On The Shelves
Linawati Sidarto, Contributor, Amsterdam | On The Shelves | Mon, October 05 2015, 4:08 PM
Tracing the history: Slaves by the water gate in Batavia by J. Rach, 1767.(Courtesy of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)
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While slavery in Dutch colonies in America is a known historical fact, hardly anyone is aware that up to a million people were bought, sold and had to endure slavery in Holland’s largest possession: Indonesia.
The slave Mono was regularly beaten by her owner. One day she could no longer stand the abuse and tried to run away.
Alas, she was captured. Her owner, seething with rage, tied her to a ladder, whipped and tortured her and left her for dead. Somehow, Mono was able to get hold of a knife and killed herself.
The above may sound like a scene from a Hollywood slavery movie, but it actually took place in Batavia in 1765, according to court archives belonging to the Dutch East India Company or Veerenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC).
Two books published this year in the Netherlands shed light on the widespread existence of slavery in the Indonesian archipelago during Dutch colonial rule.
“I became increasingly dismayed as I did my research: How was it possible that nobody had any idea about this dark history?” says Reggie Baay, author of Daar werd wat gruwelijks verricht: Slavernij in Nederlands-Indie (Gruesome things were committed there: Slavery in the Dutch East Indies).
The Netherlands started spreading its maritime wings in the late 16th century, dividing its global trading posts between the West Indian Company (WIC — West-Indische Compagnie), which overlooked its territories in the Americas and the VOC for Asia. The two companies came to be among the largest Atlantic slave traders between the 17th and the 19th centuries, shipping and trading hundreds of thousands of Africans to the Americas to work on plantations, including in the WIC territories of Surinam and the Antilles. Unknown to many, however, the Dutch were just as active in Asia.
Historian and writer Baay points out in his book that “from the beginning of their activities in Asia, the VOC bought, sold and used slaves.”
In his book Kleurrijke Tragiek: De geschiedenis van Slavernij in Azië onder de VOC (Colorful Tragedy: The history of slavery in Asia under the VOC), historian Matthias van Rossum recounts how VOC vicar Johann Christian Hoffman spoke of the dynamic trade carried out by Europeans and Asians in Batavia in the mid 17th century.
“The most important merchandise was slaves brought here from Ambon, Ternate, Bali, Borneo, Bengal, Madagascar and other countries, who were sold and resold on a daily basis,” Hoffman wrote in his journal.
Matthias van Rossum (Courtesy of Matthias van Rossum/Courtesy of Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum)
