A history of lies, deception and robbery: Raffles original agreement with Sultan Hussein for Singapore

There are some Malays who mistook what happened between Raffles and Sultan Hussein and Temenggong Abdul Rahman. They thought that the Sultan carelessly signed Singapore away to the British for a small compensation.

Raffles’ agreement with Sultan Hussein was NOT for the whole island.

The agreement in 1819 was only for the southern coast of Singapore.

It was only ceded to the East India Company in another treaty in 1823 after the British threatened and placed the rulers under duress.

“On 30 January 1819 a preliminary agreement was signed by Raffles and Temenggong Abdul Rahman…permitting the East India Company to establish a factory in return for an annual payment of $3,000 to the temenggong.

On 6 February, Raffles signed a formal treaty with the temenggong and ‘His Highness the Sultan Hussein Mahomed Shah Sultan of Johore’, confirming the East India Company’s right to establish a post, subject to annual payments of $5,000 to Sultan Hussein and $3,000 to the temenggong…

Raffles spent four weeks in Singapore on (his) second visit. He made a further agreement with Sultan Hussein and the temenggong in June 1819, defining the boundaries of the British settlement, which were to stretch from Tanjong Malang on the west to Tanjong Katong on the east and inland as far as the range of a cannon shot.” (Turnbull 28-32)

“With his long experience of the region, Colonel William Farquhar… was aware that the agreement of 1819 had merely permitted the setting up of a British post and did not confer ownership of land or the rights to make laws. Consequently, he insisted that the rulers should be accorded respect and recognized as the lords of the soil.” (Haikal and Yahya 85)

The original agreement was merely to allow the East India Company to use a stretch of land for their trading post.

Insha Allah I will write another post soon on how these robbers threatened the Sultan and forced him to sign Singapore away.

Singapore was not sold to the British.

The original agreement was just for rental of a small strip of land. Raffles and John Crawford later lied and threatened the Sultan (which according to Islamic and civil law would invalidate the sale) to sign the island to them.

References:

Haikal, Husain, and Atiku Garba Yahaya. “Muslims in Singapore: The colonial legacy and the making of a minority.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 17.1 (1997).

Turnbull, C. M., and When CM Turnbull’s. “A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005 (Revised Edition).” (2009).

This article was originally published on Almakhazin on 2nd January 2016