Three early 17th-century maps by Godinho de Erédia

Abstract

Historians working on Singapore and the Malay Peninsula during the early modern period have often relied on the works of the Eurasian writer and cartographer Manuel Godinho de Eredia (1563–1623). While some of his works have drawn attention, such as his Description of Melaka (c.1613), one of the lesser-known cartographic works ascribed to him, the Atlas Miscelanea (Miscellany Atlas, 1616–22), still requires closer and authoritative study. At the dawn of the seventeenth century, the escalation of Portuguese expeditionary activities in and around the region led to the uncovering and creation of new knowledge. The Miscellany Atlas contains three maps of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra that offer a glimpse into a local trading world that was interconnected by riverine systems and overland trails. With the help of different analytical frameworks employed for understanding Malay polities of the pre-modern era, this paper carefully peels back the layers of information that have been sketched out and visually represented in these maps.

Summary

Peter Borschberg examines three virtually unknown maps by the Eurasian cartographer and adventurer Manuel Godinho de Erédia (1563–1623), found in his Miscellany Atlas (c.1616–22). The three specimens depict the Malay Peninsula, the Johor River and Singapore straits region, and the island of Sumatra. Rather than conventional portolan charts oriented to maritime navigation, these are economic and resource maps that accentuate riverine systems, overland trail networks, mineral deposits, and port settlements. Borschberg reads them in close conjunction with Erédia’s own written treatises—particularly the Description of Melaka (c.1613) and the Information on the Golden Chersonese (c.1598–1600)—and brings them into dialogue with the broadly contemporaneous Selden map (c.1606–24) held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which plots the maritime routes across the South China Sea and around the straits.

The central historical problem the article addresses is the conventional narrative, inherited from the colonial and post-independence period, that economic activity in the Malay Peninsula was concentrated on the west coast. Erédia’s maps challenge this assumption by revealing a denser network of overland trails along the eastern coast and, more surprisingly, significant north–south trading axes running from the Isthmus of Kra to the lower Johor River region. Singapore is depicted not as a forgotten or insignificant island but as a strategic gatekeeper community situated within the greater Johor River estuary, functioning as an intermodal port where maritime, riverine, and overland routes converged. The Sumatra map similarly underscores the socio-economic significance of the highlands, whose mineral and agricultural products reached coastal markets through a dense web of overland trails.

The evidential basis is multi-layered. The maps themselves are read alongside Erédia’s written accounts of mineral extraction methods, trade volumes, and political jurisdictions. Corroborating testimonies from the Flemish merchant Jacques de Coutre, the Dutchman Stalpaert van der Wiele, Jacob van Heemskerk, and the VOC historian Pieter van Dam confirm the brisk commercial activity in the Johor River region. A modern projection overlay, prepared with hydrographer Mok Ly Yng, integrates the route data from all four map specimens onto a contemporary base map, yielding a composite picture of intermodal trade networks that had not previously been assembled.

Key Findings

• The Miscellany Atlas dates from c.1615–1622, was last recorded in the private collection of Dr C. M. Machado Figueiro in Lisbon, and its current whereabouts is unknown; only grainy black-and-white photographs from the late 1950s survive, reproduced in volume IV of Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica (pp. 3–4).
• Erédia’s map of the Malay Peninsula shows a denser network of overland trails along the eastern coast, with only one major route serving the west coast, and reveals north–south trading axes running from Phattalung on the Isthmus of Kra to the lower Johor River region and Tanjung Ramunia (pp. 4–6).
• Perak yielded more than 300 bahar of tin annually (approximately 54–60 metric tons), and the Linggi River produced more than 100 bahar (approximately 18–20 metric tons) per year, both under the supervision of the shahbandar of Rembau, vassal of the king of Johor (pp. 9–11).
• Gold panning along beaches near Melaka yielded approximately one pardo (a gold coin of about 2.9 grams) per day per panner; the finest quality gold came from the Minangkabau highlands of Sumatra, where miners sun-dried field clay and picked gold from the resulting fissures (pp. 9, 20).
• Erédia’s map of Singapore names the settlement ‘Xabandaria’ (Shahbandaria) beyond Tanjung Rhu and depicts the island within the greater Johor River estuary; it also features ‘Batu Quina’ (China Rock) at the western entrance to the Old Strait of Singapore, a landmark known in Ming-era Chinese sources as the Longyamen or Dragon Tooth Gate (pp. 12–13).
• When the Selden map’s maritime routes are projected alongside Erédia’s riverine and overland networks onto a modern base map, the data show that routes converged near the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula between Singapore and Tioman, at Pahang, and around Patani, with the west coast and Portuguese Melaka featuring far fewer instances of route interfacing (pp. 23–24).

Conclusion

Borschberg’s definitive historical takeaway is that Singapore was neither a forgotten nor an insignificant place in the early seventeenth century. It was a recognized and charted island with a functioning port settlement—Shahbandaria—that served as a strategic gatekeeper to the Johor River and as an intermodal base for goods moving by sea, river, and overland. Taken together, the three Erédia maps and the Selden map demonstrate that the Straits region’s economy was far more complex, interconnected, and east-coast-oriented than later colonial narratives had suggested, and that the Sumatran highlands and the northern Isthmus of Kra were integral nodes in a regional trading ecosystem that extended well beyond the immediate vicinity of Portuguese Melaka.

Context

• Primary archival collections explored: Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica (Lisbon, vols. IV), Bodleian Library Oxford (Selden Supra 108), National Library of Brazil Rio de Janeiro, W.A. Engelbrecht Collection (Maritime Museum, Rotterdam), and the Ducal Library at Vila Viçosa, Portugal.
• Historiographical contribution: This is the first systematic analysis of the three Erédia maps in the Miscellany Atlas as economic and resource documents, and the first integration of their route data with the Selden map to produce a composite picture of intermodal trade networks in the Straits region for the early seventeenth century.

References