History Holiday SEQ Assignment
Question 1(a) Immigrants came to early Singapore due to push factors such as famines and droughts as well as natural disasters and starvation, and the desire to seek protection and safety. India was overpopulated and the immigrants faced many droughts and natural disasters in their homeland. After droughts wiped out their crops and resulted in famine, many would be forced to find jobs in the city in order to earn a living to feed their families. However, jobs were scarce which caused many of them to seek employment outside of India. With the prospect of finding jobs outside, this would at least give them a chance to survive. Similarly in China, with famines and droughts being a common occurrence, accompanied by the shortage of fertile land for crop cultivation, a huge portion of the population who worked as labourers or farmers resulted in starving. Furthermore, there was much disorder and unrest in China as the people were trying to overthrow the corrupted Qing government, resulting in many Chinese seeking protection and safety outside China. On the coastal areas in the Malay Archipelago, pirate attacks were frequents; in war-torn areas in Sumatra, Java and Malaya, life was extremely unsafe, which was why many Malays were "pushed" to leave their homeland. Therefore, the first reason why immigrants came to early Singapore was because of push factors such as famines and droughts as well as natural disasters and starvation, and the desire to seek protection and safety.
Pull factors which brought many immigrants to Singapore was because Singapore can provide more job and business opportunities as well as better living conditions, the free immigration policies and not to forget that Singapore was a free trading port. As news of the founding of Singapore spread to neighbouring countries and even the countries as far away as India and China, many traders and shippers were