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D. F. A. Hervey published this translation of Valentyn’s Description of Malacca in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 13, 1884), presenting a comprehensive seventeenth-century Dutch account of the city’s geography, administration, and Malay population, supplemented by a lengthy historical narrative tracing the kingdom’s founding from the thirteenth century to the Portuguese conquest of 1511. The text, rendered into English by Mr. Muller, Government Translator, with Hervey’s editorial notes, serves as both a colonial administrative record and a source for early Malay historiography drawn from the genealogical work Kitab Hangtooha.
Summary
The opening sections describe Malacca under Dutch East India Company rule in the late seventeenth century. The town, built in the form of a crescent, had declined from a population of 12,000 to no more than 200–300 families of Dutch, Portuguese, and Malay origin, the latter dwelling in attap huts at the town’s periphery (p. 3). The fortress, situated on a central hill and described as roughly the size of Delfshaven, housed the Governor, company officers, and garrison, while the surrounding territory extended over 30 miles in length and 10 in breadth (pp. 3–4). The gross revenue for 1669, derived from a 10 per cent import duty, 3 per cent export duty, and minor taxes, amounted to 74,958.18 guilders, with 116 Javanese vessels arriving that year alongside Danish, Portuguese, and Moorish shipping (p. 4). Valentyn characterises the surrounding country as barren and unproductive, noting the danger of tigers and elephants in the jungle, and records a personal account from Mr. van Naarssen of a tiger leaping at a deer in the water, only to be dragged down by an alligator (pp. 4–5).
The middle portion of the text provides an ethnographic portrait of the Malay people, whom Valentyn describes as “the most cunning, the most ingenious and the politest people of the whole East” (p. 5). He elaborates on the Malay language as a regional lingua franca comparable to French or Latin in Europe, spoken from Persia to the Philippines, and distinguishes between the pure common tongue and the “adulterated” court language interlarded with Arabic (pp. 5–6). The account then lists the Dutch Governors, Supercargos, Shahbandars, Attorneys-General, Barristers, and Treasurers of Malacca from 1641 to 1717, along with Commandants at the subordinate factories of Perak, Kedah, and Oudong Salang (pp. 8–14).
The final and most substantial section is a historical narrative drawn from the Malay genealogical text Kitab Hangtooha (also called Soolalet Issalathina), which Valentyn claims to have obtained in rare Arabic-script Malay manuscripts (p. 15). This account traces the Malay people’s origin on the river Malayoo in Sumatra, their migration to the Malay Peninsula under the first king Siri Toori Bowana (c. 1160), the founding of Singapura, the Javanese Madjapahit threat, and the establishment of Malacca by Siri Iskander Shah in 1253, named after the kajoo Malakka tree (pp. 16–19). The narrative continues through the reigns of the sultans, highlighting Mansor Shah’s 73-year rule and his alliance with the Emperor of China, before culminating in the Portuguese arrival and conquest (pp. 20–28).
Key Findings
- The gross revenue of Malacca in 1669 was 74,958.18 guilders, composed of 10 per cent import duty, 3 per cent export duty, and other small taxes, with 116 Javanese vessels recorded as arriving that year (p. 4).
- Valentyn’s historical narrative, sourced from the Kitab Hangtooha, places the founding of Malacca in 1253 by Siri Iskander Shah, who named the town after the kajoo Malakka (Mirabolan) tree under which he rested while hunting (p. 19).
- The Portuguese conquest of 1511 is narrated in detail: after a failed assassination plot against Admiral Sequeira in 1509, Albuquerque arrived on 1 August 1511, set fire to houses and the royal palace to compel surrender, and captured the city, seizing 9,000 brass guns and booty of which the king’s fifth alone amounted to 200,000 ducats (pp. 23–28).
- The Sultan Mahmud Shah fled to the north-east of the southern promontory and founded Johor, completing a period of 252 years of Malay kingship at Malacca (p. 29).
- Valentyn records that the Malay language functioned as a universal tongue across the Indian Ocean world, from Persia to the Philippines, and that the court variety was so heavily interlarded with Arabic that common people could not understand it (pp. 5–6).
- The Dutch administrative apparatus at Malacca included a Governor with supreme authority, a Council of Police, a Council of Law, a Council for ecclesiastical affairs, and a Shahbandar (Customs Collector), with subordinate factories at Perak, Kedah, Oudong Salang, and Indragiri (pp. 5, 8).
Conclusion
Hervey’s publication preserves a valuable composite document: a Dutch colonial description of Malacca’s physical and administrative condition in the late seventeenth century, combined with one of the earliest European transcriptions of the Malay royal genealogy as recorded in the Kitab Hangtooha. The historical narrative, while acknowledged by Valentyn himself to contain “fictions and useless stories” (p. 15), provides a continuous royal chronology from c. 1160 to 1511 that was otherwise inaccessible to Western readers, and the administrative lists offer a rare prosopographical record of the VOC’s governance of the Straits settlement during its first seven decades.
Context
- The translation was undertaken by Mr. Muller, Government Translator, at Hervey’s initiative because a partial translation that had appeared in Logan’s Journal (Vol. IV) was incomplete and unreliable (p. 2).
- The article appears in JSBRAS Vol. 13 (1884), the same volume that contained other contributions on Malay and Straits history, reflecting the Society’s active programme of publishing primary source translations during this period.