Ep. 351 | The History of Singapore (Part 3)

The China History Podcast

Laszlo Montgomery

Places & Travel, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With Singapore formally established, we look at those first months and years. As soon as the document was signed, Raffles left the island and William Farquhar took over as First Resident. It would be hard to find a more capable person to manage what needed to get the new enterprise up and running. Taking advantage of his personal connections in Melaka and the political and technological dynamic of the time, Farquhar got the ball rolling in Singapore. The Dutch were outraged and plenty of fancy footwork and smooth talking needed to be done to avert a war. Singapore became an overnight sensation in the region. Many traders were attracted to Duty-Free trade. This was one reason the British East India Company wasn't willing to give in to the Dutch so fast. William Farquhar kept it all together and rose to the occasion at this most early period of Singapore's second incarnation. We'll look at the eyebrow-raising measures he took to turn on the government revenue taps and how this will all lead to his undoing. We also look at Farquhar's successor as First Resident, John Crawfurd. How he outfoxed The Temenggong Abdul Rahman and the Sultan Hussein Shah is also presented. We close with immigrants coming to Singapore in droves, soon outnumbering the local Malay populace. After peace with the Dutch was achieved in 1824, it was full speed ahead for Singapore. Four local entrepreneurs who also served as early community leaders are also introduced. These are Tan Tock Seng 陈笃生， Seah Eu Chin 佘有进, Naraina Pillai, and Syed Omar Al-Juneid. You can support my work by subscribing to my Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/TheChinaHistoryPodcast Thank you for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, Lhasla Montgomery here, this is the China History Podcast.
0:04.5	Thanks for giving my little CHP overview of the history of Singapore a chance for a third time.
0:11.0	My Singaporean Patreon subscribers who heard this episode months ago have so far given it there
0:17.0	tacit approval. I hope you're all enjoying the show so far.
0:21.0	We made it to Singapore's founding last time at the end of part 2.
0:26.2	January 30th, 1819, a preliminary agreement was signed between raffles and the Taman Gong
0:32.4	Abdul Raman.
0:34.0	Then a week later another agreement was signed between the same parties
0:38.0	plus the Sultan of Singapore, Hussein Shah.
0:41.0	And that was on February 6th, 1819. The terms were very narrow and it was not a permanent
0:48.9	settlement and no political authority was granted, let alone sovereignty.
0:54.4	And the next day after the signing of this treaty of Singapore,
0:58.2	Raffles abruptly departed, sailing back to Ben Kulin and Sumatra, where he was still serving as lieutenant governor.
1:05.5	He had chosen to name the place Singapore, but for reasons we can only guess the colonial authorities
1:15.0	settled on Singapore instead. And as we saw, Raffles left William Farquhar in quite a bind.
1:20.0	He had to get Singapore up and running and do it without any funding from the EIC.
1:25.0	Other than the primo location at the bottom of the Malacca Strait and being a free port,
1:31.0	which further exacerbated his funding dilemma, Farquhart didn't have much to work with.
1:37.0	There were also no natural resources to exploit, but the presence of EIC armed vessels in the vicinity of the port
1:45.0	did help keep piracy at bay, and this was always a big plus for any merchant sea captain.
1:51.0	What William Farquhar had in his favor was his reputation and the esteem of the
1:56.5	Malacca merchant community who had come to know him during his period serving there.
	...

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