HISTORY OF MALACCA

No historian has been able up to now to pin-point the year Malacca was founded. Going by the State government's celebration of the 600th anniversary of the founding in August 1990, it could be deduced that Malacca was founded in 1390.
However, some historians had placed the founding at between 1376 and 1400.

That s Sumatran prince, named Parameswara, was credited with the founding of the city and naming it Melaka in not disputed.

A popular account puts the Prince as out hunting one day and while resting under a tree, one of his dogs cornered a mouse-deer or 'pelandok'.

The mouse-deer in its defence attacked the dog and even forced it into the river-water. Parameswara was so taken up by the courage of the mouse-deer that he decided on the spot to found a city on the ground he was sitting on. Thus, Melaka or Malacca was born. Many claimed that the prince took this name from the 'Melaka' tree that was shading him.

As time went on, Melaka grew bigger and bigger and became more and more prosperous. Parameswara, incidentally, was the first Malay prince to become a Muslim and inevitably, Islam became the religion of Malays in the Peninsular (now West Malaysia).

The prince known as Iskandar Shah died in 1424. During his rule, Melaka progressed into a booming international trading post, luring over Javanese, Indian, Arab and Chinese sea-merchants.

Under Sultan Mansur Shah (1456 - 1477), Melaka's fame and wealth not long after caught the attention of the expansionist Europeans with the Portuguese becoming the first to arrive and eventually going on to conquer the land. They were led by Alfonso d'Albuquerque.

The Portuguese occupiers stayed on far 130 years and their King benefited immensely from this. After the Dutch captured Melaka from the Portuguese in 1641, theycontinued to use Batavia, now Jakarta, as their head quarters.However they still built their landmark, better known as the Stadthuys or Red Building.

Malacca was ceded to the British in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 in exchange for Bencoolen on Sumatra. From 1826 to 1946 Malacca was governed, first by the British East India Company and then as a Crown Colony. It formed part of the Straits Settlements, together with Singapore and Penang. After the dissolution of this crown colony, Malacca and Penang became part of the Malayan Union, which later became Malaysia.

Source : "You'll Love Malacca Guide & Information" by Wee Hock Chye.