The first Chinese arrival in Sibu was in the 1860s. A group of Hokkien people built two rows of 40 shophouses around Sibu Fort (Fort Brooke). The Hokkien Chinese were a minority at that time, mostly consisting of Kekhs and Min Nan people who were doing business. A small number of Chiang Chuan and Amoy people later arrived at Sibu mostly due to commercial interests. By 1893, Munan Anak Minggat and his followers arrived in Sibu. They built a longhouse at Pulau Kerto, an island at the bend of Rajang River opposite Sibu near the Rajang and Igan rivers. He was a loyal war-leader to the Brooke government and helped to quash Iban rebellions around Upper Katibas and Lupar rivers in the 1860s and 1880s. In 1903, he was the first Iban to operate a rubber plantation in Kuching. He later invested the profits of his rubber plantation to shop-houses and lands in Sibu.