A Tribute to our Forefathers - Taming the Wild ; Laying the Foundation - Part 1

 A tribute to the men,women and children who built the plantation /commodities industry of Malaya.

This is a post dedicated to the thousands of men women and children who migrated to the Malay peninsula in the 19th century to open up rubber plantations in a densely forested region. Thousands died in this process due to the lack of proper sanitation and health facilities, neglected and forgotten, those who benefited from them were the British but it also brought long term economic gains to the country.Therefore it is only fair that we devote a small part of our time to remember these brave people who helped lay the economic foundation of this beloved nation of ours.

Below are a collection of pictures and articles to commemorate their service to Malaya/Malaysia.

 The Pioneers who turned the jungles of Selangor into a resourceful rubber producing state.

The Midlands Estate (1889), 

Modern-Day Section 7, Shah Alam

The first Rubber Estate in Selangor

Ladang Midlands was the first estate in 1889 to be planted with rubber in Selangor by a British company called Highlands and Lowlands. The history of its early years is filled with stories of suffering which the pioneers had to endure. They were probably the first Indian men in Selangor who ventured out with their families to tame a wild landscape in the name of their British 'overlords' who established vast tracts of plantations in the once dense rainforests of Selangor . At one point of time, the estate was even called 'Ladang Air Kuning' (Yellow Water Plantation) because the water supplied was yellow in colour. This resulted in many deaths from malaria and cholera.It is hard to imagine the kind of hardship these families had to endure to pacify the harsh landscape and turn it into a productive landscape.

 Below: Estate workers whose ancestors had helped clear the forests and plant rubber trees

Source: Michael Stenson, Class, Race and Colonialism in West Malaysia;The Indian Case,pg 106

Modern-day Shah Alam was made up of many massive plantations. One of which was the Midlands Estate(see map).

Source:

http://www.malaysiantemples.com/search/label/Meenatchi%20Amman