Nineteenth-Century Singapore Research Articles

The colonial city in motion: managing ethnic diversity through public processions in Singapore and Batavia, 1840-1870

ABSTRACT This paper examines attempts by colonial authorities in nineteenth-century Singapore and Batavia (now Jakarta) to employ ceremonial processions to manage the ethnic diversity of these two major colonial capitals. Public spectacles formed a key forum for the reinforcement of ethnic categories and the negotiation of inter-community relations in the context of the colonial city. The paper looks at two case studies: the procession on the occasion of the arrival of governor-general Jan Jacob Rochussen in Batavia in 1845, and a second one celebrating the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit in Singapore in 1869. The analysis shows how these events attempted to fix ethnic categories spatially on the maps of the respective cities. Comparing the two events to a Malay account of the 1864 Muharram celebrations, the article also analyses the different ways that official and community-led processions employed mobility, visuality and sound to represent ethnicity and inter-community relations or hierarchies.

Miracles and Madness

This article analyzes the hagiographies, poems, oral traditions and miracle stories of an Islamic miracle worker (keramat) buried in Singapore named Sayyid Nuh ibn Muhd al-Habshi (ca.1788–1866). In his physical lifetime and beyond, he was described as a wandering ecstatic who adored children and burgled businesses, yet attained a reputation as “prophet” and keramat by performing miracles, healing the incurable and flying in and out of prisons and across the Indian Ocean. With appreciation for the historicity embedded in miracle stories, this article examines the Tamil devotional poems and songs, and the Malay hagiographies and oral traditions that commemorate this keramat. Attention is also paid to the historical concerns of his hagiographers, many of whom attempted to appeal to audiences informed by secularism, rationalism and “Wahhabism” by writing Islamic histories about this “Arab” Sufi master and the Sufi networks that operated in the Southeast Asian port city of Singapore at a time when it was dominated by western power. This article is thus concerned as much with the storytellers as with the miracle workers and members of devotional communities in nineteenth-century Singapore, all of whom are susceptible to being forgotten in academic historiography. By drawing upon ethnographies and newspaper reports about this prophet, saint, felon and “madman,” and discussing his mausoleum, which has remained intact in the face of war, colonialism and post-colonial infrastructural development, the article argues that the story of Sayyid Nuh is a history of Singapore Islam. A history that is interwoven with histories of the Indian Ocean, maritime Sufism, colonialism, capitalism and structural inequalities that were temporarily overcome by miracles. This is moreover a story of miraculous narratives, devotional cultures, social memories and sacral places that are often pushed to the margins of religious studies but refuse to “fade into folkloric oblivion.”

Background figures in a British portrait: the Johor royal family in nineteenth-century Singapore

Between 1819 and 1824, British authorities claimed Singapore as a British colony through a series of treaties negotiated with two local Malay aristocrats. The family line of one of these aristocrats lost its wealth, property and power over the following decades, but the other stayed active in Singapore’s affairs and became so wealthy and important that it was later recognised by Britain as a new royal family, albeit of the neighbouring state of Johor rather than of Singapore. Members of this family have always featured in histories of Johor and Malaysia, but Singapore’s national histories have dismissed them as supporting cast, living off British largesse. Yet contrary to Singapore’s national mythology, three generations of the Johor royal family exercised full and proactive agency in their dealings with the British as the colonisers of Singapore, and their timely initiatives provided some of the key ingredients that made the Singapore colonial enterprise a success. This article offers a critique of Singapore’s historiography as found in both scholarly histories and in school history textbooks, focusing on the peculiar absence of the Johor royal family from the standard narrative. In the process, it offers a revised version of the story of Singapore’s economic development in the nineteenth century.

Tuberculosis — The Singapore Experience, 1867–2018: Disease, Society and the State by Kah Seng Loh and Li Yang Hsu

Reviewed by: Tuberculosis — The Singapore Experience, 1867–2018: Disease, Society and the State by Kah Seng Loh and Li Yang Hsu Por Heong Hong Tuberculosis — The Singapore Experience, 1867–2018: Disease, Society and the State, by Kah Seng Loh and Li Yang Hsu, New York, Routledge, 2020, 169 pp. ISBN 9780367354534 Diseases rarely become a subject of historical studies in the region. This book is no doubt an important contribution, not only to the general historical studies of Singapore and Malaya, but also to the historical studies of diseases in the region. More importantly, unlike past historical studies of diseases, which were largely dominated by physicians, this book on tuberculosis in Singapore is co-written by a social historian, Loh Kah Seng, and an infectious disease physician, Hsu Li Yang. As the title of the book suggests, it is not a medical history of tuberculosis. On the contrary, it is a social and political history of the disease, which places the activities and views of various historical actors, including physicians, politicians, activists of NGOs, patients, Asians and Europeans, elites and working class, under the analytical gaze of the two authors. In short, this is a history of disease that goes ‘beyond hospitals and doctors’ (p. 155). Drawing predominantly from colonial documents, and a small number of oral histories and personal memories, the book is divided into nine chapters including the introduction and conclusion. The narratives of the book flow chronologically to chart the social construction of tuberculosis from colonial to post-colonial era. Covering a period of over one and a half centuries, Singapore’s history of tuberculosis is periodised into different themes, reflected in the title of each chapter. On the outset, the authors conceptualize tuberculosis as ‘a social and intellectual construct and a political battlefield’ (p. 2). They contextualize the disease by situating it against the background of several social forces and trends, such as colonialism, migration, and transnational flow of ideas of sanitation and evolutionary theories during colonial era, the drive of decolonization during post-war years, and the desire of nation building after independence. Urban housing, conceived a cause as well as a solution to the spread of tuberculosis, is an issue of concern that cuts across all three eras. The dynamics between the metropole and the colony, between elites of different ideologies in the colonial administration, and between people at the giving and the receiving ends of social engineering, jointly shaped the evolution and the treatment of the disease. Starting from the nineteenth century Singapore, tuberculosis was closely linked to pauperism and the development of pauper hospitals, which the colonial elites had little interest in. Not until twentieth century did the disease gain more colonial administrator’s attention, a timing when the medical and social meanings of the same disease had already been transformed, from a ‘glamorous hereditary affliction of beautiful and creative elites” to a ‘vile, contagious, and stigmatizing disease of the poor and the filthy’, in the West (Snowden 2019, 292). Hence, the [End Page 231] romantic metaphor of the ‘consumptive look’ of tuberculosis sufferers as a mark of social standing and power of creativity, a social construct prevailing in the mid nineteenth century West during the pre-contagionism era, never took hold of the colony. Like its counterpart in the twentieth century West, tuberculosis in Singapore was associated not only with poverty, but also with immigrants. Similarly in both the West as well as in Singapore, the spread of tuberculosis coincided with the large influx of immigrants and rapid urbanization. While poor Irish and Italian immigrants were over represented among TB victims in New York, poor Chinese immigrants in overcrowded urban housing were the most afflicted ethnic group in Singapore. What was the colonial policy then? The Sanitary Condition of Singapore (1907), a report written by WJR Simpson, a physician who inspected Singapore’s shophouses in 1906, was a paradigm shift that shaped not only colonial policy on tuberculosis, but also that on urban housing. The report eventually became a template for today’s state built public housing in Singapore. Simpson’s suggestion was in line with comparable practices in the metropole, which viewed environmental deterioration and congested dwellings in urban space...

Architectures of the invisible hand: envisioning capital in Joseph Conrad’s Singapore

ABSTRACTIn recent years, critical attention has shifted away from the subject of Conrad’s imperial politics and towards his representation of late nineteenth-century global capitalism, which extends panoramically from the business houses of London, Brussels and San Francisco to commodity frontiers as diverse as Malay tobacco plantations, African ivory lands and Latin American silver mines. This paper explores Conrad’s engagement with capitalism and its representability within his portrait of late nineteenth-century Singapore in the wake of a financial crisis. Drawing on Susan Buck-Morss’s ‘Envisioning Capital’, as well as Fredric Jameson’s essay on architecture and finance, ‘The Brick and the Balloon’, the paper reads Conrad’s proto-postmodern urban landscape and porous, ethereal architecture as evidence of the visual and representational difficulties generated within a major colonial ‘laboratory’ of liberal economics. Yet, by shifting in focus from the city to its outlying plantations, Conrad is seen to confront abstract capital with territory, ether with matter, and free-market narratives of the ‘invisible hand’ with the absent cause of racialized and indentured plantation labour.

Three French Accounts of Nineteenth-century Singapore and Penang

Three French Accounts of Nineteenth-century Singapore and Penang Colin Dyer (bio) Keywords Penang, Singapore, Malacca, French in Southeast Asia, Auguste Vaillant, Penang, J.W. Salmond, Straits Settlements, Malaya, Henri de Ponchalon, Whampoa, Paul Doumer [End Page 97] Penang in 1837, as seen by the French explorer Captain Auguste Vaillant Colin Dyer (bio) Abstract The French Captain Auguste Vaillant arrived in the Straits of Malacca in February, 1837, in the corvette La Bonite. He called briefly in Malacca, where he was received by the Resident-Councillor, Samuel Garling, and arrived in Penang on 3 March. His account describes Penang's strategic position, its population and the effect of Singapore's development on its trade. During his visit, he visited the Resident-Councillor, J. W. Salmond, who famously performed his duties from a house on Penang Hill. He also met French missionaries and saw their establishments for the young and the elderly. On 6 March, after inviting Georgetown's authorities aboard his ship to bid them farewell, he set sail for India. Introduction This article presents an original and integral translation of a document that may be useful to others in their research. Auguste Vaillant was 44 years of age when he arrived in Penang. He had joined the French Navy at an early age, and had served during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1836, he was given command of a circumglobal expedition and, on 6 February of that year, set out from Toulon in the 800-ton corvette La Bonite. His formal instructions were set out in a letter from the Minister for the Navy, the Baron Duperré, dated 28 December 1836, and they specifically mentioned Penang. After leaving Toulon he was to visit the Canary Islands and then Rio de Janeiro before going around Cape Horn and arriving in Valparaiso. From there he was to go to Peru and from there cross the Pacific to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), then to the Philippines and Macao before arriving in Vietnam. From Vietnam he was to sail to Singapore at the southern end of the Malacca Strait. [End Page 98] "As you go along the Malacca Strait", Duperré had written, "you will stop, if the occasion presents itself, either at Malacca, or especially at the beautiful English settlement of Pulo Penang [sic]". Here, as elsewhere, he was to "show the flag of the King [Louis-Philippe]", which was to "be seen everywhere as a friendly flag", but Duperré added "It is important that our nation should appear everywhere as being strong and powerful".1 On the morning of 23 February 1837 (just over a year after leaving France), that La Bonite arrived "in sight of Malacca and its white houses", and "cast anchor in the harbour". "Of its former splendour", Vaillant would note later, "there remain nothing but ruins and pieces of wall from the fortifications where the inhabitants withstood so many sieges against the Malay sultans". Nonetheless, he added, "the population of Malacca is still ten thousand souls, made up of Malays, Chinese and mixed bloods, There is a garrison with four hundred sepoys, but the only whites living here are the officers of the troops and the administration employees, that is to say a Resident-Councillor, a deputy-Resident and a few minor agents". While in Malacca Vaillant was invited to dinner by the Resident-Councillor, Mr Garling, who was happy "to arrange everything" for his visitors before inviting them to a "charmante soirée dansante" the following day. Then, "on 26 February at daybreak", Vaillant set sail for Penang.2 On 3 March, the travellers ("after having admired, while sailing along the coast, the fresh countryside of Pulo-Pinang [sic] and the pretty sight of its numerous Malay villages") arrived in front of "Georges-Town [sic]", and dropped anchor a mile and a half from Fort Cornwallis".3 The extract from Vaillant's journal here begins at volume three, chapter 32, p. 326. On his return to France, Vaillant himself did not write up his journal, but left this to "A. De Lasalle" [sic],4 a clerk employed by the naval ministry, who wrote "from various documents put at his disposal".5 For this reason, Vaillant is referred to...

The Origins and Development of Athletics Among the Military, European and Migrant Communities in Nineteenth-Century Singapore, 1819–1899

There is no detailed study about the origins of athletics in nineteenth-century Singapore. This research relied primarily on newspaper records, official census reports, club membership and school enrolment to study the origins and degree of participation in athletics in the military, European, Eurasian, Chinese, Malay and Indian communities. It also makes comparison to the diffusion and transmission of athletics within the global and the various local communities. The findings suggest that a ‘foot-race’ was first introduced primarily to the Malay and Chinese community in the annual New Year regatta since 1837. Athletic events were held by the troops at Tanglin Barracks and Fort Canning in 1877 following the practice and tradition of the military colleges and camps in England. The athletic meets were also organised by the European, Eurasian, Straits Chinese, Malay and Tamil sports clubs starting in 1880 thereafter. It was introduced to three English boys' schools since 1887 after the establishment of the Education Department in 1872 and the organisation of Government and aided English schools. There were no physical education or athletic programme in the English girls' schools and in the elementary Malay, Chinese and Anglo-Tamil schools.

A Select Bibliography of Chinese Sources for Nineteenth-Century Singapore. David K. Y. Chng

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsA Select Bibliography of Chinese Sources for Nineteenth-Century Singapore. David K. Y. ChngLee-hsia TingLee-hsia Ting Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Library Quarterly Volume 59, Number 1Jan., 1989 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/602097 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1989 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Ethnic Boundaries and Structural Differentiation: An Anthropological Analysis of the Straits Chinese in Nineteenth Century Singapore

It has been said that, though a solemn oath is made in a day, it lasts through a thousand years, even as the stream and the banyan tree. The Ancients regarded an oath as a thing that is binding by its sincerity and its righteousness, and usually considered that plighted words once uttered make the heavens tremble and the earth shake. Therefore, in the midst of tribulation and of wealth and prosperity, their purpose remains unchanged. For this reason, succeeding generations earnestly desire to imitate them.

The Rise of Singapore's Great Opium Syndicate, 1840–86

This study aims to reconstruct a neglected chapter in the history of the Singapore Chinese. The opium farm, which was the monopoly for the manufacture and sale of chandu, or smokeable opium, was one of the primary Chinese-dominated economic institutions of nineteenth-century Singapore. A study of the farm provides the historian with an institutional focus which can increase our understanding of the history of the Chinese community in Singapore during its formative years.

Subcommunal Participation and Leadership Cohesiveness of the Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Singapore

AbstractUsing reproduced inscription data the present study examines two social facets of the Chinese in nineteenth-century Singapore. The first facet pertains to group participation (economic and social) and it was found that the average amount of donations made by the Hokkiens to their subcommunal organizations was much higher than that given by the Cantonese and Hakkas.On the other hand, more Cantonese and Hakka people contributed to their subcommunal organizations. The interplay of differential economic status and organizational objectives is heuristic in explaining this discrepancy.

Subcommunal Participation and Leadership Cohesiveness of the Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Singapore

AbstractUsing reproduced inscription data the present study examines two social facets of the Chinese in nineteenth-century Singapore. The first facet pertains to group participation (economic and social) and it was found that the average amount of donations made by the Hokkiens to their subcommunal organizations was much higher than that given by the Cantonese and Hakkas.On the other hand, more Cantonese and Hakka people contributed to their subcommunal organizations. The interplay of differential economic status and organizational objectives is heuristic in explaining this discrepancy.The second facet is about leadership cohesiveness of the respective subcommunal leaders, and it is derived from percentage of deviant donors which comprises mean percentage of non donors and of cross line donors. The findings show that the Hakka subcommunal leaders were least cohesive, while those of the Chang-Ch'uan Hokkiens most among the four dialect groups being studied. Differential exposure to secret society influence is given as an important explanatory factor. Nepotism prevailing at the leadership hierarchy is also suggested as a crucial factor.

Rigidity of System Boundary among Major Chinese Dialect Groups in Nineteenth-Century Singapore: A Study of Inscription Data

ABSTRACTThe study attempts to delineate the degree of system rigidity of three major dialect groups, namely, the Cantonese, the Hakkas and the Hokkiens. The principal source of data is derived from inscriptions collected by Chen and Tan (1972). The findings reveal that at the individual level the system boundary of the Hokkiens was more rigid than that of the Cantonese and the Hakkas. This confirms earlier observations made at the organizational level.Earlier observations dictate that after 1854 the Cantonese and the Hakkas were, at the organizational level, not on good terms. This was, however, not the case at the individual level. We also found that the system boundary of religious organizations, i.e., temples and burial ground bodies, was least rigid.

The Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Singapore

The Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Singapore

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:MATTERS FOR JUDGMENT: An Autobiography. By John Kerr. (Melbourne: Macmillan of Australia, 1978). Pp. xii + 468. $14.95. THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER. By Gough WhitlamPUBLIC SERVICE INQUIRIES IN AUSTRALIA. Edited by R.F.I. Smith and Patrick Weller.POLITICS AND POLICY IN AUSTRALIA. By Geoffrey Hawker, R.F.I. Smith, and Patrick Weller.COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AND COMPULSORY ARBITRATION IN AUSTRALIA. By John Niland.UNIONS AND UNIONISTS IN AUSTRALIA. By D.W. Rawson.FEDERAL JURISDICTION IN AUSTRALIA. Second Edition. By Zelman Cowen and Leslie Zines.LAWYERS AND THEIR WORK IN NEW SOUTH WALES: Preliminary Report. By Roman Tomasic and Cedric Bullard.WAR ECONOMY 1942–1945. By S.J. Butlin and C.B. Schedvin.POLITICAL PARTIES IN AUSTRALIA. By Graeme Starr, Keith Richmond and Graham Maddox.THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AUSTRALIAN LIBERAL PARTY, By D.M. WhiteSURVEYS OF AUSTRALIAN ECONOMICS. Edited by F.H. Gruen.THE ECONOMICS OF THE AUSTRALIAN SERVICE SECTOR. Edited by K.A. Tucker.SOClETY AND ELECTORAL BEHAVIOUR IN AUSTRALIA: A Study of Three Decades. By D.A. Kemp.SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN AUSTRALIA. By R.A. Wild.AUSTRALIA IN PEACE AND WAR: External Relations 1788–1977. By T.B. Millar.INTERGOVERNMENTAL FISCAL TRANSFERS: Canadian and Australian Experiences. By R.M. Burns.CITIES UNLIMITED: The Sociology of Urban Development in Australia and New Zealand. By Leslie Kilmartin and David C. Thorns.THE CONSTITUTION OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA: A Study in Legal Nationalism. By John Goldring.SULU AND SABAH: A study of British policy towards the Philippines and North Borneo from the late eighteenth century. By Nicholas Tarling.ISLAM AND POLITICS IN A MALAY STATE: Kelantan 1838–1969. By Clive S. Kessler.THE CORRESPONDENCE OF G.E. MORRISON. Volume II, 1912–1920. Edited by Lo Hui‐min.CHINESE SOCIETY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY SINGAPORE. By Lee Poh Ping.THE POLITICS OF MEDICINE IN CHINA: The Policy Process, 1949–1977. By David M. Lampton.ALLIES OF A KIND: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941–1945. By Christopher ThorneCLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY AND BRITISH POLICY IN INDIA. By S. Ambirajan.AFRICA IN MODERN HISTORY: The Search for a New Society. By Basil Davidson.WEST AFRICAN STATES: Failure and Promise. A Study in Comparative Politics. Edited by John Dunn.GAITAN OF COLOMBIA: A Political Biography. By Richard E. Sharpless.IMPERIALISM AT BAY 1941–1945: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire. By Wm. Roger LouisDECOLONIZATION: The British, French, Dutch and Belgian Empires 1919–1963. By Henri Grimal.THE LIBERAL MIND 1914–1929. By Michael Bentley.WHO'S WHO OF BRITISH MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT. Volume II, 1886–1918: A Biographical Dictionary of the House of Commons. By Michael Stenton and Stephen Lees.DISTRUST AND DEMOCRACY: Political Distrust in Britain and America. By Vivien Hart.SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTIES IN WESTERN EUROPE. Edited by William E. Paterson and Alastair H. Thomas.LA DROITE REVOLUTIONNAIRE 1885–1914: Les Origines Françaises du Fascisme. By Zeev Sternhell.THE POLlTlCAL ECONOMY OF GERMANY 1815–1914. By Martin Kitchen.THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC IMAGE OF SOCIETY: A Study of the Achievements and Origins of Scandinavian Social Democracy in Comparative Perspective. By Francis G. Castles.THE WORKING CLASS IN WELFARE CAPITALISM: Work, Unions and Politics in Sweden. By Walter Korpi.SOZIALISTISCHE AGRARPOLITIK IN OSTEUROPA. By Karl‐Eugen Wadekin. Vol. I, Von Marx bis zur Vollkollektivierung.PHILIP OF MACEDON. By George Cawkwell.PARTIES AND PARTY SYSTEMS: A Framework for Analysis. Volume I. By Giovanni Sartori.WHAT IS GOVERNING? PURPOSE AND POLICY IN WASHINGTON. By Richard Rose.PLANNING, POLITICS, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST. Edited by Walter Goldstein.LAW AND SOCIETY: The Crisis in Legal Ideals. Edited by Eugene Kamenka, Robert Brown and Alice Erh‐Soon Tay.THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT: A Short Introduction. By R.N. Berki.PROGRESSIVENESS AND CONSERVATISM: The Fundamental Dimensions of Ideological Controversy and their Relationship to Social Class. By C.P. Middendorp.MARXISM AND THE QUESTION OF THE ASIATIC MODE OF PRODUCTION. By Marian Sawer.ELECTION 78: The 1977 Electoral Redistribution and the 1978 General Election in New Zealand. By Alan McRobie and Nigel S. Roberts.THE SERPENT AND THE NIGHTINGALE. By Cecil Parrott.WHITE MAN, WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU. By Denis HerbsteinALLGEMEINE STAATSLEHRE. 6th edition, revised. By Reinhold Zippelius.

A Preliminary Study of Chinese Leadership in Singapore, 1900–1941

Under the direct rule of the British Colonial Government in nineteenth-century Singapore, the Chinese leaders held little political power. They were essentially community leaders, charitable and enterprising. They worked for peace and harmony in a multiracial society and were closely attached to the British Colonial administration. Though the Chinese leadership played various roles in economic, political, diplomatic and social fields, it was in the social arena that it contributed most. These nineteenth-century leaders were essentially social workers who had established no radical traditions nor shaped any unique patterns of leadership.

Chinese Kinship and Marriage in Singapore

When the history of Chinese social institutions in Malaya comes to be written it will, I suspect, be especially difficult to construct a picture of the life associated with the domestic family and ties based upon common descent and marriage. The sources of material on these matters are likely to be very limited, at least in regard to the nineteenth century. Yet, as a social anthropologist I shall draw attention to a number of facts drawn from published material on nineteenth-century Singapore, hoping to show that there are some interesting problems in the analysis of the Chinese kinship institutions of the period and that, however hard it may be to come by the data, a worthwhile task awaits the historian with some sociological insight.

Overseas Chinese Associations: A Comment

The two papers on Overseas Chinese (M. Topley, “The Emergence and Social Functions of Chinese Religious Associations in Singapore”, CSSH, and Tsien Tche-hao, “La vie sociale des Chinois à Madagascar”, CSSH, III no. 3) which have followed my own paper (“Immigrants and Associations: Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Singapore”, CSSH, III, no. 1) raise by implication a number of problems. I shall deal first with a few of the points suggested by Mrs. Topley's essay.

Immigrants and Associations: Chinese in nineteenth-century Singapore

The society built up by Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia has always been remarkable for its wealth of voluntary associations. In the various historical and sociological studies of Southeast Asian Chinese which have appeared the importance of associations has been duly stressed, although in respect of only two settlements have we been given full treatment of their structure and significance. In this paper I shall consider the associations which Singapore Chinese created and modified in the course of the nineteenth century. Studying this earlier period of Singapore history we can see how the Chinese members of the colonial society adapted their social organization to the conditions of a trading settlement in which, while they often amassed great riches, they were not their own political masters. At the end of the paper I shall consider the Singapore evidence within the wider setting of Southeast Asia and put forward certain general conclusions which may be taken up in other papers on the same theme.