Tin, secret societies, and the slow development of the Chinese mining community in a Siam-Burma border village of Maliwun, 1840s–1890s

Abstract This article reconstructs the mining practices and social activities of Chinese migrants in Maliwun, a tin-rich Burmese village on the Siam-Burma border between the 1840s and 1890s. Despite its natural resources and repeated mining attempts by various stakeholders, Maliwun could not materialise its potential and was slow in tin production and community development throughout this period. By focusing on the internal dynamics among its Chinese miners, especially around the rivalling Chinese “secret societies,” this article situates the frontier mining settlement within a larger regional network of the Southeast Asian Chinese and traces its Chinese community’s evolving relationships with fellow countrymen along the southern Siamese and northern Malayan coastlines. It argues that grassroots organisations played a crucial role in the early formation of this frontier Chinese migrant community, which was sitting at the intersection of political, labour, resource, gender, and ethnic frontiers and exhibited key features of fluid boundaries and transnational networks. Yet, these impacts should not be overstated, individually or collectively. The slow development of Maliwun calls for a careful reassessment of the limitation of roles played by porous borders, hybrid interactions, and transnational networks at a historic frontier.