The background of the Chinese secret society
Since the foundation of the Malay Kingdom in Malacca in the fifteenth century, the Chinese from the southern part of China such as Kwangtung, Fukien, and Kwangsi had been immigrating to Malacca after the arrival at Malacca in 1408 of the Chinese admiral Cheng Ho.  Although there had been small numbers of Chinese at Malacca since that time, it was not until British influence penetrated Malaya through the founding of Settlement in the late 18th century to early 19th century, first at Penang, and then at Singapore, that the Chinese arrived in large numbers and became a significant factor in the life of the country.
It is believed that all Chinese secret societies in Malaya stem from the Triad Society of the southern part of China during the late 17th century. The name Triad is often symbolical represented in the Society’s ritual by an equilateral triangle which in thought to indicate the harmonious blending of the three great powers of the universe, namely, Heaven, Earth and Man.  In China, the secret societies, or the Triads, acted as an anti-government force, because they were the underground resistance movement against the Manchus, and “Overthrow the Ching and Restore the Ming” was their slogan against the government .

The functions of the Chinese secret societies in Malaya
We shall see that in China the secret societies existed for centuries born of social needs, based on a combination of self-protection against the Ching government. It became a potent influence in the southern part of China. Therefore, when the Chinese from the southern part of China immigrated to Malaya, the culture of the secret societies or triads were also brought to Malaya, and it became an even greater social necessity than in their homeland.
When the Chinese arrived Malaya, Malaya was an alien and often-hostile environment for the Chinese. Therefore, it was believed that those secret societies must be beneficial to the Chinese in a foreign country where they would have no relations or friends to help them when in need.   When the secret societies could help the new Chinese migrants to survive in an alien land, many Chinese migrants would become the members of these secret societies in order to seek for protection and benefits. For example, the hui in Malaya such as Ghee Hin, Ho Seng, and Hai San  could provide their members with assistance, mutual aid and defense in a Malaya. The hui helped the Chinese to gain a sense of security in a foreign land.
The secret societies were once regarded as some benevolent associations or charities because they helped the new migrants from China to survive during their hardship and early settlement in Malaya. However, the secrets societies actually brought many negative effects to the Malay societies since the middle of the 19th century. Therefore, it is wrong to say the secret societies in Malaya brought benefits to the Chinese and the Malay societies. Besides that, since the secret societies were getting more powerful and became out of control, the British colonial government finally carried out measurements to control and make an attempt to eliminate then destroy all the secret societies since the 1870s. In the following parts, I will prove the existence of Chinese secret societies was a bad thing in Malay history, and I will explore the consequences of its growing power in Malaya.

The terror of the Chinese secret societies
 When Chinese secret societies first appeared in Malaya, the local government was inclined to regard them as associations for good. However, the power of Chinese secret societies grew dramatically in Malaya when they engaged in various kinds of business in Malaya such as tin mining and opium agriculture. Finally, they soon became a serious menace to the peace in Malaya when their wealth increased.
The activities of the Chinese secret societies in Malaya simply reflected the natures and characteristics of the Chinese in the eyes of the Malayans, and these characteristics were self-possessed, self-reliant, and avaricious.  The secret societies were impatient of control under a foreign government, so they had a tendency to rely on themselves and take the law to their own hands and use methods of brutality and force to overawe an ignorant and terrified population.
The secret societies involved in many notorious and harmful activities with their rising power, such as gang-robbery, kidnapping, and murder. There is an example of their notorious activities against the innocent people in order to ensure their control in Malaya, and it showed the terror of the secret societies.
In 1850s, the conversion of Chinese in the interior of the island to Roman Catholicism had the effect of creating throughout the island groups of men independent of the protection of the secret societies.  In order to prevent the Chinese Roman Catholics to spread their influences and control the plantations in the interior of the island, the Ghee Hin Societies would do anything, sometimes associated with terrorism, to stop the growing influences of the Chinese Roman Catholics. The Chinese Roman Catholics were sacked and pillaged, their boats were stolen, and some of them were even stabbed by the members of the Ghee Hin Socities.
Usually, when the members of the secret societies committed such kind of serious crime and then being accused, the headman of the secret societies would use bribery to adverse witnesses to keep them away for the purpose of screening guilty members from detection and punishment, and it definitely marked the end of justices in Malaya.
Although many Chinese were the members from different secret societies, actually, it is not true that all the Chinese were willing to join the secret societies in order to receive protection from the secret societies. When the secret societies provide the migrant with assistance in a strange land, they could equally demand his services in any capacity, particularly in the recurring conflicts with rival societies.  Some Chinese may probably knew the tricks of the secret societies, so they refused to join. As a result, many Chinese were put to death for refusing to join the societies.  For those joined the secret societies, or triads, they were required to take an oath of blood brotherhood that binds them in absolute loyalty to their society. However, for those that lightly broke this oath, they would be put to death.  It showed the intolerance, violence, and terror of the Chinese secret societies in Malaya.

The greed of the Chinese secret societies
The secret societies were wealthy because the members included successful businessmen. However, the secret societies were engaging many sinister activities such as controlling of opium tax farm, gambling and prostitution. It provided profitable revenue for the secret societies.   On the other hand, the headmen or the leaders of the Chinese secret societies proclaimed that their existence was to assist the Chinese in daily life and to defend them mutually. However, the Chinese secret societies activities in everyday life showed that the Chinese secret societies were just using them as excuses to gain more benefits, domination, and power.
The Chinese in Malaya engaged in different occupations, such as taxi drivers, hawkers, and mining workers, and they were the powerless people. The Chinese secret societies were not satisfied with their large profit made from their sinister activities, and they just wanted to get more benefits from the general and powerless Chinese people. Secret societies were supposed to help the powerless Chinese to survive during hardship, but the secret societies did not do that for general Chinese. Instead of it, the secret societies were actually taking benefits from them. The Chinese secret societies used their power and violent means to control over the powerless Chinese in Malaya, and there were some examples to show how the Chinese secret societies engaged in unlawful activities in order to acquire benefits, and harmed the powerless Chinese at the same time.
Many Chinese worked as taxi drivers in Malaya, and many of them drove the “pirate taxi” , so they were forced to pay a “tax” to the particular Chinese secret society controlling the district of districts in which they ply for hire when they dare not report to the police for they themselves are outside the law.
Moreover, the Chinese secret societies also extended their control over the hawkers. They told the hawkers that they would receive protection from the Chinese secret societies only if the hawkers paid them a certain amount of money, which was protection money. The powerless hawkers were afraid of the secret societies, so they had no choice and simply paid such kind of injustice money. Although the amount of money the secret societies extorted from individual hawkers and stallholders every month was not great, the accumulative total is impressive. Although most of the hawkers would pay the protection money, some of them still resisted paying, either unwilling or unable to pay. In 1955, Teo Hock Chai, a Chinese itinerant hawker who used to earn a living by selling cooked food to government office workers along the banks of the Singapore River, refused to pay the protection money to the secret societies. He tried to escape by running away, but he was caught at the back and beaten up by the secret societies members mercilessly at last.
These cases showed the Chinese secret societies using their power and violence to overwhelm the powerless Chinese in order to gain what they wanted. Their actions were absolutely unlawful, and they were just disturbing the social order and social harmony in Malaya. When violence in the streets caused by the secret societies was so common, still, nobody dared to report to the police about the case, because they were afraid of the powerful secret societies would take revenge, so, there were so many injustices in Malaya as well, all due to the existence of the secret societies.

Rivalry between secret societies and its consequences
Although different Chinese secret societies basically had the same functions, rituals, and beliefs, the members from different secret societies were actually from different province, prefecture, or district in the southern part of China. Chinese newly came to Malaya would choose to join a particular society that related to their dialect in China. The thing that ultimately brought tension and destruction to the Malay societies was the rivalry among different secret societies, or hui.
The secret societies were not friendly with each other. For example, Ho Seng, Ghee Hin, and Hai San were three distinct foundations of the Triad Brotherhood originally from Macao, and they claimed to represent three different Lodges of this brotherhood. The Ho Seng purported to be a First Lodge society, the Ghee Hin a Second Lodge society, and the Hai San a Third Lodge society. Thus although all members were brethren of the Triad fraternity, this division into three groups was liable to result in rivalry or antagonism whenever the interests of the groups failed to coincide, so it led to a series of conflicts among the secret societies.
In the nineteenth century, there were serious Chinese secret society faction fights in Singapore in 1824, 1846, 1851 and 1854, and in Penang in 1867, and they brought destruction and social disorder to the Malay societies.  For example, the riot in 1854 started with the struggle between the secret societies of the Hokkiens and the Tiechius because the former refused to join in a subscription to assist the rebels who had been driven from Amoy by the Chinese Imperial troops. The Tiechius belonged to the Macao group, and were joined in the struggle by the other Macao elements, the Cantonese and Hakkas. It hence became a riot that lasted for ten or twelve days, and over 400 people were killed and more than 300 houses were destroyed.  The Penang Riot in 1867 was considered as the most devastating riot in Malay history. The riot not only involved thirty thousand Chinese, but about four thousand Malay and Indians also involved in this riot. In fact, it was an extension of the struggle then taking place between rival factions of the Triad Society, together with allied Malay secret societies, for the possession of land rich in tin in Perak. Finally, Penang was turned into a battlefield, and a regular war took place in which every conceivable kind of weapon was used, from sticks and stones to muskets and cannons,  and when cannons were used by the mob, it really showed the seriousness of the riots raised by the Chinese secret societies. Besides that, when Indians and Malays also involved in the riot in Penang, there were hatred and tension among the major three ethnic groups in Malaya, so it brought social disharmony.
The riots brought death, destruction, and tension to the Malay society, but they also lead to British intervention in the interior of Malaya. The British considered the Chinese societies as combinations formidable and dangerous to the peace of the Settlement and the safety of the lives and property of its inhabitants in Malaya.  As a result, the British colonial government decided upon a policy of suppression. In 1869, the Suppression of Dangerous Societies Ordinance was promulgated, but it did not mean the dissolution of the secret societies. Instead of it, it required the secret societies to make a formal registration, and all unregistered societies would be considered as unlawful associations and would be suppressed immediately. Besides that, the governor believed that a stronger police force was needed for suppressing any possible riots led by the secret societies in the future.
In fact, the early period of the policy of suppression was still very tolerant toward the Chinese secret societies because they could still survive after a formal registration. It was not until 1889 that action was taken for the first time to bring about a total suppression of Chinese secret societies. First of all, the total suppression policy was sponsored by Governor Cecil Clementi Smith, who acquired previously in Government service in Hong Kong. He knew that secret societies had long before been banned in China proper and in Hong Kong, and was determined to adopt a similar policy in Malaya.  Meanwhile, since the residential system established in 1873, the power of the British increased a lot in Malaya, so the Governor also believed that the Government was now strong enough to deal with the dangerous secret society. In 1890, the Societies Ordinance replaced Dangerous Societies Ordinance and became law in Malaya, and it made all Chinese secret societies unlawful societies. It gave the government power to order the exemption of any individual society or class of societies from registration. The Banishment ordinance made the new policy even harsher toward the Chinese secret societies. If the Chinese continued to assist in the management of illegal societies, they would be banished, and deported to their native land.

Conclusion
The official suppression of Chinese secret societies in 1890 had the effect of driving them underground and doubtless loosened society discipline. With the policy of suppression, the old and formidable secret societies finally broke up and their threat to the community removed, while the smaller emergent groups were unremittingly harassed.
The Chinese secret societies brought social disharmony, social disorder, deaths, destruction, and injustice to Malaya. Besides that, they used brutal power and terrorism for their actions of theft, kidnap, and murder to overwhelm the public in order to acquire more benefits, control and dominance in Malaya. It showed that the Chinese secret societies were simply a group of mob. Moreover, it is shameful to see the struggles among different secret societies and how the member of the secret societies tortured the powerless Chinese. In my view, it definitely gave a very bad impression to the Malays, British and Indians in Malaya when they saw Chinese fighting with each other in a foreign land, and they would consider Chinese as a group of people that only looking for self-interest. Therefore, the existence of Chinese secret societies in Malaya was definitely not a piece of grateful history in Malaya.
 

Work Cited
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Blythe, Wilfred. The Impact Of Chinese Secret Societies In Malaya.
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Comber, Leon. An Introduction To Chinese Secret Societies In Malaya.
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Purcell, Victor. The Chinese In Malaya. London. Oxford University Press, 1948

Rabushka, Alvin. Race And Politics In Urban Malaya.
Stanford. Hoover Institution Press, 1973