Archives in the Making of
Post-Colonial Singapore
The massive archives of the European colonial powers enabled generations of
historians from Joao de Barros and Diogo do Couto in the 16th century to J. K. J.
de Jonge and his successors to compile their multi-volume Décadas da Asia and
De Opkomst van het Nederlandsche Gezag in Oost-Indië in the 19th and early 20th
centuries. But in the context of decolonisation, nationalism and the struggle
for independence after World War II, the archives cannot continue to fulfil its
old function of documenting the workings of colonial powers. The function
of the archives and nature of the archival record have become contested. This
essay discusses this conflict over the nature of archival records as selective
remembrances of the past and argues that records held by archives can no longer
be seen as mere evidential documentation of the past, but as memories of those
who chose what of the past to document and store in the archives.
The Archival Approach to Singapore's Past
Past and recent approaches to Singapore's colonial and post-colonial past have
been instructive in how archives have been used. Until fairly recently, Singapore's
historical development has an overt Whiggish, progressive overtone, best
illustrated perhaps by the late Mary Turnbull's A History of Modern Singapore
(now into a third edition).1 In this narrative, Singapore's modern foundations
were laid by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles when he 'founded' the island in
1819, amidst a backdrop of Anglo-Dutch rivalry and local Malay contestations
of power.2 Seeking to dislodge or at least gain parity with a Dutch presence
established in the East Indies for almost two centuries, the British gradually
entrenched themselves in Southeast Asia by colonising the Malay Peninsula
and parts of Borneo throughout the nineteenth century. Before Singapore, a
trading post had been established on Penang Island in 1789. Malacca, a Dutch
possession since 1641, temporarily came under British control from 1795 to 1818
during the Napoleonic Wars and was finally ceded to the British under the terms
of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, a treaty which also consolidated and ratified
British and Dutch interests in the Malay Peninsula and the Dutch East Indies
respectively. In 1826, the three British possessions were brought together forming
the Straits Settlements. This amalgamation was initially an administrative unit
KWA CHONG GUAN AND HO CHI TIM
1 Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore. See also C. J. W.-L Wee's critique of this 'Whiggish telos of econo
mic development, progress, modernity and modernization since 1819' underlying the writing of Singapore
history in his 'Our island story'.
2 Documented in: Tarling, Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the Malay world. Location of this Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the
long cycles of Singapore's pre-1819 history is attempted in Kwa Chong Guan, Derek Heng and Tan Tai Yong,
SingaporeA 700-Year History.
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