Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
British Malaya
In Peninsular Malaya, Britain's policy of 'trade, not territory' was challenged when trade
was disrupted by civil wars within the Malay sultanates of Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Pa-
hang and Perak. These wars were partly fought over the rights to collect export duties on
the tin at Klang. In 1874 the British started to take political control by appointing British
Residents in Perak and Selangor. The following year the same political expediency oc-
curred in Negeri Sembilan and Pahang.
The civil war laid waste to Kuala Lumpur but thanks to Yap Ah Loy it soon bounced
back: he reopened the shutdown tin mines and recruited thousands of miners to work them.
By the end of the 1870s KL was back in business and booming to such an extent that the
British were no longer content to leave its administration to the Kapitan Cina. In 1880, the
British Resident Bloomfield Douglas moved the state capital from Klang to Kuala Lumpur
and took up residence on the Bluff, the high ground west of the Klang River that flanked
what was then a vegetable garden for the Chinese and which would later become the Pa-
dang, a sports field for the British.
F Spencer Chapman's memoir
The Jungle is Neutral
relates the author's experience with a British guerrilla
force based in the Malaysian jungles during the Japanese occupation of Malaya and Singapore.
