VOC blockades of the Singapore and Malacca Straits

During the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, the Dutch provinces were fighting a protracted war against Spain known as the Dutch Revolt or the Eighty Years War. Moreover, during the period 1580–1640, this conflict was also extended to the Portuguese empire on account of a dynastic link: during the so-called “Union of the Two Crowns”, the king of Spain also ruled as the king of Portugal.

The Portuguese empire in Asia, also known in Portuguese as the Estado da Índia, consisted of a string of forts, ports and settlements that spanned the eastern coast of Africa to the Japanese islands. These were tenuously linked to the viceroy in Goa through trade connections and agreements with local Asian overlords. As the Estado relied heavily on revenues from long-distance, sea-borne trade, any disruption to these trading networks would place a stranglehold on the Portuguese in Asia and thus also weaken their ability to fight back. In projecting their European conflict onto the Asian theatre, the Dutch thus devised a two-pronged strategy: disrupt the trade of Portuguese-held ports and impose a stranglehold that would financially and militarily weaken them, thereby rendering these settlements and colonies easy targets for a Dutch takeover.

When the Dutch arrived in the waters of the Indian Ocean littoral in the 1590s and began to step up aggression against Portuguese targets across the region, a geographically conditioned weak spot became increasingly evident: the Singapore and Malacca Straits. The Santa Catarinaincident of 1603 highlighted the weakness of the Portuguese to crown officials in Goa and Malacca as well as to the officers of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; VOC) who relied on the firepower of their artillery to close in on the Portuguese. Security in the Straits region could have been enhanced significantly with the construction of strategically located forts and citadels. Several schemes were devised in the late 16th and early 17th centuries to this effect – both by the Portuguese as well as the Dutch – but maintaining fort infrastructure and deploying manpower to garrison them was always a costly proposition and for this reason forts were generally not constructed. As a shareholder corporation ostensibly engaged in trade, the officials of the VOC were particularly concerned about their bottom line. For this reason the company decided to minimise their expenses by deploying naval squadrons in and around the Singapore and Malacca Straits to scour the waters for the Portuguese and their Asian allies.

Focusing specifically on the waters around Singapore between Karimun in the west and Pedra Branca in the east, the VOC had their vessels patrol the waters around two specific locations: the northern coast of Karimun and the Hook of Berbukit. From Karimun, it was possible to monitor maritime traffic arriving through the Malacca, Kundur (Sabam) and Durian Straits – important for ships heading to or from Palembang, Jambi, Java, Sulawesi (Makassar), the Malukus, Bandas and Timor. This location also enabled the monitoring of ships taking the Singapore and Tebrau Straits. The Hook of Berbukit refers to the waters between Tanjong Pengerang on mainland Johor and Changi on Singapore island in the west. This location – which had already been favoured by the Portuguese before 1610 – enabled the Dutch patrols to monitor all traffic coming through the Singapore and Tebrau Straits, the upstream towns of the Johor River, as well as through the Riau Strait between Batam and Bintan.

In order to elude Dutch patrols, Portuguese skippers resorted to a range of tactics, often with the open or clandestine support of local Asian overlords. There were of course always those who used the cover of night and shallow waters to conduct their business and spread their risk over several smaller craft. Some of the strategies pursued, however, were quite elaborate. One was to reroute cargo overland along the Pahang and Muar Rivers and their tributaries. This option required the cultivation of and cooperation with the ruler of Pahang. A second strategy was to explore and open up new routes between the islands of Riau and eastern Sumatra. Friendly relations between the Dutch and Johor, however, made this increasingly difficult. A third strategy was to reroute long-distance vessels through the Sunda or Bali Straits; that too became increasingly difficult with the growing Dutch presence on Java. Finally the Portuguese also resorted to the use of Asian or European proxies to conduct their trade between India, Malacca and China. Among the Europeans, the English and the Danes were particularly favoured.

Once formal Portuguese rule in Malacca had ceased in 1640, Dutch naval squadrons continued to patrol the waters of the Straits but their function had changed. Their chief mandate was no longer the capture of Portuguese vessels, but rather in arm-twisting Asian merchants to call and trade at Dutch Batavia.

References
Chijs, J. A. van der, & Colenbrander, H. T. (Eds.). (1896–1931). Dagh-register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passerende daer ter plates als over geheel Nederlandts-India. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Pato, R. A. de Bulhão, & António da Silva Rego. (Eds.). (1880–1982). Documentos Remettidos da Índia ou Livros das Monções (10 vols). Lisbon: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias and Imprensa Nacional – Casa de Moeda.

Veen, E. van, & Klijn, D. (2001). A guide to the sources of the history of Dutch-Portuguese relations in Asia (1594–1797). Leiden: Institute for the History of European Expansion.