The Kapitan Cina of Batavia 1837-1942 (book review)

Title : The Kapitan Cina of Batavia 1837-1942
Author ; Mona Lohanda
Published ; Djambatan, Jakarta 1996.
Size; Paperback 259 pages & index.

Comment;
An expanded thesis that is easy to read with only minor repetition. Starts out with the formation of Jakarta as Dutch selecting Chinese village outside direct control of nearby Java Muslim kingdoms, and growing through trade. The mixed Chinese preferred to take wives from Bali, as they had similar eating dishes and were pretty. Escaped slaves & slaves brought in from eastern islands swelled the local population for work in newly developed sugar fields etc ultimately resulting in a mixed new ethnic community – the Batawi.
As was the custom in such days, the Dutch divided the city up into ethnic regions, and placed local senior citizens in administrative charge of each area, the Chinese being the biggest & most prominent. This was an extension of the much older regional custom of having a “port captain” in charge of a port town, with significant powers.
This went on smoothly till Holland decided to start the emancipation of the Indonesians, which left the identity of the Chinese in the middle – responsible to Dutch courts for commercial, but Indonesian system for criminal. The Chinese provided labor, trade systems but were not to provide manpower to the local army, instead they paid a special tax. Towards the end of Dutch colonial period the “old” Chinese were mostly intermarried to some extent with the Indonesians and strongly identified with them, but the “new” Chinese immigrants were from another part of China and promoted international communism looked to China for identity. Eventually the fall of Indonesia to the Japanese came at a time when the Dutch had already dismantled much of their racial based system, and the Chinese were left to there own.
Very insightful, and reflects the key roll played by Chinese in the long term development of Jakarta – which can be seen in today’s Jakarta.