Kangchu system
The Kangchu system was a socio-economic system of organisation and administration developed by Chinese agricultural settlers in Johor during the 19th century. The settlers organised themselves into informal associations, and chose a leader from among themselves.
In Chinese, "Kangchu" literally means 'master of the riverbank', and was the title given to the Chinese headmen of these river settlements. The "Kangchu" leaders are also called "Kapitan".
The Kangchu system traces its origins from the 18th century when Chinese coolies settled in Penang and Riau and set up gambier and pepper plantations there. The sovereign rulers of Johor, Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim and his son and successor, Sultan Abu Bakar, took up the Kangchu system during the first half of the 19th century to provide a more organised form of administration as Chinese immigrants began to settle in the state in great numbers and developed the state's agricultural economy.
The term "Kangchu" became widely used during the 19th century, as Chinese immigrants began to settle in and around Johor state and set up gambier and pepper plantations. The social and economic welfare of the early Chinese settlers came under the charge of local Chinese leaders, who were responsible for running these agricultural plantations, which were situated along the river banks. In 1917, the British colonial government in Johor implemented an act which abolished the Kangchu system in the state, and the value for gambier declined during the early 20th century.
Variants of the Kangchu system thrived in other parts of Maritime Southeast Asia, where gambier and pepper were cultivated and where there were significant Chinese populations. The Kangchu and coolies who worked in the gambier and pepper plantations were mainly of Teochew origin, and were generally first- or second-generation Chinese immigrants.
History
Early years
The origins of the Kangchu system dates back to the mid-18th century, when early Chinese settlers in Penang experimented in cash crop plantations with various types of crops, including pepper, gambier, betelnut and clove. The plantations were abandoned by the late 18th-century, as Penang experienced wars from Buginese seafarers that resulted in many gambier plantations being destroyed; contributing to the decline in plantations was the growing popularity of the spice trade that reaped much greater profits. At the beginning of the 19th century, these Chinese settlers began to look south to Malacca and Singapore, where gambier and pepper plantations had also been established.In the late 1820s, Chinese settlers from Singapore also began to look towards Johor for gambier and pepper cultivation at the encouragement of Temenggong Abdul Rahman and his successor, Daeng Ibrahim. As more Chinese settlers established gambier and pepper plantations in Johor during the 1840s, Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim formed a bureaucracy made up of Malay officials to oversee administrative affairs upon the Kangchu. He began issuing official permits, known as Surat Sungai in Malay, to the Kangchu which permitted them to establish these plantations along the river banks. In turn, the Kangchu were required to pay taxes from the profits generated by the gambier and pepper farms and the Surat Sungai, which had to be renewed after a specified period of time.
Mid to late-19th century
The first gambier and pepper plantations appeared in Southern Johor, notably Skudai. Lau Lib Keng, a Chinese settler based in Skudai, was the first person to receive a Surat Sungai, whereby the river banks of Skudai were leased to Lau for the cultivation of gambier and pepper. More Chinese settlers came to Johor from the 1850s onwards, and forested areas in Southern Johor such as Tebrau, Plentong and Stulang were cleared for the cultivation of gambier and pepper. By the time Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim's son, Abu Bakar took office from his father in 1862, at least 37 Surat Sungai have been issued to various Kangchu, all of whom were collectively responsible for the operations of the 1,200 gambier and pepper farms in the state. Most of these Chinese leaders were also members of secret societies, and communal warfare often broke out in Singapore between different dialect groups as a result of conflicting economic interests. From the late 1850s onwards, the Kangchu began to exert political influence in the state affairs by establishing close ties with Temenggong Abu Bakar. In 1865, Abu Bakar granted official recognition to the Teochew-dominated Johor branch of the Ngee Heng Kongsi after a Kangchu, Tan Kee Soon, raised a small army to subdue Sultan Ali's forces, from whom Abu Bakar was facing considerable dissent but was unable to raise an organised army. Abu Bakar nevertheless called for the Ngee Heng Kongsi to accept Chinese settlers of other dialect groups to prevent possible communal warfare as a result of conflicting economic interests.The crop produce from these plantations were generally exported to other countries from Singapore with the assistance of Chinese merchants based in that city. From the 1860s onwards, many of these Kangchu chalked up debts and began to sell their property rights to these merchants or to larger business magnates based in Singapore, who were known to the locals as Tuan Sungai. The Kangchu then were often hired as supervisors or managers by the merchants to keep watch on the day-to-day operations of the gambier and pepper plantations. Temenggong Abu Bakar began to issue contract-style letters of recognition to these Kangchu; the letters were known by their Malay name Surat Tauliah.
As the gambier and pepper plantations expanded in the 1870s, the more established Kangchu were entrusted with larger blocks of farms and made contracts with Chinese merchants from Singapore. The profits generated from harvests of these plantations formed the bulk of Johor's economy, and financed the development of Johor's infrastructure. Abu Bakar's relationship with the Chinese leaders was excellent, and he appointed many of them to political positions in the state. Of particular note, Abu Bakar appointed two Chinese leaders to the Johor State Council: a Kangchu from Chaozhou, Tan Hiok Nee, and a contractor from Taishan, Wong Ah Fook, who also owned gambier and pepper farms in Mersing in the 1880s. As the land along the river banks in Southern Johor was already taken by the earlier waves of Chinese settlers, newer Chinese settlers began migrating northwards in the 1870s and established new gambier and pepper plantations further north; new plantations were established in Yong Peng, Batu Pahat, Benut, Endau and Kota Tinggi. In particular, Abu Bakar actively encouraged Chinese settlers to establish plantations in Muar, shortly after the British Colonial Government ruled in favour of Abu Bakar over Tengku Alam Shah and his family, and granted Abu Bakar control of Muar.
Decline
At the end of the 19th century, Johor's economy began to diversify from gambier and pepper plantations to other agricultural crops. Starting with coffee in 1881, crops such as tapioca, tea, pineapple and rubber were introduced into the state. Coffee and tapioca was quickly abandoned in the 1890s when the value of these crops experienced a drop, while rubber was introduced and quickly established a strong foothold in Johor, as the world demand for rubber increased greatly around 1910. Prices for gambier plunged between 1905 and 1906, and many Kangchu abandoned gambier in favour of rubber. Further decline in the number of gambier and pepper plantations was fuelled by the colonial government's suppression of traditional farming methods employed by the Kangchu for planting gambier and pepper; these method led to soil exhaustion and a depletion of forests which was used as firewood in small factories. A few years before the Kangchu system was abolished, exports for both gambier and pepper plunged by a further 60% between 1912 and 1917.The British had long frowned upon the Kangchu because of their links with secret societies in Singapore as well as their indulgence in social vices such as gambling and opium smoking, activities which the British had been actively suppressing in Singapore and the Federated Malay States. As early as 1890, the Governor of the Straits Settlements, Cecil Clementi Smith had lobbied Abu Bakar to adopt the Societies Ordinance and ban the Ngee Heng Kongsi, but was promptly turned down. Shortly after the British appointed an adviser to Johor, the British began attributing the high crime rates in the state to Chinese settlers loyal to the Kangchu. In 1915, the Johor state government, now effectively under the control of the British Colonial Government, passed the Societies Enactment which prompted the dissolution of the Ngee Heng Kongsi the following year. The Kangchu system was officially abolished December 1917 in an enactment passed by the Johor state government, which was by then effectively administered by the British colonial government.
Role of the Kangchu
The Temenggong of Johor conferred upon the Kangchu with a large degree of administrative autonomy within the plot of land which each was granted. These included the right to collect taxes on behalf for the Temenggong, as well as for the welfare needs among the Chinese coolies living within the plot of land. The Kangchu generally granted tax exemption for the basic consumption by workers within the settlement. Some coolies took on new jobs such as shopkeepers and traders to serve the needs of other coolies within the settlement, and the Kangchu granted tax exemptions to these shopkeepers and traders on the sale of pork, opium and alcohol as well. The Kangchu reserved a portion of the land for the construction of a settlement for the coolies, from which small towns were formed and became the administrative centre of the Kangchu. These administrative centres were generally established within the coolie settlements located at the foot of the river, and were known as Kangkar.The Kangchu acted as the middleman in the bulk purchase of the settlement's commodities through suppliers based in Singapore. In particular, opium was highly popular among the coolies, although frowned upon by the British who took strong measures to suppress its distribution. The Kangchu formed illegal opium syndicates which had links to Chinese leaders from Singapore and other Malay states in the north, particularly Selangor. British contempt for the Kangchu was also fuelled by the coolies' preference for gambling and prostitution, both of which were seen as social vices by the British colonial government. The Kangchu maintained friendly relations with the Temenggong, and worked closely with the Ngee Heng Kongsi in administrative matters. In particular, the state government attempted to forge close relations with the Kangchu by the appointment of a Malay official who was conversant in Teochew and literate in Chinese characters, Mohamed Salleh bin Perang, as the liaison officer between the Temenggong and the Kangchu. Several years later, in the early 1870s, the state government worked closely with the Ngee Heng Kongsi to draft the Kanun Kangchu which had legal clauses that defined the powers of the Kangchu in Johor. The Kanun Kangchu contained 81 clauses in total, and was implemented in 1873.