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Tonan Talk by Prof. Leonard Blusse

1. Date：April 11, 2013 12:00-14:00
2. Place：Tonan-tei (Room. No. 201) on the 2nd floor of Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, Kyoto University
3. Title：The Kaiba lidai shiji, How the Chinese of Batavia assessed their urban past
4. Speaker：Leonard Blusse, Professor Emeritus at Leiden University and visiting professor at Kyoto University Institute for Research in Humanities
5. Abstract:
6. Since the opening up of the Chinese archives of the Chinese Council (Kong Koan,公館) of Batavia and the publication by Xiamen University Press of the minutes (Gongan bu,公安簿) of the council meetings (11 volumes covering 1787-1868 so far) we are much better informed about Chinese urban life in Southeast Asia during the nineteenth century. The Chinese community of Batavia/Jakarta has played a prominent role in the city’s history ever since its establishment in 1619. The founder of the city, Governor General Jan Pietersz Coen had a high regard of the Chinese as a mercantile middle class. He immediately installed a prominent Chinese merchant Souw Bing Kong as the Captain or headman of the Chinese population group to help administrate his fellow countrymen. Over the years a shadow administration of Captain, lieutenants and other Chinese officers came into being as the number of Chinese immigrants dramatically increased from the 1680s onwards. The first hundred years were characterized by a remarkable collaboration and peaceful coexistence between the Chinese and Dutch citizens of Batavia largely thanks to the informal administration of the Chinese officers.
7. But by the late 1730s when the colonial economy and the ecological situation of the city and its agricultural hinterland plunged into a deep crisis it became clear that matters were running out of control, and indeed in 1740 a massive Chinese rebellion occurred followed up by a pogrom, the so-called Chinese massacre of Batavia. A few years after this tragic event the Chinese captaincy system was re-established and institutionalized in the Kong Koan or Chinese Council of Batavia which would continue to exist until the outbreak of the Second World War. It so happens that in the first years of the nineteenth century a Chinese history of Batavia, the Kaiba lidai shiji ,was composed by an anonymous Chinese writer. This vernacular history, which looks back at the first two hundred years of Batavia, was written as a chronological year by year account summing up the more or less important events in town according to its Chinese author.　In the context of the Asia in the Age of Globalisation project hosted by Kyoto University, Prof Nie Dening (Xiamen University) and I are presently translating and annotating into English this unique historical work which provides us with insights how the Chinese experienced their own position in the early modern colonial society of the headquarters of the VOC. In my talk I hope to point out some of the main issues in the text that may be of interest to the audience and hopefully will contribute to a lively discussion.
8. Bio Note:
9. Leonard Blusse is Professor Emeritus at Leiden University and visiting professor at Kyoto University Institute for Research in Humanities. He is a prominent scholar on the early history of Southeast Asia and East Asia, including the history of Overseas Chinese. He has published numerous works in many languages on the history of Dutch East India Company (VOC) and its connection with Southeast Asia and Japan during the seventeenth and nineteenth century. His major works include Strange Company, Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia, (Verhandelingen KITLV 122), Dordrecht: Foris (1986, second imprint 1988); Ryu to Mitsubachi, Chugokukai-eki no orandajin yonhyakunenshi, (The Dragon and the Honeybees, four hundred years of Dutch activities on the China Coast) published in Japanese, translated by Fukami Sumio, Fujita Kayoko, Koike Makoto, Tokyo: Koyo Shobo, 2008); Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.
10. Moderator:Piyada Chonlawong (CSEAS, Kyoto University)

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