The British Malay was a set of states on the Malayan Peninsula and the island of Singapore that the British controlled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1946, the Malayan Union was formed to unify the Malayan states. The Malays, however, opposed the union because of the reduction of the Sultan’s powers, among other reasons, and in 1948, the Federation of Malaya was established. It became fully independent in 1957, and in 1963, it joined North Borneo, Singapore, and Sarawak to become the federation of Malaysia.