Teochew: river lords and the gambier planters of Johor

Teochew: river lords and the gambier planters of Johor

A boat noses up the Skudai River in the 1840s. On the bank stands a headman from the Teochew coast of southern China. He has just received a paper from the ruler of Johor. It lets him clear the forest along the river and plant gambier and pepper.

The story

Gambier and pepper were cash crops. Planters in Penang, Singapore and Riau had grown them before, but the work wore the soil out, so planters kept looking for fresh land.

The Temenggong (the ruler) of Johor, Daeng Ibrahim, offered it. From the 1840s he issued river permits called surat sungai ("river papers"). The first went to Lau Lib Keng at Skudai. Planters paid taxes on what they grew.

The headman of each river was the kangchu (港主, "master of the riverbank"). The kangchu and most of their workers were Teochew (潮州, Chaozhou), from north-eastern Guangdong. Many came by way of the port of Swatow (Shantou).

One local account counts about 1,200 plantations and 15,000 Chinese workers by the early 1860s. In 1870 Tan Hiok Nee, a kangchu from Chaozhou, was named Major China of Johor, the most senior Chinese title in the state. Later Sultan Abu Bakar placed him on the state council.

The hard part, told plainly. Workers cleared jungle by hand and worked long days, and many were bound to a plantation through debt or contract. It was a hard system of its time. The partnership between Malay rulers and Chinese headmen also made Johor rich. Gambier exports fell steeply between 1912 and 1917, partly because the old methods exhausted the soil, and many planters turned to rubber. A Johor law ended the kangchu system in 1917.

Where you can still see it today

• River and place names in southern Johor, such as Skudai, Tebrau and Stulang.
• Teochew temples and clan halls in Johor Bahru and other towns.
• Teochew food: steamed fish, braised duck and plain rice porridge.
• Family names such as Tan, Lim, Ng and Chua, spelt in Teochew style.
• The Ngee Heng (義興) society of Johor, once led by Teochew planters, whose ruler asked it to welcome other Chinese groups too.

What DNA can tell, and what it cannot

A region estimate can show that part of your DNA is closest to people of southern China. That fits many Teochew families. It also fits Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese families, because these neighbouring peoples share much of their deep history.

Your father line may be O-M324, the most common father line in China (see your family-line story "China's most common father line"). Your mother line may also point to East Asia. Each line is one thread among thousands of ancestors, so neither can say which dialect group your family belonged to, or which river your family planted.

DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status. A test cannot say which community someone belongs to. Family, law and culture do that.