De Eredia’s 1604 map

One of the maps drawn by the Portuguese-Malayan explorer or descobridor, cartographer and mathematician Manoel Godinho de Eredia in his Declaracam de Malaca e India Meridional com o Cathay or Description of Melaka, Meridional India and Cathay is of the Straits of Singapore (Fig. 1). It is unlikely de Eredia visited Singapore, and it can be presumed that his map was drawn on the basis of information available to him from other sources.

The map, entitled “Chorographic description of the Straits of Sincapura and Sabban, 1604 A.D,” is oriented with Johor at the bottom of the map and Sumatra at the top. The map identifies a number of features on the east coast of “Sincapura”. The northernmost feature identified is Tanjong Rusa, south of which are Tanah Merah, Sungai Bedok, Tanjong Rhu and a “Xabandaria.” Tanjong Rusa refers to Changi Point today and may take its name from the shoals off its coast that were once known as Běting Kusah or Tanion Rusa as Eredia marked it in his map. Tanah Merah refers to red-orange weathered lateritic cliffs which once existed along this stretch of Singapore’s east coast (they have been levelled in recent times). They were a prominent landmark for navigators and pilots up to the end of the 19th century. They are marked as “Red cliffs” in James Horsburgh’s 1806 chart of “Singapore and Malacca.” Later sea charts distinguish between the “Red Cliffs” of Tanah Merah and Bedok. Other early maps of Singapore transcribed this old Malay place name as “Badok” in the vicinity of the “small red cliff.”

Tanjong Rhu takes its name from the Malay ru or ěru or aru for the casuarina trees (C. equisetifolia, Linn) that grew on the sandy shore. The area was known as “Sandy Point” to the early 19th-century British settlers.

The significance of Eredia’s map is its location of a “xabandaria” in the vicinity of Tanjong Rhu. The former Puisne Judge, Straits Settlements J. V. Mills, who was one of those colonial officials who were also scholars, translated and edited part of de Eredia’s report in 1930,^[1] but he failed to note this reference to “xabandaria” in his extensive comments on de Eredia’s report. The last British Director of the old Raffles Museum, the polymath C. A. Gibson-Hill, in his detailed but underappreciated study of the charts and maps of the waters around Singapore, verified de Eredia’s four place-names on the east coast of “Sincapura” but also did not comment on the reference to or significance of “xabandaria.”^[2]

A “xabandaria” is also located on a c. 1654 map of the Singapore and Melaka Straits and the Riau Archipelago by André Pereira dos Reis.

“Xabandaria”

“Xabandaria” is the Portuguese transcription of the Persian “Shahbandar,” literally, the “Lord of the Haven.” The maritime law code of Melaka, the Undang-Undang Melaka,^[3] states in its opening paragraph that:

[E]very king, must, in the first place, appoint a Chief Minister (Bendahara), second, a Police-Chief (Temenggung), third, a Treasurer (Penghulu Bendahari) and fourthly, a Harbour-master (Syahbandar), so both the ruler and his subjects can live in peace and security.

In appointing a shahbandar to administer trade in their harbours, the Melaka sultans were continuing a centuries-old institution that not only the Melaka sultans, but most other rulers of port cities in island Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean inherited from the Persian traders in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia from the middle of the 1st millennium of the current era into the 18th century, when Persian was the formal language of trade and governance in the Indian Ocean.^[4] The Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) records their traders having to negotiate with shahbandars for permission to trade at ports along the coast of Kalimantan, the north coast of Java, and in the eastern Indonesian islands.

The two maps and textual descriptions we have are imprecise on whether this “Shahbandaria” was located in the Singapore River or the Kallang estuary. This essay examines the chance recovery of some fragments of blue-and-white ceramic sherds recovered in the early 1970s to suggest that this thriving “haven” was more likely to be in the estuary of the Kallang River. The essay then attempts to connect the fragmentary ceramics and textual references to a shahbandar on Singapore to the archaeological evidence recovered from the Sungai Johor of a thriving economic zone under the Johor-Riau Sultans, as descendants of the Melaka sultans.

Blue and White Ceramics from the Kallang Estuary

A 7 February 1819 ‘Sketch of the Land round Singapore’ by hydrographers accompanying Stamford Raffles on his expedition to establish an East India company settlement at the southern end of the Straits of Melaka was archived in a British Admiralty file, ADM344. The sketch was found by historian Marcus Langdon during research on Pulau Pinang’s history in 2008 when the file was finally transferred to the National Archives, Kew, by the British Admiralty.^[5]

This sketch would be one of the earliest of Singapore’s waterfront, and its significance is that besides the “Village of Singapore” in the Singapore River, where Raffles met the Temenggong, there is also marked a “Ryat Village” around what would be the entrance to the Kallang estuary. “Ryat”, or ra’yat as transcribed today, would refer to an aboriginal village, in this instance, a village of sea nomads, possibly the Orang Biduanda Kallang, from whom the estuary takes its name. This reference to a “Ryat Village” indicates another centre of activity besides the Singapore River, and may explain why Tengku Hussein, after his recognition as Sultan by Raffles, located his istana near the mouth of the estuary to control the local trade into and out of the estuary, on which he could levy the traditional charges Malay rulers imposed on traders coming into their ports.

The Kallang estuary continued as a centre of trade and maritime activity, especially ship chandelling and repairs, into the second half of the 20th century, when the estuary was redeveloped for recreation. Dredging of the Kallang estuary in the late 1960s for the construction of the Benjamin Sheares Bridge brought up, entirely by chance, evidence of 17th-century trading in the estuary. The dredge operator, a Britisher named Geoffrey Ovens, was sufficiently sharp-eyed to notice unusual objects being dredged up from the riverbed. He stopped the dredge and picked up a large sack of blue and white ceramic sherds from the mud and called the National Museum to come and check the significance of what he was dredging up. As Ovens recounted to his Singapore friends, including the present writer, the Museum curators he spoke to expressed disinterest in checking what he was finding.

That bag of sherds was distributed among Ovens’ Singapore friends or eventually thrown away. Geoffrey Ovens took with him on leaving Singapore, a fairly intact pear-shaped vase and a large dish he had dredged up, which he prized. He willed that on his death, these two artefacts be donated to the National Museum, where they are now (Fig. 3, 4). Only nine sherds were kept by one of Ovens’ friends, Ms Lee Geok Boi, who was persuaded by the present writer to loan them to the Oral History Department and National Archives for an exhibition on “Singapore before Raffles” in early 1986. The exhibition was about the deep social memories of the Malay community captured in the oral history interviews conducted by the Oral History Department. These nine sherds were exhibited as supporting evidence for what the Oral History Department interviewees were recollecting in their social memories of the deep history of the Kallang Estuary. Lee has since donated these sherds to the National Museum, where they are exhibited in its gallery on Singaporean history.

A stylistic analysis of these sherds^[6] indicates that eight of the nine sherds are of dishes; the other is the base of a bowl. Two of the dishes are small, with diameters of 19cm and 21cm. The rest are larger, with diameters measuring 28cm. or more. The two smaller dishes have as their central decorative motif a series of cranes flying amid clouds. The decoration on the remaining seven sherds is similar, but not identical.

Five of these remaining seven sherds display a landscape scene in which two stylised rock outcrops, symbolising mountains, protrude from left and right into a body of water. A bridge, on which two men are admiring the landscape while crossing the stretch of water between the two rock outcrops, is in the foreground of the landscape. In the background are a sailboat, a pagoda and more mountains in the distance while clouds float above the landscape. The remaining sherd also has a similar landscape but without the bridge in the foreground.

Such landscape drawings on blue-and-white ceramics in the style of woodblock prints first appeared at the beginning of the 15th century and from there developed to become the dominant decorative theme in the “transitional porcelains” after the reign of the Wanli emperor.^[7] But where the landscapes of the “transitional porcelains” were inspired by specific scenes from classic novels such as Xixiang ji or the Sanguo,^[8] the earlier landscapes were more Daoist in inspiration. These landscape and narrative motifs were produced at Jingdezhen for a domestic market of literati-gentry and the rich merchants emulating their lifestyle.^[9] But declining imperial patronage in the final two reigns of the Ming dynasty forced the Jingdezhen kilns to look overseas, where they found a ready market in not only the South Seas,^[10] but further afield in West Asia. Blue and white ceramics formed a large portion of the collection amassed by Shah ‘Abbās of Persia, which he donated to the dynastic shrine at Ardebil in 1611.^[11]

These nine artefacts are now our only evidence that trade was conducted in the Kallang estuary in the early 17th century. These fragments we have most likely were derived from artefacts which cracked or broke during the journey from China and were thrown overboard while the vessel in which they came was anchored in the Kallang estuary to take on fresh water and other supplies. The recovery of these Wanli export ware sherds suggests that the 17th-century Shahbandar’s Office was more likely to be in the vicinity of the Kallang estuary than at the mouth of the Singapore River.^[12]

The Archaeology of the Sungai Johor

Sherds similar to the nine recovered from the Kallang estuary have been found in large quantities around Johor Lama and other sites occupied by the descendants of the Melaka sultans who moved up the Sungai Johor to establish a new sultanate.^[13] Some of these sherds were collected by teams from the old Raffles Museum led by anthropologist P. D. R. Williams-Hunt, archaeologist H. D Collins, and C. A. Gibson-Hill at Johor Lama and Kota Tinggi between 1948 and 1954. More sherds were collected during surveys of Johor Lama by geographer Paul Wheatley and Williams-Hunt and preliminary excavations in the fortified area of Johor Lama in August 1953 by archaeologist G. de G. Sieveking.^[14] These collections of largely blue-and-white ceramic sherds and earthenware fragments were deposited in the old Raffles Museum and are now in the care of the National Heritage Board’s Heritage Conservation Centre.

Among the artefacts recovered from the Sungai Johor site were beads which first attracted the attention of archaeologists and historians because a number of them appear to be of “Roman” origin. The debate has focused on whether these beads are indicators of contact between trading settlements along the Sungai Johor and Rome. G. B. Gardner, who recovered most of the beads, H G Quaritch Wales, and Roland Braddell have proposed the motion, while Gibson Hill and Alastair Lamb have opposed it.^[15]

Lamb, in his various studies of beads, worked toward the conclusion that the significance of the beads does not lie in whether they are indicators of Roman contact with the Malay Peninsula. That some of the 120 beads in Gardner’s collection of 600 beads may well have originated from the Mediterranean at the beginning of the Christian era is undeniable. Horace Beck,^[16] whom Gardner consulted on the identification of the beads he found, noted even earlier beads (one is a Hittite bead of steatite, which may be dated to 700 BCE and two are Phoenician glass beads) among the collection. Other beads were of relatively modern origin, identical to 17th-century Amsterdam-manufactured beads for the East Indies trade.^[17]

The point about the Johor beads is, as Lamb points out, their variety in comparison with the bead assemblages from Oc-èo, Kuala Selinsing, Takuapa, and Pengkalan Bujang. At these sites, polychromatic beads represent only 2 per cent of the total, but at Kota Tinggi, they represent at least 20 per cent. Furthermore, the bead assemblages from the former series of sites are broadly similar in that they comprise a small number of stone beads, carnelians, agates, rock crystal and so on, and a large number of glass beads classifiable into a fairly small number of categories. But at Kota Tinggi we have a whole range of beads, from the opaque red “mutisalah” beads (the standard trade bead of early Southeast Asia), alongside “Roman” beads and glass beads made by blowing and moulding techniques of late medieval and early modern European glass houses, techniques unrepresented in the manufacture of beads found in other Southeast Asian archaeological sites. Thus, we have a bead assemblage at Kota Tinggi spanning some 2,000 years in an archaeological stratum which also contains Ming export porcelains.

“All this rather suggests,” according to Lamb,^[18] that “the bead trade to or through Malaya in the 15th century began to acquire a complexity which it had not possessed in earlier times, a conclusion which agrees well with what is known of the great expansion of maritime trade in the Indian Ocean and the China Seas which was taking place at this time.”

After the beads, it has been the earthenware sherds which have attracted the attention of the archaeologists because the paddle-mark geometric designs on them resemble Han sherds from south China. Han Wai Toon proposed that they are evidence of pottery being imported from China at that time.^[19] Gibson-Hill has demolished this proposition as he did with the issue of “Roman” beads.^[20] That this paddle-marked decorated pottery is similar and may be related to pottery of the Han dynasty in south China is unquestioned. Pottery with similar geometric designs has been recovered from other trading sites in the region.

Kota Cina, for example, has provided a rich series of earthenware pottery designs very similar to those of Johor Lama and Kota Tinggi. Earthenware sherds recovered from Telok Nipah on Pulau Tioman display markedly similar patterns.^[21] The earthenware fragments recovered from Fort Canning also include similar paddle-marked designs. Solheim has pointed out that not only the patterns but also the rim forms of the Johor river earthenware sherds are similar to those found in Óc-Eo, some 1,000 years earlier, while Gibson-Hill has suggested that the Johor river earthenware pots may have come from Singgora and Patani which were reported to be still producing similar pottery at the end of the 19th century. The fact of the matter is that like the beads, we are dealing with an earthenware assemblage “covering,” in the words of Gibson-Hill, “the progress of a widespread industry over a long period of time.”^[22]

The significance of these earthenware sherds is, like the beads, not whether they are evidence of Han Chinese contact with Johor, but the massive amounts of them recovered from surface finds and excavations^[23] in the village of Johor Lama and in Kota Tinggi. This phenomenon of a massive amount of earthenware sherds is duplicated at Kota Cina. A cursory examination of these sherds shows that they vary considerably in the quality of workmanship, the paste used, the use of the paddle or stamp and the technique of tempering. These were probably not all of local manufacture; some were probably brought into Johor Lama from outside. Some were probably items of trade, whereas others were probably packaging for trade items such as foodstuffs.

Interspersed among the earthenware fragments which litter the area of Kota Batu (“Stone Fort”, mentioned in the Portuguese account of their storming and capture of the fortification in 1588; Macgregor) and its suburb, called corritao, are Ming/Qing blue and white export porcelain sherds. The same observation applies to the royal burial ground, Kampong Makam, and its surrounding defensive earthworks at Kota Tinggi. The situation appears to be very similar to the other trading sites in Southeast Asia from Óc Eo onwards. For example, at Pengkalan Bujang in Central Kedah and Takuapa, Alastair Lamb^[24] has collected from the surface a variety of beads, earthenware fragments and ceramics; while at Kota Cina, John Miksic and Edmund Edwards McKinnon collected a range of stoneware, porcelain, and earthenware sherds from the surface.^[25] In all these cases, the sherds may be, and have been, collected by the hundredweight. As with the earthenware sherds and the beads, the dominant question appears to be how far back into history the dating of the sherds can be pushed. Williams-Hunt’s unpublished 1953 report on the surface finds he collected in the Kampong Makam and Johor Lama areas identified reign marks (nien hao) ranging from the Xuande emperor (1426–35) to the Wan Li emperor (1573–1619) on some of the sherds.^[26]

Then University of Singapore History Department lecturer Colin Jack-Hinton in his 1963/64 work at Kampong Makam recovered a basal fragment of a porcelain vessel bearing the nien hao of Chenghua (1465–87) and argued that this is “conditional corroborative evidence of at least late 15th-century occupation and trade in ceramics” along the Johor River. He then went on to conclude that:

[T]he evidence of the existence of trading sites at Kampong Makam and Johore Lama for more than a century before they were occupied by the dispossessed Malacca Sultanate is considerable. We can therefore conclude that for some reason trade was attracted to these sites before the royal capitals whose rulers were anxious to re-establish the trade control which had been lost with Malacca, became established there themselves and began to attract trade on their own account.^[27]

Between 1998 and 2010, Asyaari Muhamad undertook a series of archaeological surveys and excavations with Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman and Kamaruddin Ab. Razak at Sayong Pinang, Pancur, and Johor Lama. They compiled a series of ten reports published by the Yayasan Warisan Johor (Johor Heritage Foundation). These reports are summarised by Asyaari bin Muhamad, who focuses on a quantitative analysis of the ceramic and earthenware sherds recovered.^[28] Asyaari reports finding a range of ceramics from the Song to the Ming and the Qing (the largest quantity), including smaller quantities of European, Thai, Vietnamese and Khmer ceramics. Specifically, the Chinese ceramics recovered range from Longquan celadons, which Asyaari dates to the Song, to Qingbai, Cizhou, and Ming wares from Xuande to Wanli and Kitchen Qing and Swatow wares brought in by the Teochew gambier planters from Singapore in the 19th century. Asyaari concludes from his analysis of the sherds he collected that the Sungai Johor and the Riau islands were a centre of trade before the 16th century, when it was assumed that Melaka was the dominant trading centre.^[29]

The Batu Aceh tombstones at Johor Lama and other settlement sites, especially at Sayong Pinang, complement the ceramic evidence of earlier 15th-century settlement along the Sungai Johor. A joint École française de l’Extrême-Orient and Yayasan Warisan Johor survey of these tombstones led by Daniel Perret and Kamaruddin Ab. Razak from 1996 to 1999^[30] identified 211 Batu Aceh tombstones from 36 sites, which can be classified into 16 categories. The epitaphs include the usual Quranic inscriptions, without any names of the deceased or dates, except one. This is a tombstone in Sayong Pinang, which is the grave of “the grandmother of the late Lord Mansur” who died in 1453 CE.

Two conclusions emerge from the archaeological evidence summarised in the preceding paragraphs. The first is that there was a thriving riverine trade along the Sungai Johor from possibly the mid-15th century. Alauddin Ri’ayat Shah, son of Sultan Mahmud, who abandoned Melaka to the Portuguese, was not moving into a backwater when he established himself at Sayong Pinang on the upper reaches of the Sungai Johor. He was instead moving upstream to a confluence of the Sungai Johor with its tributaries to try to control the downstream trade of forest products to the regional markets.^[31] The dynamics of this downstream or hilir relations of Alauddin Ri’ayat Shah and his successors with the upstream or hulu communities is similar to the upstream (hulu) -downstream (hilir) apposition on the major river systems on the east coast of Sumatra (the Rokan, Siak, Inderagiri, Kampar, Batang Hari and Musi) and the west coast of the Malay peninsula where riverine states emerged.^[32] Melaka was not only an entrepot for the regional trade, but also the hilir centre for the forest products from its upstream hulu in Pahang.

A map of the Malay Peninsula by de Eredia in the now-lost Atlas Miscelaneo, c. 1615–22 (discussed by Peter Borschberg in his paper for this volume) maps a network of overland trails linking Melaka to its upstream hinterland, along which forest products for export would have moved. A grainy photographic reproduction of this unique economic map of the peninsula is included in reprints of Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica. It also shows a network of overland trails running along the east coast of the peninsula from Phatthalung at the north to the headwaters of the Sungai Johor. The Sungai Johor was therefore not only the trade and transport route for the forest products of its upstream hulu, but via these overland trails, capturing the trade in forest products of Pahang and possibly further north, in Terengganu.

The second conclusion is the emergence of a dendritic settlement pattern along the Sungai Johor as the Johor sultans were forced to shift their capitals in response to Portuguese and Acehnese attacks. The Portuguese attacked Alauddin at his new settlement in 1535, in retaliation for his attacks on Melaka. Alauddin was forced to relocate to a new settlement downstream at a location we know today as Johor Lama in around 1540, where archaeological evidence indicates there was an earlier trading settlement. In relocating to Johor Lama, Alauddin was able to mobilise expertise and a large workforce to design and build a solid fort at Johor Lama, as the archaeological excavations confirm.^[33] Continuing rivalry between Johor and Aceh to be the premier Straits of Melaka emporium led the Acehnese to attack Johor Lama in 1564 and take Alauddin and his family prisoner. Alauddin’s son Muzaffar was returned to Johor as the new Sultan. He established himself at a new capital at Bukit Seluyut, upstream of Johor Lama. His successor, Ali Jalla Abdul Jalil Shah moved his capital back to Johor Lama around 1573. Johor-Portuguese rivalry led the Portuguese to sack Johor Lama in 1576 and 1587. Ali Jalla abandoned Johor Lama and moved his capital upstream to Batu Sawar, which remained the capital of the Johor sultans until 1673, except for a break between 1617 and 1618, when Batu Sawar was sacked by the Acehnese; the Johor sultans were peripatetic until 1640. Batu Sawar remained the capital for the next 30 or so years until it was sacked by Jambi in 1673, forcing the Johor sultans to relocate to Tanjong Pinang on Bintan. They returned to Kota Tinggi around 1680. Kota Tinggi was abandoned after the fateful regicide of 1699, and the capital moved downstream to Panchor, which the stranger-king from Siak, Raja Kecik, attacked in 1718.

In summary, Sayong Pinang was the earliest settlement of the Johor Sultans on the upper reaches of the Sungai Johor, and Panchor the last, before they decamped to Tanjong Pinang on Bintan. Batu Sawar emerges as the longest and most significant settlement on the Sungai Johor. Peter Borschberg has collated the Portuguese and Dutch references to Batu Sawar as a regional centre of trade during the period c. 1587–1612/13.^[34]

The harbour in the Kallang estuary under the control of a Shahbandar appointed by the Sultans of Johor from their peripatetic capitals along the Sungai Johor would have played a critical role in this dendritic settlement pattern. The Shahbandar would have been the gatekeeper to the Sungai Johor and the representative of the Johor Sultan whom traders met before they proceeded to Batu Sawar or wherever the capital happened to be located. The journals of Dutch East India Company Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge refer to the Admiral meeting in the waters of Singapore on 6 May 1606, the Shahbandar of Singapore, a Seri Raja Negara, who claimed to represent the Sultan of Johor resident up the Johor River at Batu Sawar.^[35]

Conclusion

The Flemish trader Jacques de Coutre left his hometown of Bruges to join his elder brother in Lisbon, where they both decided to seek their fortunes in Goa. From Goa, Jacques, aged 21 years, journeyed on to Melaka, arriving in September 1593. In March 1594, he sailed through the Old Straits of Singapore on his first trading voyage to Pahang. De Coutre records in his autobiography that “we anchored in front of a place which is called Shabandaria, inhabited by Malays, subjects of the king of Johor, to whom the saletes [the sea nomads or orang laut/selat] who sail in the straits also pay tribute.”

De Coutre spent the next decade travelling and trading at Ayutthaya, Manila, Patani and Batu Sawar before returning to Goa, where he worked from for the next 25 or so years before returning to Spain. Part of his time in Goa was spent writing his autobiography^[36] and a series of memorials and petitions to the crowns of Spain and Portugal on developing Portuguese trade and policies in the East Indies. The third of a series of four Memorials provides “Information about building some castles and fortresses in the Straits of Singapore and other regions of the South etc. De Coutre recommended the Spanish/Portuguese crown build two fortress or citadels on the Isla de la Sabandaria Vieja and “become the lord of this port, which is one of the best that serves the [East] Indies.” When was this Shabandaria, which de Coutre anchored in front of in March 1594, established, and later thought to be one of the best in the East Indies?

The Shabandaria on Singapore might have been established as early as about 1540 when Sultan Alauddin Ri’ayat Shah re-established himself at Johor Lama and decided he needed a Shahbandar at the entrance to the Sungai Johor to supervise the growing trade along the river. Alternatively, the Shahbandar might have been appointed to coordinate and regulate trade on the Sungai Johor after Johor Lama was disrupted by Acehnese attacks in 1564 and earlier, in 1551. The Portuguese attack on Johor Lama in 1587 forced Sultan Ali Jalla Abdul Jalil Shah to move upstream to Batu Sawar and he probably appointed a Shahbandar to represent him further downstream on Singapore.

The shahbandar whom Cornelis Matelieff de Jong met on 6 May 1606 was, however, more than a harbour master supervising trade. He was the Sri Raja Negara, a warrior or hulubalang besar of the Sultan who commanded the orang laut forces of the Sultan. It would make sense for the Sri Raja Negara to be based in the Kallang estuary, home of one of the communities of orang laut. The Kallang estuary would have been a mobilisation centre for the Sri Raja Negara to rally the orang laut forces to defend their sultan when he was threatened.^[37] The Shahbandar’s harbour would also have served as an early warning station for invading Acehnese or Portuguese forces.

The “shabandaria” on Singapore was still functioning as marked in the c.1654 map of the Singapore and Melaka Straits and the Riau Archipelago by André Pereira dos Reis. But it may not have survived much longer after the 1673 Jambi attack on Batu Sawar, after which the Johor sultans moved to Tanjong Pinang on Bintan Island. The shabandaria in the Kallang estuary would have become irrelevant once Tanjong Pinang emerged as the centre of political power and trade in the 18th century. The country trader Alexander Hamilton made no mention of a Shahbandar on his travels to Kota Tinggi at the beginning of the 18th century. He recorded that:

[I]n Anno 1703 I called at Johore on my Way to China, and he (the recently elected Bendahara Sultan Abdul Jalil) treated me very kindly, and made me a present of the island of Singapura, but I told him it could be of no Use to a private person tho’ a proper Place for a Company to settle a Colony on, lying in the Centre of Trade…

It was left to Stamford Raffles to re-discover that Singapore “was a proper Place for a Company to settle a Colony,” and Tengku Hussein, whom Raffles recognised as Sultan, to establish himself at Kampong Gelam and attempt to revive the Kallang estuary as a centre of trade for local trade.

Bibliography