VIDEO SUMMARY:
- Melaka has 500–600 years of complicated history, but one simple number can provide a useful mental framework: 50.
- Think of 1350, 1450, 1550, 1650, 1750, 1850 and 1950 and you get a series of snapshots showing how dramatically Melaka changed over the centuries.
- The story moves from jungle, mangroves and fishermen, to the golden age of the Melaka Sultanate, then through Portuguese, Dutch and British rule.
- The biggest lesson is that the landscape we see today can be very misleading: rivers have silted up, land has been reclaimed, fortifications have disappeared, and even the famous Red Square wasn’t always red.
Start With Nothing: 1350
One of the easiest ways to understand historic Melaka is to strip away everything you see today.
In 1350, there was no Dutch Square, no Stadthuys, no Christ Church and no sprawling historic city. Instead, picture a much wider river, mangrove mudflats, jungle and the Melaka Strait stretching beyond it.
The two features that really mattered were the river and the hill.
That combination would eventually make Melaka enormously important. The river provided access for ships, while the hill offered an obvious place for observation and defence. Portuguese, Dutch and British rulers would all make use of that strategic geography centuries later.
So 1350 becomes the starting point: a hill, a river, jungle and a scattering of fishermen.
1450: From Fishing Settlement to International Port
Jump forward just 100 years and the scene is almost unimaginable compared with 1350.
By 1450, Melaka was at the height of the Sultanate. The hill was occupied by the Sultan’s palace complex and grand mosque, while the river and surrounding waters had become one of the great trading centres of the region.
Ships and traders arrived from across Asia and beyond. The city was multilingual and multicultural, with merchants from places including Arabia, India, Java and China.
The river itself had become part of the commercial infrastructure, with a major bridge lined with shops and money changers.
The transformation is enormous:
1350: natural landscape.
1450: international trading metropolis.
That is why remembering the two dates together is so useful.
1550: The Portuguese Take Over
Then comes another dramatic change.
The Portuguese conquered Melaka in 1511, defeating the Sultanate and establishing their own fortified stronghold. By 1550, the landscape was dominated by Portuguese military architecture.
The Sultanate’s grand mosque and palace complex were gone, and materials from the former buildings were reused in Portuguese fortifications.
A huge defensive tower—essentially a Portuguese keep—dominated the hill, while a much larger fortress was being constructed around it.
And there is an important geographical detail here: the water was much closer to the fortress than it is today.
Modern land reclamation has changed the appearance of the area so much that it can be difficult to visualize how the Portuguese fortress once stood alongside the Melaka Strait, with cannon positions facing the water.
The hill remained the same. But the reason for occupying it had shifted from the Sultanate’s seat of power to a European military fortress.
1650: The Dutch Replace the Portuguese
Another century, another transformation.
In 1641, the Dutch defeated the Portuguese after a long and brutal siege. By 1650, the Portuguese had been replaced and the Dutch were rebuilding Melaka in their own image.
The great Portuguese tower had been so badly damaged that the Dutch demolished what remained and reused the material to expand the fortress.
They strengthened the walls, added earthworks and constructed defensive bastions.
Meanwhile, the Dutch were also creating many of the buildings that define the historic centre today—including the Stadthuys, associated with the year 1650.
But there is a wonderful little historical surprise here:
The buildings weren’t red.
The Stadthuys and surrounding Dutch buildings were originally finished in white. The distinctive red appearance associated with Melaka today came much later.
1750: The Dutch City Takes Shape
By 1750, the Dutch had been in control for more than a century.
The Stadthuys was established, and Christ Church was under construction—it would be completed in 1753.
But the modern view from Dutch Square is still deceptive.
Standing here in 1750, you wouldn’t have had the open view across the square that exists today. A substantial fortress wall still stood between the square and the hill, with moats and defensive works surrounding the fortified area.
So when we look at the picturesque buildings today, it’s worth remembering that they once existed as part of a much more heavily militarized landscape.
1850: The Fortress Disappears
This is perhaps the most dramatic transformation in the entire sequence.
By 1850, the British were in control of Melaka, and the enormous fortress that had dominated the city for centuries was gone.
The British had taken temporary control of Melaka during the Napoleonic Wars, partly to prevent it from falling into French hands. But when it became clear that the Dutch might eventually regain the city, the British East India Company had an incentive to make sure Melaka could no longer function as the heavily fortified trading centre it had once been.
The result was the systematic dismantling of the fortress.
Explosives were used to demolish the walls, leaving only fragments—including the famous Porta de Santiago on the other side of the hill.
So the open Dutch Square we see today is actually the product of a relatively recent historical transformation. For centuries, a massive fortress stood where that open view now exists.
1950: The Red City We Recognize Today
Finally, jump forward to 1950.
Now we’re approaching the end of the British era, and Melaka looks much more familiar.
The buildings have their famous terracotta-red appearance, and the clock tower and Queen Victoria Fountain have also appeared.
But even that familiar colour has a story.
Two explanations commonly appear for why the buildings became red. One involves the red staining caused by betel-nut chewing; another connects the colour to laterite, whose reddish dust and erosion could stain the buildings.
Either way, the important point for the Planet Doug method is simple:
Melaka wasn’t always red.
The Red Square we know today is itself part of the relatively recent history of the city.
The Mental Dartboard
And that’s the whole idea behind the Planet Doug method.
You don’t need to memorize hundreds of dates before you can begin understanding Melaka. Instead, remember the 50s:
1350 — jungle, mangroves, hill and river
1450 — height of the Melaka Sultanate
1550 — Portuguese era
1650 — beginning of the Dutch era
1750 — established Dutch city and fortress
1850 — British era; fortress demolished
1950 — late British era and the familiar red city
Think of these dates as a kind of mental dartboard. When you encounter another date in a museum, on a historical sign or attached to a building, you can roughly place it within the larger story.
See 1650 on the Stadthuys? You’re at the beginning of the Dutch period.
See 1753 on Christ Church? You’re well into Dutch rule.
See a date from the 1800s? You’re in the British period.
Suddenly, individual dates stop floating around as isolated facts. They have somewhere to land.
And that’s really what this method is about: not memorizing Melaka’s entire history, but giving yourself a simple framework that makes the rest of the history easier to understand.
Remember 50. Then fill in the details.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Planet Doug and welcome back once again to the historic city of Melaka, Malaysia. And in my time in Melaka, I’ve come up with what I think of as the Planet Doug method for understanding Melaka, its history, and putting it into context. And this is important because Melaka has a very long history, a dense history going back 500-600 years, and it’s very easy to get a little bit mixed up. And I stumbled across the Planet Doug technique. And the amazing thing about this technique, it may or may not work for you, but it works for me, is that all you have to remember is the number 50. Think of Melaka, think of the number 50, and then start from there. What does the number 50 mean? Well, 50 is the year, and if you think of all the years containing the number 50, that can give you a little bit of a snapshot of Melaka at that time period. So, let’s go all the way back in time and start with the year 1350. Why 1350? Because Melaka didn’t exist yet. The city of Melaka had not been founded in 1350. So, if you’re standing here in the middle of Dutch Square, and you look around in a circle, let me send my GoPro in a circle, and think about everything that you’re seeing here, all the buildings, all the people, the pavement, the cars, Christ Church, Stadthuys, this traffic circle, none of this would have existed. None of this would have been here back in 1350. So, what would you have seen? Well, in 1350, you would just have seen the natural environment. You have the river over here, which is just behind me. At that time, you’ve got the river mouth was right here. The Melaka Strait was right here. You would have been looking out over the Melaka Strait, basically looking out over the ocean, if you want to think of it that way. This would all have been mangrove jungle, mud flats. The river would have been much wider than it is today. It has become much narrower and silted up over time. So, picture the river much wider, mangrove mud flats, jungle, the Melaka Strait, and over here, the hill. We can’t see it right now because it’s covered up by all the buildings, but if you close your eyes for a minute, think about the year 1350. Now, open them. Everything is gone except for the hill, the jungle, and the river. As far as people are concerned, you might see some local fishermen. Maybe there was a small fishing village, but I don’t know about that. And you might have seen some rough fishing shelters that the fishermen built, and you might have seen some of the Orang Asli, in particular, the Orang Laut, the fishermen, the famous fishermen that lived on their boats going up and down the coast of the Malay Peninsula. And the key to all of that, of course, is the river and the hill. And when you think about the city as starting as just a hill and a river, you have the two keys to understanding Melaka. Because it became an international trading port because of the river and its strategic position on the Melaka Strait and because the hill was such an obvious location to establish a lookout and a militarily defensive position used by the Melaka Sultanate, by the Portuguese, by the Dutch, and by the British. So, that’s your starting point. 1350. Nothing here but jungle, a hill, a river, and a few fishermen.
Now, let’s jump ahead in time, remembering only the number 50, and think about the year 1450. You know, you can close your eyes, imagine that hill covered in jungle, the river, mangrove. Now, open your eyes in 1450, what do you see? This area has been utterly transformed. Now, you’re looking at the golden age of Melaka, the height of the Melaka Sultanate. And right around here, behind me, you probably would have seen the grand mosque. A high tower, the grand mosque of the Melaka Sultanate, up on the hill, you would have seen the sprawling complex, the Melaka Sultanate’s palace, up here on the hill with many other buildings surrounding it, going all the way up to the top. Looking in this direction towards the river, what you would see instead of mangrove and muddy flats, now you’re seeing ships, hundreds of ships lined up along the river out in the Melaka Strait. All kinds of ships busy going back and forth to the ships in the Melaka Strait unloading goods, carrying them here. You would have seen thousands of people, traders from Arabia, from India, from Java, from China, from Malaysia, of course. You would have seen thousands of people here speaking many, many different languages, ships from all over the world engaged in international trade. And instead of just a wide river right here, you would have seen a major bridge. And the bridge would have been covered in shop houses, money changers lined up on both sides. So that is the year 1450, the height of the Melaka Sultanate, the golden age of Melaka. 1350, 1450.
Now jump ahead to 1550. Again, close your eyes. Think about what you were just visualizing, the height of the Melaka Sultanate. Now open them in the year 1550. Again, everything has changed utterly. The grand mosque that I was talking about, this tower here, gone. Torn down by the Portuguese. And the Portuguese were using the stone, the laterite, the brick, the wood of the grand mosque to build their fortifications. Look up on the hill, the Sultanate Palace, the vast sprawling wooden complex, the wooden palisades defending it, all gone, all burned to the ground by the Portuguese. Because in the year 1511, the Portuguese came in their ships, engaged in a brutal war with the Melaka Sultanate forces, eventually defeating the Melaka Sultanate, driving them out, and the Portuguese, beset on all sides by hostile forces, immediately began building fortifications. And probably roughly where the grand mosque used to stand, they built a defensive tower, a huge tower, a structure five stories high. Think of it as a Portuguese keep. You can see photographs of these that still exist today in Portugal, in Europe. They built this massive tower five stories high, and then around it a heavily defended fortress wall, kind of a small square here. But by the year 1550, they had begun construction of the fortress that went all the way around the hill. As I said, thinking back to 1350, this hill was the key to Melaka, and every occupying power used it as their stronghold. And the Portuguese, after they built their five-story defensive tower and the small fort right here, they began work on the Portuguese fortress, constructing a massive wall going all the way around the hill, and going right alongside the Melaka Strait. Because again, remember at that time the water was right here. So, you could defend, you could build a defensive wall here, mount cannons on it, and the cannons are aimed directly at any ships coming through the Strait to attack you. Modern times, this has all been reclaimed, and you don’t see the water anymore. So, it gives you a very altered perception. So, 1550 that was the heart, the middle of the Portuguese era. Their five-story tower dominated the skyline here. It was the major structure for the century plus that the Portuguese were here. The Portuguese fortress walls going all along the Melaka Strait and all the way around along the river. So, that would have been Melaka in 1550.
If all of this sounds complicated, remember the key to the Planet Doug method is the number 50. Just think about that number. 1350, 1450, 1550, the Portuguese era. Now, let’s jump ahead to 1650. Again, close your eyes. Think about the Portuguese era, the tower that was here, the fortress walls that they’re building. Now, in 1650, open your eyes. What do you see? That massive Portuguese defensive tower, the keep that they originally called A Famosa, gone. Totally destroyed in a war with the Dutch. And that’s because in 1641, the Dutch came in their ships, engaged in an 8-month-long brutal siege-like battle with the Portuguese. A dramatic time in history. After 8 months of grueling combat, they were shattering the defensive tower with cannonball, shattering the fortress walls with their cannon. And after 8 months, the Portuguese fortress finally fell, and the Dutch took over. So, that was in 1641. 1650 is just 9 years later. So, if you think of 1650, that’s the beginning of the Dutch era. The Portuguese tower that had dominated Melaka for so long, completely gone. It was so badly damaged during the war that the Dutch just tore the rest of it down, and they used the material to expand the original Portuguese fortress walls. They rebuilt it, made it stronger, they made it wider with dirt bulwarks behind the walls, and they started construction of all the bastions that we hear about today, the Middleburg bastions, these defensive points around the fortress at all the corners. And if 1650 sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you heard that the Stadthuys was built in 1650. So, by jumping ahead to the year 1650, we know that the Portuguese tower is gone, the defensive fortress is being expanded and made larger and more powerful, and the Dutch had built the Stadthuys. I don’t know if it was officially complete in 1650 and looked exactly as it does now, but they were building the Stadthuys. Maybe they’d completed it by 1650, as well as a lot of the other Dutch buildings you see around me. Of course, one key factoid from 1650 would be that all of these buildings were not red at that time. The original buildings, the Stadthuys and the others as built by the Dutch, were white, not red. They did not become red until the British era.
So, if you’re hanging in there with me, the Planet Doug method of only remembering the number 50, we have 1350, all we had here was jungle, mangrove, the hill, the river, and a scattering of fishermen. Jump ahead, 1450, the golden age of the Melaka Sultanate. 1550, we’re in the middle of the Portuguese era. 1650, the Dutch have defeated the Portuguese, and that is the beginning of the Dutch era. Now, we jump ahead to 1750, and in 1750, this is still the heart of the Dutch era, but one thing that you’ll notice is the Christ Church Melaka behind me, it has on the front the date 1753, and that church was completed in the year 1753. They actually began construction on that church in 1741, and that was commemorating 100 years of Dutch rule since their victory over the Portuguese in 1641. So, by going from 1650, the beginning of the Dutch era, the construction of the Stadthuys, now we jump ahead to 1750, and they’ve added the Christ Church Melaka. And note that even in 1750, these buildings around me, they all would have been white. They would not have this distinctive red color for quite a few years yet. Now, remember in 1750, we’re still in the Dutch era. We would have the Stadthuys, Christ Church, these other buildings. But we would also have, if we were looking at Dutch Square in 1750, our view from here would have been completely obscured because there would have been a massive fortress wall running right between us and all of the buildings. So the fortress was still here going all the way around the base of the hill. And now you would have Dutch moats as well encircling the fortress. So key points might be the Stadthuys, Christ Church, but also the original Portuguese fortress, now under the Dutch, was still here and in fact was much bigger and much more of a formidable fortress wall. So we would be looking at a huge fortress right here going all the way around the Melaka Hill.
Now, we jump ahead. Close your eyes. Think about Melaka in 1750, everything I just described. Now let’s open them in 1850. What do you see? Now in 1850, we are in the British era and the biggest change, that fortress that I’ve been talking about at length, completely gone. And that’s a fascinating part of Melaka’s story that the British agreed with the Dutch to be caretakers of Melaka. The Dutch were involved in the Napoleonic Wars and they could not maintain Melaka and they made an agreement with the British that the British would take care of Melaka in order to keep it out of the hands of the French. So, there was a period of a number of years where the British were in charge and the deal was that they were going to give it back to the Dutch when the war was over, when in theory the war was won. But then, the East India Company, which was actually the British entity in control of Melaka, they started thinking, “Well, if we’re going to give Melaka back to the Dutch, we have to, according to the terms of this treaty, well, we don’t want to give it back to them such that they can just move back in and have this well-defended fortress trading center because it would be in direct competition with the British trading center in Penang.” So, the East India Company of Britain, what they decided to do was gut the city before they gave it back and a major part of that plan was tearing down the fortress. So, that is a key part of Melaka’s history and for my money, one of the greatest tragedies because close your eyes in 1750, the Dutch era, you see this incredible fortress. By 1850, that entire fortress was gone except for the one gate, the Porta de Santiago, which is on the other side of the hill. So, underneath the British, for the first time, if you’re standing here by the bridge, standing over here by the river, so you can see I’m right beside the river where I’m standing, from here, normally you would have seen a fortress wall right here blocking the view of everything, but jump ahead to 1850 and once again Melaka had been completely transformed. This fortress demolished with gunpowder, explosives, torn down, and the fortress is now, in 1850, under the British, completely gone.
We have one more time jump to complete from 1850 now. Open your eyes in Melaka in 1950, and that is also a pivotal year in Melaka because we’re just coming out of World War II and the Japanese occupation. We are still in the British era, British control, and now we see that all the buildings have become terracotta red. As I said, under the Dutch and for most of their lifetime, the Stadthuys, all these buildings, and the Christ Church and others, they were all painted with white plaster, but under the British, they decided to repaint them terracotta red. And I heard two different stories to explain that. One is that people would chew betel nut, and then they would spit the red juice of the betel nut on the walls of these buildings, and that gave unsightly red stains. So, they thought, “Well, we might as well paint them red then, cover up the betel nut stains.” But I also read it was because of the natural red color of laterite, the kind of clayish stone that was used to build all the walls of these buildings. The laterite would erode and the dust would get onto the road in the rainy season, and that red mud would be splashed up onto the walls. The laterite red would bleed through the white plaster and stain everything red. So, the British decided, well, if we have to keep repainting it white over and over to cover up the red, well, why don’t we just paint it all red, and then that will reduce our maintenance costs. So, in fact, the Red Square as we see it today didn’t come into view until the early 1900s, and in 1950, this is what you would have seen. And also in 1950, now you’re going to have the clock tower, the Queen Victoria Fountain. These would not have been there before then, either. They were built in the early 1900s.
And there you have it, the Planet Doug method, a rough outline to think of the history of Melaka, and all you have to do is remember the number 50. I find personally I found it very useful because as you visit the museums, the historic buildings, read all the historic signs around you, you keep seeing dates, and the dates can become a bit jumbled in your mind, but now when you look at the date and it says, you know, you read the year, and then you can pinpoint it according to the rule of 50. 1350, 1450, which is the height of the Melaka Sultanate. 1550, we’re in the Portuguese era. 1650, 1750, the Dutch era. And then 1850, moving on to 1950, we’re talking about the British era. So, it’s almost like having a mental dartboard. You see a date on a sign for a building. A good example might be the Stadthuys over there. You go there to visit it. In the museum, you learn that the Stadthuys was built in 1650. And then now you can think, “Ah, 1650, that is the beginning of the Dutch era. The Dutch conquered the Portuguese in 1641. We’re at the very beginning of the Dutch era.” You see the Christ Church Melaka, 1753 it was completed. Ah, that was 100 years into the rule of the Dutch. Now you see a building with the date 1850 on it. Ah, British era. 1950, that’s 7 years before Malaysian independence. So, all you have to do is remember the year 50, 1350, 1450, 1650, 1750, 1850, 1950. And then you can use that as sort of a rough outline and put in the important dates around Melaka. So, whether it helps you, maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but there is the Planet Doug method for thinking about the history of Melaka. Remember, all you have to do is remember the number 50.