Before Raffles

THE STAMFORD RAFFLES story may be entrenched in the history books, but there was life in Singapore way before 1819. Two centuries before that, trade and culture were already flourishing in this region called the East Indies, which translates roughly to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore today.

An Old New World: From the East Indies to the Founding of Singapore, 1600s-1819, explores the events of the 200 years leading up to the establishment of the British East India Company trading settlement in Singapore, in 1819.

The exhibition kicks off with a multimedia show Meeting of the Worlds which dramatises the arrival of the first fleet of the English and Dutch East India Companies in Aceh in the 17th century. The show emphasises how Aceh was already thriving economically and culturally, prior to the arrival of the Europeans.