p. 128. “These tactics brought about a shortage of rice in Malacca in 1714, for the supplies…usually brought from Java had gone to Riau. Malacca's burghers were forced to buy rice from the Johor port”.
38 Ibid., p. 124.
39 Ibid., p. 128.
40 Hamilton, A New Account, p. 53.
41 This is reminiscent of the policies pursued by Sultan Iskander Muda of Aceh, whose “objective appeared to be to draw as much as possible of the local trade into his own hands, so as to enjoy a monopolistic position towards foreigners”. (Reid, “Trade and the Problem of Royal Power in Aceh”, p. 51.)
42 Blagden, C.O., “Report of Governor Balthasar Bort on Malacca, 1678”, JMBRAS V, 1 (1927): 133Google Scholar.
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44 Batavia to Malacca, 25 Oct. 1710, p. 1354.
45 Kol. Arch. 1691, Generale Missiven, 30 Nov. 1711, p. 144.
46 Kol. Arch. 1706, Generale Missiven, 15 No.v. 1712, p. 137.
47 Kol. Arch. 1702, Malacca to Batavia, 9 Nov. 1711, pp. 42–43. Letter from the Raja Muda of Johor to Governor Moerman of Malacca.
48 Lewis, “The Dutch East India Company”, pp. 122–25.
49 Ibid., p. 125.
50 Kol. Arch. 1722, Generate Missiven, 26 Nov. 1713, p. 179.
51 E. Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak (Batavia, 1870), pp. xx-xxiii for a text of this treaty.
52 Kol. Arch. 1737, Generale Missiven, 26 Nov. 1714, p. 73.
53 Kol. Arch. 1746, Malacca to Batavia, 12 Mar. 1714, p. 117. Letter from the Raja Muda of Johor to Governor Moerman of Malacca.
54 Ibid., Malacca to Batavia, 8 Aug. 1714, p. 114.
55 Batavia to Malacca, 26 June 1714, pp. 533–36.
56 Ricklefs, M.C., Modern Javanese Historical Tradition (London, 1978), p. 7Google Scholar: “By 1685,… the cycle of increasing involvement in Java and the march towards bankruptcy had begun for the VOC.” Also, Batavia to Malacca, Secret Letter to Governor Moerman, 7 June 1715, p. 626.
57 Hughes, “A Portuguese Account”, p. 120. My emphasis.
58 Though it seems likely that the Bendahara family were parties to the derhaka, no actual evidence of this exists. The Malay works were all written after 1718, and all would be likely to blame them for the murder anyhow, to explain their failures of 1718, whether this were actually true or not.
59 Wolters, The Fall of Srivijaya, pp. 14, 97–98.
60 Milner, Anthony, “The Malay Raja: A Study of Malay Political Culture in East Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula in the Early Nineteenth Century”, Ph. D. thesis (Cornell University, 1977), p. 76Google Scholar.
61 Ibid., p. 70.
62 Reid, “Trade and the Problem of Royal Power in Aceh”, pp. 49–51.
63 Lewis, “The Dutch East India Company”, p. 117.
64 Hamilton, A New Account, p. 53, and Hughes, “A Portuguese Account”, pp. 120, 121, 133.
65 Brown, C.C., “Sejarah Melayu”, JMBRAS XV, 2 and 3 (1952): 59Google Scholar. Wolters comments (The Fall of Srivijaya, pp. 97–98) that “the Sejarah Melayu never reveals much interest in trade even in its description of Malacca”, but does emphasize the importance of wealth. Could it not be that the author was so well aware of the importance of trade that he took it for granted, and felt no need to make special mention of it?
66 Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor, p. 267.
67 Hughes, “A Portuguese Account”, p. 121.
68 Andaya gives the best exposition of this episode. See The Kingdom of Johor, pp. 230–36. But I feel he misses the point of the Raja Muda's fears of Dutch cooperation with the Bugis. Example, Andaya, p. 237: “The spectre of a Buginese attack with the assistance of the Dutch was a nightmare which plagued the leaders of Johor.”
69 Hamilton, A New Account, p. 41. He notes that Selangor was “little frequented by the Europeans, because they have too many of the Perah qualities (i.e., intractability and rebelliousness) to be trusted with honest men's lives and money”.
70 Lewis, “The Dutch East India Company”, pp. 142–49. The Bugis leaders promised that the VOC would have “all the tin of Linggi and Selangor”. Kol. Arch. 1787, Malacca to Batavia, 20 Aug. 1717, p. 56.
71 Lewis, “The Dutch East India Company”, p. 114.
72 Kol. Arch. 1853, Malacca to Batavia, 11 Mar. 1721, p. 69. Letter from Daeng Marewa to Gov. Van Suchtelen of Malacca.
73 Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor, p. 237.
74 Ibid., p. 286.
75 The evidence that Raja Kecil was Sultan Mahmud's son does not seem very strong. Winstedt doubts it (A History of Johor, p. 55).
76 Bassett, David, “European Influence in South-East Asia, 1500–1630”, Journal of Southeast Asian History IV, 2 (1963): 134Google Scholar.
