ENG-1962 — Page 397

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History

Hong Kong-'a barren island with hardly a house upon it'

Lord Palmerston 1841

ANTECEDENTS

ARCHAEOLOGICAL investigation has shown that Hong Kong was inhabited from primitive times, but it has failed to reveal evidence of the existence of any previous centre of population. All that it would be safe to conclude is that in the early migration of peoples along the Pacific coast, an island with a plentiful_water supply and some cultivable land would naturally attract permanent or temporary settlement. Up to the nineteenth century Hong Kong remained sparsely populated. Small villages maintained themselves by fishing, by cultivation of the scanty soil available, and by casual preying on coastal shipping. The fishing ports of Shau Kei Wan and Shek Pai Wan (Aberdeen) were noted as the haunts of pirates from the time of the Mongol Dynasty.

The Kwangtung area of what is now the Chinese mainland was first brought under the suzerainty of China between 221 and 214 BC, but even after its conquest by the Han Emperor Wu Ti in 111 BC, it remained for some centuries a frontier area. The Lei Cheng Uk Tomb, which was discovered in Kowloon in 1955, probably dates from before the T'ang Dynasty (620-907) and is evidence of Chinese penetration, although Chinese migration on a large scale did not come until the Sung Dynasty (960-1279). The oldest villages in the New Territories, those belonging to the Tang Clan, have a continuous history dating back to the eleventh century, and other villages date from the Yuan Dynasty (1280- 1368). Hakka and Cantonese, the two main Chinese groups, probably settled in the area over the same period.

In 1278, Ti Ping, the Sung Emperor, was driven by the invading Mongols to Kowloon and died there. A small hill crowned with a