Historiographical review

Chinese migrants have been at the forefront of Southeast Asian tin mines, likely following local inhabitants and certainly predating European colonial extraction efforts in the eighteenth century (Reid Reference Reid, Tagliacozzo and Chang2011). This provides a valuable lens for investigating Chinese migration history, especially in areas where control over and production of minerals were central to their social, economic, and communal life, such as in Malaya (Wong Reference Wong1965), southern Siam (Cushman and Reynolds Reference Cushman and Reynolds1991), Bangka (Somers Heidhues Reference Somers Heidhues1992), and Borneo or Kalimantan (Jackson Reference Jackson1970; Somers Heidhues Reference Somers Heidhues1992). Similarly, scholars have extensively interrogated the structure, function, rituals, and forms of “secret societies” in the Chinese diaspora, both globally (Mak Reference Mak1975) and in Southeast Asia (Blythe Reference Blythe1969; Comber Reference Comber1959; Trocki Reference Trocki1990), to review this widely used colonial-era term which bears unmistakable institutional ignorance and prejudice of the time (Pickering Reference Pickering1878, Reference Pickering1879). As the contributors in “Secret Societies” Reconsidered aptly argue, it is misleading to label a wide variety of Chinese grassroots associations as such. They were anything but secretive and were involved in a range of non-violent activities. Instead, they represented “brotherhood associations as non-elite institutions” (Ownby Reference Ownby, Ownby and Somers Heidhues1993, p. 15) and were instrumental in mutual aid of social welfare, corporate enterprising, and labour management.

This article applies the two above-mentioned analytical lenses within a transnational framework in Southeast Asia, engaging with a historic network that spans southern Siam, the Malay Peninsula, and the island of Sumatra, often situating Penang as one of the hubs. Research conducted in this geographical realm has illuminated the region’s dynamics and interconnectedness, transcending multiple and ever-shifting borders over centuries (Montesano and Jory Reference Montesano and Jory2008; Yeoh Reference Yeoh2009). Case studies on the Southeast Asian Chinese and their movements converging to or passing through Penang are numerous (Cushman and Reynolds Reference Cushman and Reynolds1991; Ho Reference Ho2002; Nasution Reference Nasution2009; Songprasert Reference Songprasert1986; Wong Reference Wong2015). While each begins with a particular location or group, they inevitably intersect with the broader network, linking various notes along the eastern shore of the Andaman Sea and positing their protagonists firmly in a region with easily trespassed boundaries. Expanding this framework, this article crosses another political boundary – the Siam-Burma border – to bring southern Burma to the spotlight. It suggests that the Tenasserim coast has been naturally and historically integrated into the region and should not be overlooked in any regional analysis.

The past decade has seen the emergence of new scholarship on ethnic Chinese and Sino-Burmese communities in Burma/Myanmar, though it has been predominantly confined to major urban centres such as Rangoon/Yangon (Li Reference Li2017; Roberts Reference Roberts2016; Yeo Reference Yeo2023) and in northern and eastern border areas with historic or ongoing conflicts (Chang Reference Chang2015), partly due to the availability of materials and the preference of scholarly interests. Even in one rare case that specifically addresses southern Burma, the emphasis remains on the city of Moulmein, an early colonial urban centre with considerable political and commercial significance (Li Reference Li2016a). This article moves away from colonial cities to reconstruct a micro-level community history in a border village at the southernmost tip of British Burma, highlighting the Southeast Asian Chinese connection between southern Burma/Myanmar and its southern neighbours, as is acknowledged by Li (Reference Li2017, pp. 121–22) and Roberts (Reference Roberts2016, pp. 39–42).

Finally, mining practices in frontier regions often involve diverse stakeholders and competing interests from near and far. The territorial and conceptual frontier serves simultaneously as a site for empire making, community building, resource extraction, and capital circulation (Dzüvichü and Baruah Reference Dzüvichü, Baruah, Dzüvichü and Baruah2019), setting the stage for colonial, indigenous, and migrant actors in dramatic encounters. This is evident in Southeast Asian frontiers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Baillargeon Reference Baillargeon2022; Galang Reference Galang2021; Luân Reference Luân2014). Historical mining sites along the Yunnan-Burma frontier offered valuable evidence of grassroots, clandestine organisations formed by Chinese migrant miners, and their navigation between indigenous power holders, and Chinese imperial authorities at both national and provincial levels. Simultaneously resisted and cooperated with state actors, they aimed to maximise economic and political gains, though the outcomes were often unpredictable (Dai Reference Dai2004; Fiskesjö Reference Fiskesjö2021, pp. 92–122; Ma Reference Ma2011). The relationship between frontier mining and British India in nineteenth-century Maliwun is recently examined within a broader context of an emerging frontier in an expanding empire, suggesting an awkward and arbitrary spatial division in the colonial state’s mentality and administration (Li Reference Li, Baillargeon and Taylor2022). Supplementing and developing upon this analytical thread, the current article untangles the different, yet equally complex, dynamics among the Chinese miners who navigated multiple frontiers of ethnicity, gender, labour, and resource.

The sources

This article consults English-language sources from colonial archives at central and regional administrative levels, now kept in the India Office Records (IOR) at the British Library in London, and the Myanmar National Archives (MNA) in Yangon. The following limitations are acknowledged: archival documents reflect the perceptions and understandings of the colonial officials who created them, constrained by what they could observe, analyse, and document in their official capacity and individual ability. Notably, most materials used here were produced by middle- or low-ranking British officials, such as two Advisers on Chinese AffairsFootnote ¹ in Burma and several Subdivisional Officers (S.D.O.) of Maliwun, who generally possessed better knowledge of local customs, languages, and social protocols than their peers due to training and experience. However, the institutional bias underlying these sources necessitates a critical reading against the grain.

Ideally, this would be balanced by incorporating materials produced in local languages and by the communities under examination. However, obtaining primary sources from the border communities remains a significant challenge. The scarcity of resources in Myanmar means that urban centres like Yangon may preserve historical materials to some extent, but for anonymous and remote villages like Maliwun, that is a low priority. My fieldwork in Maliwun and Kawthaung returned minimal preserved materials, textual or otherwise. Even the communal memory of a past less than two centuries old has largely vanished among present-day ethnic Chinese residents, most of whom migrated from Thailand in recent decades rather than being direct descendants of the protagonists in this story.Footnote ² To contextualise, I synthesise information from Sino-Burmese communities in Rangoon and major Tenasserim coast cities to reconstruct a historical landscape north to Maliwun, and existing scholarship on Malaya and Siam helps to fill gaps south of the border.

Therefore, the Maliwun story presented here is patchy, with missing links and occasionally unproven speculations. Nonetheless, it offers a glimpse into the early development of a Chinese communal life in a peripheral location – often struggling, occasionally violent, yet perseverant – that eventually faded into historical obscurity. In contrast to sensationalised narratives and high dramas associated with the Southeast Asian Chinese, “secret societies,” and frontier communities, this article argues that what was happening in Maliwun is far closer to historical normality, and deserves greater scholarly attention to ponder over less-known places and ordinary episodes which likely escape both contemporary and present-day academic and public notices.

Maliwun at a historical frontier

Today, a twenty-four-mile paved road connected the city of Kawthaung to Maliwun, a rural area known locally for waterfalls and hot springs and a popular half-day leisure destination from Kawthaung. For nineteenth-century travellers, however, it was a strenuous journey from Victoria Point, where the Pakchan River meets the Andaman Sea. It began with a fifteen-mile steamer voyage up the Pakchan, followed by an additional five miles to the anchorage along the Maliwun Creek, a tributary of the Pakchan. Travellers then navigated another five miles by boat along the winding creek through dense mangrove swamps (Rowett Reference Rowett1874, p. 16).Footnote ³ The creek’s navigability was highly variable by season: “on the flood tide junks of twenty or thirty tons can approach it,” whereas during low tide, even “a smallest canoe” could not float (Tremenheere Reference Tremenheere1843, p. 528). Although a road was constructed after 1856, it “ceased to exist” at some point before 1888, so the waterway was the only way connecting Maliwun to the outside world (Hall 1888, p. 17; Oldham Reference Oldham1856, p. 64).

Maliwun, situated along the Andaman coast, lies approximately halfway between Rangoon and Penang. It was the headquarters of the Maliwun Township, Mergui District, Tenasserim Division until 1891, when the administrative centre moved to Victoria Point for better accessibility and a healthier environment (Andrew Reference Andrew1912, p. 31; Butler Reference Butler1884, appendix ix). Both were at the southernmost tip of British Burma, in a historically contested region among the Burmese, Siamese, and Malays. This area is part of the west coast of the Kra Isthmus, encompasses what is today Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region, six provinces in southern Thailand (Ranong, Krabi, Phuket, Phang Nga, Trang, and Satun), and the Malaysian states of Kedah and Perlis. Here, wars were rampant and political borders shifted frequently. Siam lost the entire Tenasserim coast to Burma after its defeat in the 1760s, who in turn ceded it to the East India Company (EIC) after the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826. Further south, the EIC established a British settlement in Penang, off the coast of Kedah, in 1786. Throughout the nineteenth century, the EIC expanded its influences on the Peninsula, directly confronting the court in Bangkok, which was consolidating its control over southern Muslim regions. Ultimately, Siam was forced to give up part of its Muslim South upon the signing of the Anglo-Siamese Treaty in 1909. Yet, this is also a vibrant hub of thriving trade, diverse population, and multilateral mobility. Its strategic location makes it a crucial site for historic transhipment between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Over centuries, it attracted travellers, sojourning traders, and refugees, some of whom stayed on and integrated with the local populations at various stages.

According to British accounts, the first resettlers in Maliwun after the devastating Burmese-Siamese wars were “a handful of” Malay refugees from Kedah, led by one “Dato Jehan” around 1830, and were soon joined by more Kedah Malays from Phuket (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b). Like their Sultan and other Kedah exiles who fled the 1821 Siamese invasion and found European protection in Penang (Gullick Reference Gullick1983), the Maliwun group sought safety in the newly annexed British territory of Tenasserim. These Malay pioneers cleared the surrounding forests and settled in and around Maliwun. It is likely that they were aware of tin deposits and worked them to some extent (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b), although it would be the Chinese who would dominate the mining in Maliwun a short while later.

Early mining endeavours

After the British annexation of Tenasserim in 1826, Calcutta started to prospect its natural resources (Li Reference Li, Baillargeon and Taylor2022, pp. 102–104). Helfe’s reports (Reference Helfer1837, Reference Helfer1839, Reference Helfer1840, Reference Helfer1841) were soon confirmed by G. B. Tremenheere, the Executive Engineer of Tenasserim, who visited the area between 1841 and 1843 and published his findings in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Tremenheere Reference Tremenheere1841, Reference Tremenheere1842, Reference Tremenheere1843, Reference Tremenheere1845). In 1851, a newly established Geographical Survey of India (GSI) carried out its first general survey of southern Burma, and its superintendent, Thomas Oldham, officially endorsed the existence of substantial tin ores (Oldham Reference Oldham1856). Reports from Helfe, Tremenheere, and Oldham were consistently optimistic, expressing shared enthusiasm about the potential for significant revenue and development in this newly acquired southern colony.

In the early 1840s, Tremenheere counted over 500 residents in Maliwun, including women and children, among whom were 160 Malays, 160 Siamese, and 100 tin-mining Chinese (Tremenheere Reference Tremenheere1843, p. 528). By 1847, Maliwun was already “known as [a] mining camp” (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b). In 1859, its Chinese, Malay, and Siamese population increased to 733, all of whom were working directly or indirectly to extract tin (Hall Reference Hall1888, p. 19). One year later, in 1860, the first recorded lease was granted by the local government to Chit Syang, valid for ten years with an annual rent of 650 rupees. Chit Syang was also appointed as the myook, or head, of Maliwun (Butler Reference Butler1884, pp. 29–30; Hall Reference Hall1888, p. 19).

The name of Chit Syang, and its variations in spelling,Footnote ⁴ signify a typical naming pattern among senior Hokkien men in the early stage of Chinese settlements in this region.Footnote ⁵ Based on his knowledge of southern China, and after interviewing Chit Syang’s descendants in 1892, Parker believed that “Chit” or “Sit” translates to “Uncle” (叔) in the Hokkien dialect, widely spoken in southern Fujian province (Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 61). His formal name was Oo Ah Siang or Ooi Ah Siang (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b), which likely corresponds to the surname 黄 or 余 as spoken in Hokkien. “Uncle” Syang was instrumental in the Chinese mining activities of this period. During his ten-year tenure as both leaseholder and village head, several mines were opened in or near Maliwun, some of which remained operational at least till the mid-1870s (Rowett Reference Rowett1874, pp. 23–29). A British visitor in 1874 noted a particular valley, “Tsit Chan’s Old Valley” as he was told, was “the most productive valley in the district, as old workings can be traced throughout its entire length and breadth” (Rowett, Reference Rowett1874, p. 28). This was better known locally as “Kûh Müang.” Merrifield, the S.D.O., explained its etymology in 1893: “Kûh is Hokkienese for old…Müang is really a Siamese word, meaning … tin-mine, and has been adopted by the local Chinese in the absence of a Chinese equivalent” (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b, emphasis in original).Footnote ⁶ The linguistic hybridity in Uncle Syang’s “old mines” encapsulates the ethnic diversity characteristic of frontier mining sites in the nineteenth century, also captured in colonial gazetteers (Butler Reference Butler1884; Andrew Reference Andrew1912). The combination of the Hokkien word 舊 (jiu) and the Thai word เหมือง (mueang) vividly spoke of the multi-ethnic composition on the ground.

A Muslim inhabitant from a nearby Lenya mine might not see much in the harmonious interracial relations when he complained that “the Chinese are very averse to anyone, except their own people, going there, and that their nats had tigers on the road to waylay the inquisitive and crocodiles in the water to bite off the hands of those who incautiously put them into the river” (Hughes Reference Hughes1889, p. 4). Yet, the appearance of tigers and crocodiles, and crucially, nats, in this short narrative reveals the profound local influence on the daily lives of Chinese miners. Tigers and crocodiles, native to this tropical region, held significant symbolic roles as guardians of land and water, respectively (Wessing Reference Wessing2006). Moreover, the reference to nats, or spiritual powers, blurred the boundary between the Chinese folk pantheon and Southeast Asian religious beliefs. Although the Burmese belief in nats may not have fully penetrated this southern periphery, reverence for supernatural powers was widely shared among the non-European inhabitants, a practice often dismissed as superstitious by contemporary European visitors (Hughes Reference Hughes1889, p. 10). For example, the abandonment of a mining pit was commonly attributed to Chinese miners who were “apparently in fright [and] left their work insisting that the ‘nats’ had decreed no more tin was to be taken” (Rowett Reference Rowett1874, pp. 23–24). Similarly, in and around Maliwun, buffalo sacrifices were customarily performed before opening new pits to secure an “auspicious destiny” (Hughes Reference Hughes1889, p. 10), or to “insure the propitiation of the ‘Nats’” (Rowett Reference Rowett1874, p. 28). The choice of buffalo, an animal of both material (especially in rice growing) and spiritual significance, for the sacrifice “was a common part of the construction of public edifices throughout Southeast Asia in the past, said to give them strength and protection against outside spirit forces” (Wessing Reference Wessing2006, p. 216; also see Brac de la Perrière Reference Brac de la Perrière1995; Rappaport Reference Rappaport2009; Sprenger Reference Sprenger2005). In words and in practice, hybridity was evident as an everyday norm experienced by Chinese miners and their multi-ethnic neighbours, despite the self-imposed ethnic boundaries and protective measures often maintained by the former.

Chit Syang’s ten-year enterprises ended inauspiciously. Unable to generate the profits expected by the government, his lease was not renewed when it expired in 1870. While there is no direct evidence or eyewitness account that substantiates the presence of secret societies or grassroots associations among the Maliwun Chinese miners before and during Chit Syang’s tenure, it is implausible, based on our knowledge from other similar sites, that such organisations did not exist, especially in a mining settlement where labour coordination and resource management were crucial for survival. Two decades later, in 1892, Parker recorded an extensive conversation with Leung Wing-yün, who had been in Maliwun for forty years. Leong calmly admitted that he was the secretary of the Ghee Hin 義興, a “secret society” traditionally associated with the Cantonese. By that time, it was common knowledge in Maliwun that the Ghee Hin had been active “for generations,” with an extensive membership that “nearly every Chinese belongs to it, 120 in all …any European, Burmese and Siamese may belong to it, and one European or Eurasian Inspector of police did actually belong to it” (Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 60).Footnote ⁷ Leong did not elaborate on the early activities of the Ghee Hin, nor his own involvement in the society. Yet, given Ghee Hin’s pervasive presence and accessibility within this small community, it is reasonable to assume that the society may have existed since, or shortly after, the very beginning of the Chinese settlement in Maliwun in the early 1840s. It is also reasonable to believe that, between 1860 and 1870, Chit Syang was the most, indeed the only, qualified individual to lead this society, either in parallel to or as part of his leadership in the mining operations and the broader community.Footnote ⁸

North to Maliwun, this assumption stands well in the general timeline of the expansion of three major ‘secret societies’ in Burma, namely Ghee Hin, its major rival Kyan Taik 建德, and a third entity, Hosum 和勝. In 1852, when the Ghee Hin established the headquarters in Rangoon (Li Reference Li2017, p. 80), Kyan Taik, after its founding in Penang in the early 1840s, opened its first Burma branch in the southern city of Moulmein but did not reach Rangoon until 1868. Yet, as a newcomer, it would eventually grow to overshadow the Ghee Hin around the turn of the twentieth century (Li Reference Li2017, pp. 87–88). Hosum also had an early presence in the south. In 1832, its first branches appeared in both Moulmein and Mergui (Inscription of the Fengshan Si 1997).

Equally pertinent is the intense and widespread rivalry between the Ghee Hin and the Kyan Taik in their competition for labour recruitment and control over resources, most notably in the tin-rich areas south of Tenasserim. The 1867 Penang Riots exemplify this rivalry, involving not only Chinese residents on the island but also reinforcement from the Peninsula, as well as Malay and Kling (southern Indian) supporters associating with both factions (Commission of Enquiry 1867, pp. 6–7; Musa Reference Musa1999; Wong Reference Wong2015, p. 71). The Larut Wars from the 1860s to 1874 were the “total war” of nearly all Chinese factions in the region north of Singapore and south of the Siam-Burma border (Blythe Reference Blythe1969, pp. 174–188; Comber Reference Comber1959, p. 25). In the aftermath of the Penang Riots, the Straits Settlements government enacted several legislative measures between 1869 and 1889 to prohibit the existence of secret societies (Cheng Reference Cheng1972). Yet, conflicts persisted in regions beyond colonial jurisdiction. In the tin-rich area of southern Siam, factional disputes and skirmishes among Chinese mining labourers were frequent, occasionally escalating into violent confrontations. These tensions were exacerbated by the collapse in global tin prices in the mid-1870s. The 1876 Angyee (อั้งยี่) riots in Ranong and Tongkah, the 1878 assassination of the Governor of Krabi, and the 1879 massacre in Tongkah were some of the better-known examples of the ongoing feud among competing Chinese societies in Siam (Baffie Reference Baffie and Leveau2007 for Angyee; Nasution Reference Nasution2009 for Tongkah; Songprasert Reference Songprasert1986, pp. 161–180; Wong Reference Wong2015, pp. 74–75 for Krabi). Songprasert observes that “any event affecting Chinese secret societies in Penang usually had an impact on the Chinese in southern Siam” (Songprasert Reference Songprasert1986, p. 141), a statement that also holds true for southern Burma.

Amid the northward migration route of Chinese communities along the Andaman coast, Ranong, located the nearest to Maliwun, had the most direct impact on the latter. The Siamese town is situated right across the Pakchan River and, like Maliwun, was abundant in tin and had a predominantly Chinese and Siamese population. Governed by the Hokkien Khaw family (許 in Chinese, ณ ระนอง na ranong in Thai), Ranong maintained strong social and commercial ties with Penang and other southern Siamese provinces (Cushman and Reynolds Reference Cushman and Reynolds1991; Wong Reference Wong2015). By the early 1860s, it had also cultivated a new relationship with Rangoon (Li Reference Li2017, p. 76). The ruling family and their affiliated Ghee Hin were targeted by the Kyan Taik miners during the riot in the spring of 1876 (Songprasert Reference Songprasert1986, pp. 165–171) and 1880 (Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 64). Given the fierce regional conflict, it is plausible that the Khaws were either allies or closely associated with the Ghee Hin, if not the sworn members of the society themselves.

However, no rivalry appeared to spill over across the river to Maliwun yet. In Maliwun, there was no evidence implying the presence of the Kyan Taik up till 1892. It seems that the entire settlement of Maliwun was under the control of the Ghee Hin from the very beginning and had been immune to the Kyan Taik encroachment from all directions. The question is, how long would the Ghee Hin be able to hold Maliwun, especially now that Chit Syang, the presumable leader of its local branch, lost his authority?

After Chit Syang

In the subsequent decades, decisions made far away from Maliwun had a significant impact on the village, although none of them achieved their intended outcomes, financially or otherwise. After revoking from Chit Syang, the government granted the lease to a newly established British company, W. Strang Steel &Co., for thirty years. However, it turned out to be a disaster, and Steel &Co. wrapped up just four years later due to substantial financial losses (Li Reference Li, Baillargeon and Taylor2022, pp. 106–107). Concerned about the undue waste of resources and keen to improve the situation, Rangoon dispatched a two-man delegation to Taiping, Perak, in 1888. Taiping had rapidly become the model of tin production in the British colonial world following the signing of the Pangkor Treaty in 1874. The delegation made a brief yet productive trip touring Perak, Penang, and Ranong and sought insights from colonial officials, European traders, and Chinese merchants/towkays en route who had been instrumental in Taiping’s success (Li Reference Li, Baillargeon and Taylor2022). Building on the connections made in 1888, Rangoon awarded a new concession in mid-1892 to a partnership between Ah Kwi, the leader of the Hai San, a Hakka “secret society” and the archenemy of the Ghee Hin during the Larut Wars, and Captain Wilhelm Menzell of Penang (The Colonies and India 20 August 1892, p. 13).

It is difficult to determine whether this was a deliberate attempt to disrupt Ghee Hin’s monopoly or merely a coincidence based on the recommendation of the delegation. Ah Kwi, or Chung Keng Quee 鄭景貴, was the Kapitan China in Perak and one of the most important figures behind the success of Taiping. Both Hai San’s headquarters and Chung’s residence were in Penang, and Hai San had been the major ally of the Kyan Taik on the Peninsula. The involvement of Ah Kwi, or more accurately, the stakeholders associated with him, in Maliwun signalled an official endorsement of the rival of the Ghee Hin.

For reasons that remain unclear, Ah Kwi withdrew from the lease shortly afterwards, leaving Menzell alone to pursue this venture, who secured a five-year sole concession by March 1893 (Bayne Reference Bayne1893). A well-known figure in European circles on both shores of the Andaman Sea, Menzell “was the first Marine Officer in the mercantile service who opened out the trade” (Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle 30 December 1890, p. 5) between India’s Coromandel coast and the west coast of Malaya, boasting extensive experience “in the Straits and in the neighbouring colonies… with signal success in importing both Chinese and Indian labour to the British and Dutch possessions” (Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle 14 September 1893, p. 2). But, crucially, Menzell “possessed neither experience of tin-mining nor large capital [despite being] a man of energy, enterprise, and high character” (Bayne Reference Bayne1893).

In Maliwun, the ripple effects were yet to be felt. By February 1892, the first batch of Chinese miners from Perak had commenced work (Straits Times Weekly Issue 22 February 1893, p. 9). In November of the same year, the consensus among the Chinese was “to be left as they are. If the Syndicate makes no change in the present condition of affairs, everybody will be delighted to work with it” (Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 60). Although there were initial concerns about the new arrangements, an S.D.O. reported that “the suspicions of the local Chinese are gradually dying out” in May 1893 (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893a).

This was not the first time Maliwun dealt with external commercial endeavours, and the presence of European companies typically provided additional employment opportunities. Often, these companies imported labour from other British colonies, such as Malaya (by Menzell and Jelebu, to be discussed later) or India (by Steel &Co.) (Li Reference Li, Baillargeon and Taylor2022, p. 111), as well as directly hired local Chinese to work in the companies’ pits. All company labourers were managed by on-site British or European representatives, and Chinese employees customarily received annual payment on the Chinese New Year’s Day (Prichard Reference Prichard1896). Of course, this option was only available when the lease was held by a European company – which was intermittent throughout these decades. It hardly affected the primary mining labour force: independent miners and small-scale mine owners, who were predominantly Chinese. These mine owners sourced their own labourers, provided provisions including licensed opium and spirits, and essentially operated a small yet comprehensive business enterprise as towkays. Individual miners, on the other hand, were the most volatile type, with their number fluctuating seasonally and annually.Footnote ⁹

Two types of tin deposits were identified in Maliwun: the alluvial tin and the hill tin. Due to extensive decomposition and denudation, mineralised debris frequently appeared on the surface of the ground or in riverbeds. The traditional local mining method for extracting alluvial tin remained the most common in Maliwun; that was, to wash gravels from riverbeds and separate minerals from overburden (Li Reference Li, Baillargeon and Taylor2022, p. 102). Occasionally, Chinese miners were “picking the eyes” in the hills and “worked into the more solid rock below” if necessary, for the hill tin (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b). Tin ores collected by both mine owners and independent miners would be either smelted in local furnaces or smuggled across the river to Ranong for further processing. In contrast, company labourers must hand over their ores to the manager, who then arranges the smelting centrally, often elsewhere.

Although the deposit was the richest in Maliwun, tin had been found elsewhere in Tenasserim. In the Mergui District alone, four out of five townships were active in tin mining in the late 1880s, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Key mining-related data in the four tin-mining townships in Mergui in the 1880s

Sources: Butler (Reference Butler1884, p. 11); Hall (Reference Hall1888, pp. xix–xx); Hughes (Reference Hughes1889, pp. 16–17).

Despite the absence of Chit Syang, whose post-1870 life is hard to track, his influence persisted through his remaining family members. As late as November 1892, Chit Syang’s youngest “Baba” (the offspring of Chinese men and local women) son, Ooi Kim Kong (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b), along with Chit Syang’s cousin and niece, were living in Maliwun and exerting considerable influence over local life and work. Ma Mei (or Mah Meh), a cousin of Chit Syang (her father, Chit Ben, was Chit Syang’s maternal uncle), co-owned one of the village’s two furnaces. She was also a granddaughter of one of the Malay resettlers relocating from Phuket and therefore inherited a piece of land in the village centre from this Malay ancestor. Her Hokkien husband, variously known as Li Poung (Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 61), Koi Ah Pûn (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b), or Chit Pun (Warry Reference Warry1896), was the head of the Ghee Hin. Chit Pun was no doubt an important figure here. Officially, he was a spirit farmer, and unofficially, he smuggled opium from southern Siam (other than Ranong) or directly from Penang, wherever the price was lower. The couple co-owned a small Tongkah-style furnace, and they paid approximately $150 (probably Strait Dollars) from their own pocket for materials imported from Penang to make it. Chit Pun had a large family to feed: four generations were living in the village as of 1896. Like old Leung, the Ghee Hin secretary in 1892, Chit Pun was forthright with colonial officials about the Ghee Hin and his own role (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b; Parker Reference Parker1892; Warry Reference Warry1896). Every detail suggests that Chit Pun was the successor of his relative Chit Syang, leading both the community and the Ghee Hin.

In 1896, Chit Pun did not hesitate to acknowledge that nearly everyone was a Ghee Hin member – around eighty in Maliwun and probably 150 more in nearby villages along the Pakchan River (Warry Reference Warry1896). However, this did not eliminate internal competition. During the 1890s, the primary rival to the Ma Mei-Chit Pun couple was Ma Ni’o, a widowed woman and the owner of the village’s only other furnace,Footnote ¹⁰ and her Hokkien business partner Te(n)h Ah Tchaw, or Chet Chaw. Like Ma Mei, Ma Ni’o was also a relative of Chit Syang, a niece with Siamese ancestry, and had several children depending on her. She managed various enterprises: as the licensed opium farmer under her father’s name (no doubt forcing her rival Chit Pun going underground for opium smuggling); one of the few mine owners; and owner of the village shop for miners’ provisions and a cargo boat. Her late husband, Lim Ah Lûn, was the previous opium farmer, and they jointly set up a furnace in 1878, which was similar in design and value to Ma Mei’s (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b; Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 61). The commercial rivalry between these two women and their respective partners was obvious: as smelters, provision suppliers, and transportation providers. In addition to the official, though intermittent, mining leaseholders, these influential figures of the community vied for control over local mining operations within the community. No doubt, their influence was largely built upon the material and social legacy of their common ancestor, Chit Syang.

The arrival of the rivals

Whatever the internal competition might be, it was the influx of external players that ultimately and irrevocably broke Ghee Hin’s monopoly and disrupted the existing operational framework among the Chinese. Around 1892–1893, there were attempts to consolidate smelting operations by persuading village furnace owners to either sell their facilities to or work for Menzell, the concessionaire (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b; Parker Reference Parker1892). These efforts, however, proved fruitless, and the two furnaces continued processing tin ores for both their owners and independent miners (Warry Reference Warry1896). But the state of autonomy would not last long. In 1894, Menzell transferred his remaining concession, which had about three years left, to the Jelebu Mining and Trading Company (The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (Weekly) 9 October 1894, p. 13), one of the British tin-mining companies instrumental in the development of the tin-rich Sungai Ujong region in Malaya in the 1880s (Tregonning Reference Tregonning1963, p. 98). Well-equipped with both the capital and expertise that Menzell lacked,Footnote ¹¹ Jelebu was confident to tackle the new challenges despite a series of setbacks associated with Maliwun previously.

Recruiting and maintaining a reliable labour force consistently posed a significant challenge for European companies operating in Maliwun (Li Reference Li, Baillargeon and Taylor2022, p. 107). The local workforce fluctuated but generally remained insufficient. In 1874, during the transition to Steel &Co., Maliwun had “probably a population of 200 or 250, the greater proportion are Chinese refugees … work at the mines or fishing” (Rowett Reference Rowett1874, p. 20). In 1896, among its 600 residents, three-quarters were Chinese (Prichard Reference Prichard1896). To address the labour shortage, Jelebu frequently collaborated with Chinese intermediaries in Penang, its main source of recruits, to ensure a steady flow of new workers.Footnote ¹² Occasionally, Jelebu also worked with Ranong through Dr. Gunn, secretary to Khaw Sim Kong 許心廣, the Governor of Ranong, to facilitate recruitment and manage labour (Carrapiett Reference Carrapiett1896b). This was never easy. For example, in early 1896, around twenty new recruits abandoned their steamer in “Kopak” (or Takua Pa, on the southern Siamese coast) before reaching Maliwun, and in September, another group deserted Gunn’s site (Carrapiett Reference Carrapiett1896a).Footnote ¹³ Nevertheless, Jelebu continued its recruitment efforts. From March 1894, the company began transporting Chinese (and to a small extent, Malay and Javanese) labourers to Maliwun. By March 1896, there were 250 in the village, with an additional fifty expected soon and another 100 to 200 anticipated within months. The tension grew fast between the existing village residents and the new recruits, even though some shared the same regional origins back in China. In Maliwun, they lived separately: the existing ones, numbering around eight to ninety, remained inside the village, while the newcomers lived in their own quarters one mile away, near the house of the company’s British manager (Warry Reference Warry1896).

In colonial documentation, the new recruits were labelled “red flag” and the old ones “white flag” (Carrapiett Reference Carrapiett1896a; Prichard Reference Prichard1896), the very same terms used for members of the Kyan Taik and the Ghee Hin and their non-Chinese allies, respectively, during the 1867 Penang Riots. Although both “flags” had by then been banned in the Straits Settlements and all “secret societies” were officially dissolved, their legacies and the associated tensions persisted throughout the region. Sensing the rising tension on the ground, the Jelebu manager expressed concerns about potential threats to both the operation and his personal safety. This prompted Jelebu’s headquarters in Singapore to formally write to the Burmese Government in early 1896, highlighting the “terrorism exercised by the Ghee Hin Society” (Jelebu 1896). The timing of this complaint was delicate, coinciding with the arrival of the Chinese New Year, the annual payday for Chinese labourers. It recalled an early incident in the mid-1870s, when an agent for the Steel &Co. and a Burmese myook was forced to seek refuge in Ranong around the similar time of the year due to unrest triggered by incomplete payments to Chinese miners (Prichard Reference Prichard1896). Jelebu was acutely aware of this precedent and the associated risks.

The tension was more than mere factional rivals. Instead, it challenged the well-established economic and social protocols underlying this mining community. Jelebu’s intervention represented a significant shift from the longstanding practice of the Maliwun Chinese, who were tolerated, if not encouraged, to operate with a degree of autonomy in labour organisation and resource distribution. Since Chit Syang’s era, if not earlier, Ghee Hin had been integral to this system, to which “every one there, Chinese, Siamese, Malays, has, as a rule, belonged” (Warry Reference Warry1896). Towkays were also community leaders and heads of the Ghee Hin themselves or their close associates. Therefore, Chit Syang, Ma Mei, and Ma Ni’o functioned simultaneously as mine owners hiring labourers, provision suppliers for substances (opium and spirit), and facility managers of smelting houses and water transportation. However, Jelebu’s approach marked a departure from this model. For the first time, it insisted on purchasing ores directly from both independent miners and mine owners at reduced prices and processing them in the company’s own furnaces (Warry Reference Warry1896). This shift was in line with a regional trend towards the standardisation and consolidation of the mining industry by a few major European companies around this time (Tregonning Reference Tregonning1963). Consequently, on the ground, it threatened to render the village furnaces, which were associated with key communal figures, obsolete, thereby eroding both their profits and influences within the community. Furthermore, Jelebu was wary of opium smuggling prevailing near the border and aimed to assert tight control over the opium supply. This again challenged the operational basis and primary source of profits of the enterprises under Ma Mei-Chit Pun and Ma Ni’o-Chet Chaw.

Beneath the rhetoric of factional rivalry among the so-called “secret societies,” a more tangible, and ultimately decisive threat emerged in Maliwun, in the wake of the intervention of Jelebu and the “red flag” it introduced. The threat was hardly resistible. The Chinese New Year of 1896 “passed off in perfect quiet” – the Jelebu manager admitted he had overestimated the threat. By then, half of the existing Chinese villagers had worked for Jelebu “at roadmaking, mining and charcoal burning” (Warry Reference Warry1896). Even Chit Pun, the Ghee Hin head and furnace co-owner, signalled his willingness to “give up the books of the ‘late Gheehin Lodge’” (Warry Reference Warry1896), that was, to dissolve the society, if the government required so.

Despite all these, the Jelebu Mining and Trading Company, like its predecessors, eventually abandoned Maliwun in 1898, seeing little profitability from both farming (of opium and spirit) and mining ventures (The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (Weekly) 26 May 1898, p. 8). Yet at this point, it was evident that Maliwun had two rivalling Chinese societies, the Ghee Hin and the Kyan Taik. The longstanding monopoly of the Ghee Hin in this border village was over.

The last fortress of the Ghee Hin?

Maliwun may well have been one of the last strongholds of the Ghee Hin in the entire region. The emergence of the Kyan Taik on the scene was indeed a long-overdue episode, reflecting a broader trend of Kyan Taik’s ascendancy and Ghee Hin’s decline. After the 1867 Penang Riots and the Larut Wars up to 1874, Kyan Taik and its ally Hai San replaced Ghee Hin as the primary Chinese players in the Malayan tin mines and commercial sectors. In Ranong, although secret societies were ostensibly absent (Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 64), a subtle realignment likely happened between two local riots of 1876 and 1880 – during which the Ghee Hin-friendly Khaw family and their Kyan Taik labourers were against each other – and the cooperation between Jelebu and Gunn in 1896. This may have even led Ranong to withdraw its long-standing support for the Ghee Hin across the river in Maliwun. To the north of Maliwun, in addition to Kyan Taik’s first branch in Moulmein in 1852, the Tavoy Chinese community claims that around the same time,Footnote ¹⁴ Kyan Taik also appeared despite an established presence of the Cantonese miners from Xiangshan. By 1892, Kyan Taik was the sole secret society in Tavoy, where the Hokkien predominated: there were 200 Hokkien residents compared to thirty Cantonese, and two major Hokkien temples – Fuh-ling Kong 福靈宮, established in 1874 (Inscriptions of the Fuling Gong 1902 & 1994), and Fuh-yüan Kong 福元宮 (Parker Reference Parker1892). Similarly, in Mergui, the earliest Chinese temple, the Tianhou Gong 天后宮, was built no later than 1838 with strong Cantonese characteristics (Li Reference Li2017, p. 77). However, by 1892, all three “secret societies” were active in a mixed community of Hokkien and Cantonese migrants from various sub-regions (Parker Reference Parker1892). Amid the waning influence of the Ghee Hin/Cantonese, it was remarkable that Maliwun remained under Ghee Hin until the mid-1890s.

The available sources are insufficient to establish the regional origins of the Maliwun Chinese. Linguistic clues such as “Chit” and “Kûh” suggest a Hokkien influence. In 1892, Parker noted that seventy percent of the population was Hokkien, and thirty percent was Cantonese. Among the latter were Cheung Yüt 张曰, a “FychowFootnote ¹⁵ -Cantonese,” and Leung Wing-yün, the Ghee Hin secretary, almost certainly a Cantonese, yet everyone “spoke Cantonese or Hakka” (Parker Reference Parker1892, p. 61). An 1893 list of twenty-five miners and mine owners included fourteen Hokkien, six Cantonese, one Macao, and three Baba (Merrifield Reference Merrifield1893b). In 1896, Warry observed that “almost all the Maliwun Chinese” came from the area near Amoy in the Hokkien-speaking area (Warry Reference Warry1896). As a rule of thumb, Ghee Hin was traditionally associated with the Cantonese, while Kyan Taik with the Hokkien, but these affiliations could be flexible in practice. As seen in the case of Mergui, Ghee Hin accepted both Cantonese and Hokkien members as of 1892 (Parker Reference Parker1892). This implies that either the regional distinctions were not strictly maintained or there was a high degree of multilingual fluency in these early frontier communities.

At the macro level, it is important to recognise the manoeuvrings of state power beyond the immediate rivalry of specific factions. As Ownby (Reference Ownby, Ownby and Somers Heidhues1993, p. 17) argues, secret societies could “assume rudimentary political functions in frontier environments” with or without rebelling “against the (nonexistent or distant) state.” This is exemplified across the Yunnan-Burma borderland over the past few centuries, in the cases of Wu Shangxian, the self-claimed leader of the Maolong silver mine, and the Big Vehicle Religion in the Luohei Mountain (Dai Reference Dai2004; Fiskesjö Reference Fiskesjö2021, pp. 92–122; Ma Reference Ma2011). The same political tactic was also evident in the British colonies, where “secret societies were permitted to exist … that assisted in the control of the Chinese population” (Ownby Reference Ownby, Ownby and Somers Heidhues1993, p. 19). The rise and fall of brotherhood associations like Ghee Hin and Kyan Taik along the Andaman coast were directly shaped by British and, to a lesser extent, Siamese state intervention. Imperial China, by contrast, was notably absent here. Unlike their counterparts in Yunnan, Chit Syang and his folk neither planned nor possessed the capacity to engage with Chinese officialdom at any level. The imperial Chinese state was certainly not indifferent to this region, with or without a direct territorial border. In its final decades, the Qing court actively sought for Southeast Asian Chinese wealth and allegiance, openly selling brevet titles to community leaders and wealthy merchants (Yen Reference Yen1970). Often, buyers were established local elites, most if not all, were heads of grassroots associations, including major secret societies. We need look no further than Ah Kwi, the one-time joint leaseholder of Maliwun, and his archenemy in Perak, Chin Ah Yam, the Hakka head of the local Ghee Hin. Both, while being appointed Kapitans of China by the British, invested significantly to purchase imperial titles to ensure that their portrays, and those of their ancestors, could be adorned with appropriate Mandarin hats and robes (Yen Reference Yen1970, p. 30), an important step of a long-term self-transformation from “Gangsters into Gentlemen” (Ho Reference Ho2002). This level of interaction, or awareness, was far beyond the reach of Uncle Syang, whose sole direct engagement with any state authority was an unsuccessful ten-year tenure as the myook. Constrained by geographic remoteness and/or institutional neglect, imperial China displayed little interest, let alone direct intervention, in this frontier mining community.