A plucky mouse deer supposedly inspired the founding of Malacca
Legend says Parameswara, a prince fleeing an attack on Singapura, was resting under a tree while out hunting when his hounds trapped a tiny mouse deer. The little animal kicked the dog into the river. Taking it as an omen that the weak can beat the strong, he founded a kingdom there and named it after the tree.
Malacca began as a fishing village at a narrow point of the strait that shares its name, with a harbour usable in every season. Working with the Orang Laut, or sea people, Parameswara made passing ships stop there and built warehouses for trade. The first official Chinese envoy arrived in 1403, and in 1405 Admiral Zheng He brought an imperial order raising the port to the status of a country. Ming protection kept Siam and Majapahit at bay and turned the town into a hinge of trade linking China, India, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Arab merchants, one account says, called it Malakat, a gathering of traders.
Afonso de Albuquerque sailed from Goa with roughly 1,200 men and conquered the city on 24 August 1511, ending the sultanate, which is why the state today has a governor instead of a sultan. Trade simply shifted to rivals such as Aceh and Johor. Francis Xavier passed through three times in the 1540s. The Dutch, allied with Johor, took the city on 14 January 1641 after a long siege and left behind the Stadthuys. Britain acquired it in 1824 by swapping Bencoolen in Sumatra, and it joined Singapore and Penang in the Straits Settlements.
Tunku Abdul Rahman chose Malacca to announce Malaya's coming independence in February 1956. The state joined Malaysia in 1963, and in 2008 UNESCO put its capital's old centre on the heritage list in a joint listing with George Town.
Covering 1,746.60 square kilometres of mostly lowland plain, with Bukit Gapis at 512 metres its highest point, the state is home to Malays, Chinese and Indians as well as the Baba Nyonya, the Portuguese-descended Kristang and the Chitty. Carl Linnaeus based the species Phyllanthus emblica on the legendary Malacca tree in 1753, although some Malaysian forestry researchers suspect the original was a lookalike relative.
Source: Malacca
