Ngah Ibrahim

A beautiful white mansion stood in the middle of a huge land with some broken bricks that looks like a fort surrounding the area.

This white mansion was the home of Ngah Ibrahim, son of Long Jaafar who was the Chief of Larut.Long Jaafar was the man responsible for tin mining in Larut and he became the richest man in Perak.After his death, Ngah Ibrahim took over his role as Chief of Larut  and that was when it all began.Ngah was into coffee plantation, padi plantation and tin mining.So he was even richer than his father. During his era the Chinese groups that was brought into Larut by his father to help with tin mining started fighting.That was why he built the fort  in the 1870s at his private residence.

"It all began with the Larut Wars between the Ghee Hin and the Hai Sans who were fighting over everything.The third Larut War was fought because of a woman.Apparently these two group of thugs were enemies  from day one in China till they reached Perak."said Hanim.

As we enter the museum,we will see a man made elephant with mannequins of Malay men touching the elephant's leg which seems to glitter.Those glitters were meant to be tin ore and it was this elephant that was called Larut who made Long Jaafar aware of the existence of tin ore in the area of Larut.From then on history began to take shape.

"You may not learn about this in your history lesson but the biggest mistake made by Ngah Ibrahim , the chief of Larut was when he hired a British called Captain Speedy from Penang to help him with the fights between the two Chinese group or 'gangsters'."

The British intervention in Perak began when Speedy came to Larut although some argued that it started after the treaty of Pangkor was signed by Sultan Abdullah and the British. The British appointed J.W.W Birch to be the first Resident and Speedy became the Assistant Resident.

Speedy was a policeman in Penang and when Ngah approached the governor of Penang for help, Speedy was chosen but he asked for three things from Ngah and they were a house beside Ngah ' s house,to bring Indians from India to Larut and a high salary.His wishes were granted by Ngah and from then on Speedy started to manipulate Ngah."Ngah trusted him fully to the point that Speedy has access to Ngah's account and even during the engagement of Ngah ' s daughter,Speedy became the spokesman for Ngah ' s family."

"Speedy had his own agenda and that was to keep track of the wealth of Ngah and his mission was to get the wealth back to his country.This information was later gathered when Malaysian scholars went to England and gathered facts from there."

There is a mock courtroom upstairs and mannequins of Ngah and others on trial. His bedroom faces the river which is no longer there . According to the keeper of the museum,there are nights when his spirit could be seen sleeping on the bed.

After the murder of J.W.W. Birch, the first British Resident in Perak at Pasir Salak on 1 November 1875, the fort became a court for the trial of Birch's murder. Dato Maharajalela, Dato' Sagor, Sepuntum and Pandak Indut were kept in one of the room as prisoners.The room is still at the museum untouched and there are shackles and manequins of the prisoners to show us how they were treated.

They were found guilty and were sentenced to death by hanging at the court on 21 January 1877. Ngah Ibrahim, Sultan Abdullah and 40 others were exiled to Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. Ngah Ibrahim died on 1887 in Singapore and was buried at the Masjid Al-Junied cemetery. However, on 7 September 2006, Ngah Ibrahim's body was brought back to Perak and reburied near his house.

The truth of the matter still remains blurry because there were arguments saying that Ngah was framed by the British and that Speedy betrayed Ngah when he took over the fort while  Ngah succumbed to the accusations.

During the Japanese occupation in 1941, the Japanese Imperial Army made the fort its headquarters and war strategic operations centre till 1945.In1987, this fort was taken over by the Perak Museum Department as a state historical site known as Kota Ngah Ibrahim Historical Complex.

Being inside the museum,I felt the sadness of the building for it witnessed the downfall of the  owner and death of those linked to the owner.I was told that Ngah Ibrahim cried everyday till his eyes became blur and he wrote 'puisi' while waiting to be exiled.His son too wrote a sad poetry which is still available in one of the local university.

All these can be found in the museum and the sad part was nobody question about Birch.He was a notorious man unlike Speedy who was subtle with his actions and was sent back to England because he was slowly turning into a Malay.There will always be  two sides to a story and what we learned in our history class were the ones from the British point of view.

Ngah Ibrahim was a hero to the Malays because he fought for their rights.He was a good administrator but his weakness was he trusted too easily