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Who colonized Malaysia?

Southeast Asia — the powers that ruled Malaysia, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Malaysia?

Portugal, the Netherlands and finally Britain. Britain controlled the Straits Settlements from 1786 and the Malay states through residents, granting independence to Malaya on 31 August 1957.

Malaya earned more dollars for the sterling area after 1945 than any other British possession, which is why Britain fought so hard to hold it.

Reference

Who ruled Malaysia, and when

before 1511
Malacca Sultanate and Malay states
1511–1824
Portugal, then the Netherlands, at Malacca
1786–1957
Britain

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Portugal, Netherlands, Britain, Japan (1941–45 occupation)
Independence
31 August 1957
Tin and rubber
Malaya was Britain's most profitable colony in the late 1940s
New Villages
About 500,000 people resettled behind wire during the Emergency
Demography
Colonial labour importation created the country's three-community structure

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1511

    Portugal takes Malacca.

  2. 1786

    Britain acquires Penang.

  3. 1874

    Pangkor Engagement begins the residency system.

  4. 1948–60

    The Emergency; villagisation of half a million people.

  5. 1957

    Independence of Malaya.

Context

What the record shows

The Emergency's resettlement programme — half a million people moved into guarded New Villages — became the model later copied in Vietnam.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Malaysia?
Portugal at Malacca from 1511, then the Dutch, and finally Britain from 1786 until independence in 1957.
What was the Malayan Emergency?
A counter-insurgency campaign from 1948 to 1960 against a communist-led guerrilla movement, involving mass resettlement, detention and deportation.
When did Malaysia become independent?
Malaya on 31 August 1957; the federation of Malaysia was formed in 1963.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Malaysia

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.