ENG-1947 — Page 191

HISTORY

Chapter 3.

The area which now forms the Crown Colony of Hong Kong is first mentioned in Chinese histories as part of the territories of the Maan Tribes, who then inhabited the greater part of China south of the River Yangtse. About this early culture little is known, though pottery of the prehistoric period unearthed on the islands of Lamma and Lantao, south and west of Hong Kong Island, indicates the existence of trade with the South at a remote period. The Maan tribes of Kwangtung gradually accepted Chinese culture from the close of the Han dynasty (3rd century A.D.) onwards, and by the end of the Sung dynasty (13th century A.D.) the local people, whatever their racial origin, evidently regarded themselves as Chinese. The last Sung emperor, Ti-ping, in flight from the invading Mongols, made his capital at Kowloon on the mainland just opposite the Island of Hong Kong for a few months before his death in 1278 A.D., and a small hill crowned with prominent boulders was held sacred to his memory until 1943 when the Japanese demolished it.

The Arabs were already known in Canton in the seventh century A.D., but European intercourse with China dates from the sixteenth century when expeditions from the maritime states of Europe-Portugal, Spain, Holland and England- penetrated into Far Eastern waters in the hope of establishing a direct trade by sea with the Moluccas or Spice Islands. At the end of the century, Queen Elizabeth herself addressed a letter to the Emperor of China. Though this letter was probably never delivered it marks the beginning of official support for a whole series of adventurous attempts to share in the trade of the Eastern countries. At the beginning of the next century a monopoly of the East Indian trade was created in favour of "The Governor and merchants of London trading in the East Indies". An early trading station at Bantam in Java soon led to the extension of the sphere of action to Japan and China.

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