Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
22
Impressions
If no untimely fate awaits it, Singapore promises to become the emporium and pride
of the East.
-Sir Stamford Raffles, 1823
EARLY IMMIGRANT
COMMUNITIES
Singapore's first 40 y ears were filled with
all the magic of an oriental trading por t.
Chinese coolie laborers came to Singapore
in droves to escape economic har dship at
home. Most were from one of four major
dialect gr oups: H okkien, Teochew, Can-
tonese, and H akka, all fr om southern
China. Living in cr owded bunks in the
buildings that sprang up behind the go-
downs, or war ehouses, these immigrants
formed secret societies, social and political
organizations made up of r esidents who
shared similar ancestr y or Chinese home-
towns. These clan gr oups helped ne w
arrivals get settled and find work, and car-
ried money and messages back to workers'
families in China. B ut it was the secr
by Raffles's o wn dr eam of fr ee trade and
Farquhar's skill at or derly administration.
The population had gr own to mor e than
11,000—Malays, Chinese, B ugis (fr om
Celebes in I ndonesia), I ndians, Arabs,
Armenians, E uropeans, and E urasians.
The haphazar d sprawl convinced Raffles
to draft the Town Plan of 1822, assigning
specific neighborhoods to the many ethnic
groups that had settled. These ethnic
enclaves r emain much the same today—
Singapore's Chinatown, the administrative
center or H istoric D istrict, Kampong
Glam, and other neighborhoods ar e still
the ethnic centers they originally w ere (of
course, with many modern alterations).
This would be the last trip Raffles
would make to the island that cr edits him
with its founding. H is visit in 1822 was
merely a stop on his way back to London
to r etire. Raffles had big plans for his
career with the East I ndia Company but
never witnessed any of his ambitions come
to fruition. In 1826 he died before he was
even recognized for the r ole he play ed in
the expansion of the B ritish E mpire—he
died penniless. H e r emains, ho wever, a
hero to modern-day Singaporeans.
In 1824, the D utch finally signed a
treaty with B ritain ackno wledging S inga-
pore as a permanent B ritish possession,
and S ultan H ussein of J ohor ceded the
island to the East India Trading Company
in perpetuity. Three years later, Singapore
was incorporated, along with Malacca and
Penang, to form the S traits S ettlements.
Penang was ackno wledged as the settle-
ments' seat of go vernment, with direction
from the Presidency of Bengal in India.
2
et
societies' other contribution—to gam-
bling, str eet crime, and violence—that
helped fuel S ingapore's image as a lawless
boomtown, filled with all the ex citement
and danger of a frontier town in America's
Wild West. S urrounded b y boundless
opportunity, many Chinese immigrants
found gr eat success, building for tunes as
businessmen and traders.
Indians w ere quick to become S inga-
pore's second-largest community . M ost
were traders or labor ers, but many others
were tr oops carried with the B rits. M ost
came fr om southern I ndia, fr om the
mainly Tamil-speaking population, includ-
ing the Chettiars, M uslim moneylenders
who financed the building of several places
of worship in the early neighborhoods.
After 1825, the British turned over posses-
sion of B encoolen on S umatra to the
Dutch, transferring the thousands of
