Understand
Pasir Salak's main claim to fame is as the site of the assassination of J.W.W. Birch, the first British Resident of Perak, who was speared to death while bathing in the river. Birch's assassin, local chief Maharajalela, is now commemmorated as an anti-colonial hero, but the actual cause of the murder was rather more sordid: Maharajalela was a slave trader, whose livelihood depended on capturing and selling local Orang Asli aborigines, but Birch had abolished slavery.
