belanda hitam: the indo-african communities on java

African and Asian Studies 6 (2007) 243-270 www.brill.nl/aas

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/156920907X212222

African andAsian Studies

A A S

Belanda Hitam: the Indo-AfricanCommunities on Java

Ineke van KesselAfrika-Studiecentrum, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, Netherlands

E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract Most of the successive groups of African immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago have disap-peared without trace, or at least without leaving recognisable descendants. Th e Belanda Hitam or Black Dutchmen are the one exception. Belanda Hitam was the Malay name given to some 3,000 soldiers from West Africa who were recruited for the Dutch colonial army between 1831 and 1872, and to the Indo-African descendants of these African soldiers and their Indonesian wives. From the 1830s until Indonesian independence, the African soldiers, their Indonesian wives and their Indo-African off spring formed small but vibrant communities in the garrison towns of Java, mainly in Batavia, Semarang, Salatiga, Solo and Purworejo. Th is article, largely based on interviews with descendants now living in the Netherlands, explores life in these Indo-African communities, with a particular focus on Purworejo.1

Keywords Ghana; Indonesia; Dutch colonialism; soldiers; identity; World War II

Introduction

In the context of the African Diaspora in Asia, the experience of the African soldiers and their Indo-African descendents in the Netherlands East Indies is rather exceptional. While most Africans in Asia assimilated in various degrees with the indigenous population, the descendents of the West African soldiers were to join the lower echelons of the Dutch colonial elite. In order to ward off any suspicions of illegal slave trading in the decades following the abolition of the slave trade, the African recruits were incorporated into the ‘European’

1 For more details on other African immigrants in the Indonesian archipelago, see: Ineke van Kessel, “Aux Indes néerlandaises : des Africains, agents de police, militaires, exilés, et un prince.” Cahiers des Anneaux de la Mémoire, no. 9, pp. 189-220. Th e history of the African soldiers in the Dutch East Indies army is the subject of my book: Ineke van Kessel, Zwarte Hollanders: Afrikaanse soldaten in Nederlands-Indië. (Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2005).

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244 I. van Kessel / African and Asian Studies 6 (2007) 243-270

contingent of the Dutch colonial army, with considerable better pay and working conditions than native Indonesian soldiers. In spite of many infringe-ments on these privileges, the African soldiers strongly identifi ed with their status as Dutch soldiers. After expiry of their contracts, veterans could opt to be repatriated to West Africa at the expense of the Dutch government, or they could choose to settle in the Dutch East Indies.

Like many Dutch soldiers, the Africans shared their army barracks with an Indonesian wife and her children. Although the recruitment instructions in West Africa made some allowance for married men to bring their wives along, this in fact never happened. Conversely, there is one recorded case of a veteran who brought his Javanese wife along when he retired in 1862 to enjoy his pen-sion in Elmina, the Dutch headquarters on the Gold Coast, the coastal region of present-day Ghana. Th e army consented because the couple had entered into a Christian marriage. However, the husband died within a year of being repatriated and his widow received permission to return to her native land on board a Dutch troop ship.2 Th e African soldiers followed the common prac-tice of 19th century army life: they established liaisons with local women. If this liaison was considered stable, permission could be obtained to live with wife and children inside army premises. Some African troops, notably the Akan, came from a matrilineal social system, while others originated from patrilineal societies. However, for their family life in the East Indies this back-ground was immaterial. If the African father formally recognised his children, they would obtain European status. If not, they would be regarded as ‘natives’, like their mother. Veterans who opted for repatriation to Africa after expiry of their contract, did not take their children along. Th eir children were either adopted by fellow Africans, or remained with their mother.

Th e children of the African soldiers and their Indonesian wives, whom I have labelled Indo-Africans, mostly grew up speaking Dutch as their mother tongue, attending European schools and Christian churches, with a sense of identity of being ‘born Dutch’. In the registry of births, deaths and marriages, their names are found in the European section, and they would be buried in cemeteries for Europeans. As a consequence, the colonial subjects of the Netherlands East Indies regarded the Black Dutchmen as part and parcel of colonial rule. After Indonesian independence, many Indo-Africans therefore joined the exodus of Dutch and Indo-Europeans to the Netherlands.

One caveat might be in order: this is the history of the Africans and Indo-Africans with an offi cial, bureaucratic existence: they fi gure in army records,

2 National Archives, Dept. of Colonies after 1850, Journalen van de Nederlandse Bezittingen ter Kuste van Guinea, inv. no. 6662 and 6663.


I. van Kessel / African and Asian Studies 6 (2007) 243-270 245

military memoirs and civil registrations. Indo-African children born out of short-lived liaisons inside or outside army barracks, may not have left any trace in offi cial records. If the soldier went on to his next destination or his next partner, the children in most cases would have stayed with the Indone-sian mother. If the father did not bother to register his off spring as ‘European’, the child would have grown up as a ‘native’, assimilating with Indonesian society. Th eir stories will never be told.

As African recruitment started as an experiment in the 1830s, the colonial army and the Dutch government kept meticulous records to evaluate this new venture. Th e army careers of these African soldiers can be reconstructed with considerable detail on the basis of archives, while some colourful descriptions can also be found in military memoirs. Once they retire from army service, it obviously becomes much more diffi cult to follow the remainder of their lives. Much less is known about the fi rst generation Indo-Africans, as they did not constitute a distinct category in terms of government or army policies. Most Indo-African boys also joined the army, and therefore have left their tracks in army records. Very little is known however about Indo-African girls.

I have written about the history of the African soldiers in several other pub-lications. Th is article is largely concerned with the third and fourth generation Indo-Africans and based on interviews with a few dozen descendents born in the Netherlands East Indies but now living in the Netherlands. On the basis of this series of interviews, I have reconstructed daily life and social relations in the Indo-African communities from the 1930s, as well as their relationship with colonial society and Indonesian host society. Oral tradition cannot be used to dig deeper in history, beyond the 1920s. Interviewees told their own life stories: invariably, they noted that their parents had not informed them about their African heritage. It was only after their repatriation to the Nether-lands that some descendents would delve in archives and family histories. For-tunately, part of this gap can be fi lled due to a unique document, a brief historical overview by Doris Land, a fi rst generation Indo-African. Th is is the only known record written by a member of the Indo-African community, but it off ers very few details about surviving remnants of African traditions. Dur-ing the lifetime of Doris Land ( 1890-1986) African languages, religious prac-tices, musical traditions and African food recipes apparently had already largely disappeared from the life of the Indo-African communities.

Kampung Afrikan in Purworejo

On 20 June 1939, retired army captain Doris Land completed four pages of dense typescript in Dutch, entitled ‘Th e origins of the African camp in



Purworejo’.3 Th is is a remarkable document: it is the only surviving testimony by a descendant of the over 3,000 West African soldiers in which the history of the Africans and their off spring has been recorded. Even more remarkable is the fact that Doris Land apparently thought it important to put his fairly detailed knowledge down on paper, while during his lifetime he never told his children or other family members anything about this past. Nor did he show the document to anyone. Th e four pages of typescript only surfaced after his death in 1986 in Th e Netherlands.

Doris Land was the informal head of a small Indo-African settlement in the town of Purworejo, in the central Java district of Bagelen. He was the son of Govert Land, who had joined the Dutch colonial army in 1862. Govert Land’s African name is not known. In the army records, the names of his father and mother are left blank. He was of slave descent, a ‘donko’ born in Grushi. Donko was the generic term used on the West African Gold Coast for people from territories north of Ashanti, the region where the Ashanti historically obtained their slaves, either as captives or booty in warfare, as tribute from subject peoples or purchased at slave markets. Grushi was the name given to a cluster of acephalous societies in the area that is present-day Northern Ghana. On 8 August 1862, 25-year old Govert Land boarded ship in St. George d’Elmina, the Dutch headquarters on the Gold Coast, along with 99 other Africans who had also enlisted in the Dutch army. Th ey all were under con-tract to serve a twelve-year period, after which they had the choice of returning to Elmina, settling in the East Indies or re-enlisting in the army. Many of the African recruits were given Dutch names.

In the period between 1860 and 1872, some 800 African recruits made the long three-month voyage from Elmina to Batavia. Recruitment ended with the transfer of the Dutch Possessions on the Guinea Coast to Britain in 1872. Th e Dutch handed their decayed forts to the British in exchange for permis-sion to recruit labour for the plantations in Surinam from India, and some concessions regarding Sumatra. But the bulk of African recruits for the Dutch colonial army had been enlisted in an earlier period, between 1831 and 1842. In that decade, some 2,200 Africans entered the service of the Dutch East Indies Army. Th e vast majority of the recruits were of slave descent: they bought their manumission from servitude with an advance on their army pay, usually an amount of about 100 guilders. Th e African soldiers counted as part

3 D. Land, “Het ontstaan van de Afrikaansche kampong te Poerworedjo (res. Kedoe)” (20 juni 1939, unpublished typed manuscript). For Govert Land, see: National Archives, Dept. of Colonies, Stamboeken onderoffi cieren en minderen van het Nederlandsch Oostindisch Leger, stamboek nr. 51319.



of the European contingent in the colonial army, and were entitled to equal treatment with the Europeans, with respect to pay, food and clothing. How-ever, in practice, several infringements were made on their European status. Deductions from their army pay of 8.5 cents per day, which were intended to pay off the advance they had needed for their manumission, became a perma-nent feature, even though this debt was settled in 2-3 years. Initially, most African soldiers who survived their long stint in the army opted for repatria-tion to Africa. But from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, most veterans chose to settle on Java.

When Govert Land retired from the army in 1878, he could chose to enjoy his pension of 250 guilders per annum in one of the communities of African army veterans who, by this time, had established themselves in the garrison towns on Java. Doris Land believed that most veterans opted for Purworejo, but that is not borne out by the facts recorded in the army registers.

Most veterans settled in Semarang and Batavia (present-day Jakarta), the capital city of the Dutch East Indies. Africans and their Indo-African off spring in Semarang lived scattered in town, but kept in touch with each other. Curi-ously, very few descendants now living in the Netherlands have a family his-tory linking them to Batavia. It would seem that there was no distinct Indo-African community in Batavia and that the Indo-Africans blended in with the ethnic and racial diversity of the capital city. Descendants living outside these garrison towns tended to lose touch with the Indo-African communities.

It was only in Purworejo that the Africans and their descendants lived together in one part of town, known as Kampung Afrikan (the African village). Here they owned the land, which had been allocated to them by the Dutch administration. Purworejo thus became the heart of the Indo-African com-munities on Java, the place where Indo-Africans from other parts of Java would often spend their holidays with relatives. Th e choice of Purworejo was probably not accidental. During the Java War (1825-1830), known as the Diponegoro War in Indonesian history (after the leader of the rebellion, Prince Diponegoro) the district of Bagelen was a hotbed of resistance. To contain the rebellion, the Dutch had built a string of fortifi cations. Although the Java War ended in 1830 with the capture of Diponegoro, the district of Bagelen remained a notoriously rebellious stronghold, now loyal to Pangeran Dipone-goro Anom, the son of the defeated rebel leader. Since the Africans were reputed to be very loyal to the Dutch army, the local administrator would be able to call on the African veterans in case of disturbances.4

4 Endri Kusruri, Th e dynamic of immigrant people from Africa in Purworejo (Salatiga: Widya Sari Press, 2001).



As Doris Land records, the Africans and their families initially lived among the native Javanese population of Purworejo. When their numbers increased however, the Dutch administrator of Bagelen thought it advisable to give the veterans a kampong of their own, to avoid frictions with the native inhabitants. Another reason was that concentration would facilitate control over their movements and, on the other hand, it would be easier to call upon their ser-vices in times of unrest. Th e Dutch bought a plot of land from the Javanese kampong Pangen-Djurutenga and by government decree of 30 August 1859, this territory was assigned to the African veterans. Every inhabitant of Kam-pung Afrikan was allocated a plot of 80 Rijnlandse roeden to build a house for his family and to supplement his army pension with some gardening or agri-culture.5 A profi table source of income was the raising of pigs, a popular ingre-dient in Dutch and Chinese cuisine, but anathema to the Muslim Javanese. Th is practice was however later outlawed, as the neighbouring Javanese kam-pong objected to the presence of pigs in their vicinity. Th e veterans were also frequently employed to accompany transports of coff ee and salt.

Th e African village was headed by a kind of informal mayor, known as the wijkmeester. Th e fi rst to serve in this position was sergeant J. Klink, who had entered army service in 1837. He had settled in Purworejo after a successful career, in which he distinguished himself in army campaigns on Bali and at Palembang (on Sumatra). Because of his advanced age he was replaced in 1890 by sergeant Hendrik Beelt (rtd), who was reputed to be fairly fl uent in Dutch, Malay and Javanese. Beelt, who died in 1923, had eight sons, all of whom entered military service, as was customary for all the African boys. Beelt’s common-law wife was Mariam Klink, the daughter of J. Klink and his Java-nese common-law wife Sinam.6 Hendrik Beelt owned the largest house with a big yard in Kampung Afrikan, as well as rice and cassava fi elds, that were worked by Javanese labourers.7

Boys’ Fights and Big Noses

De wijkmeester was responsible for maintaining law and order. He registered births and deaths at the offi ce of the Dutch administrator and settled internal disputes. Once every three months, a Catholic missionary visited Kampung Afrikan to baptise any new-born babies. If African boys became involved in

5 80 ‘Rijnlandse roeden’ is about 1150 m2.6 Genealogy of the Beelt family, compiled by Gusta van der Meul-Beelt.7 Interview with Gusta van der Meul-Beelt, 28 June 2000.



fi st fi ghts with Javanese and Ambonese boys, matters were settled before the Dutch offi cial, who administered canings. Beforehand, the African boys had already undergone a regular dose of ten rattan lashes by their wijkmeester. Th e fi ghts involved the boys who grew up in the soldiers’ barracks of the garrison of Purworejo, or local boys. Th e Dutch East Indies Army or KNIL relied heav-ily on troops from the largely christianized Moluccan islands, who were known as Ambonese, after the largest island of Ambon.8 Like the Africans, the Ambo-nese were not treated as ‘native’ troops but they shared most of the privileges that went with European status. Th e sons of these Ambonese soldiers were the most likely opponents for the African boys. But, as Land records, after one of the big African boys was kept in chains for a day at the offi ce of the Dutch administrator, the wijkmeester received no further complaints. African youth had now become suffi ciently wary of the consequences of these brawls.

One such incident between African boys and youth from Purworejo is described in an account from the ‘other side’ of the battlefi eld, in the biogra-phy of Oerip Soemohardjo, who was later to become Chief of Staff of the Republican army fi ghting for Indonesian independence. In the early 20th cen-tury, around 1910, Oerip attended the European boys primary school in Pur-worejo. It was not uncommon for children of the Javanese aristocracy to attend European schools.

‘And what kind of boys! Children from the Negro camp, that took up a substantial part of Purworejo town. Almost without exception, these Negro children spoke fl awless Dutch, without any accent. Th ey made a lot of fun of the poorly articulated Dutch of Oerip, the little native. What grief ! Oerip summoned his friends from the Sindoeredjan neighbourhood. When evening fell, they encircled the African camp and shouted loudly: ‘Londo ireng toeng-teng, iroengé mentol, souarené bindeng!’ (Pitch black Dutchmen, you speak very funny through your big noses).’

After a few of those incidents, Oerip’s father was summoned before the vil-lage chief, where a few African fathers were already present. Th e father prom-ised to teach his son a lesson on condition that the Negro boys would no longer mock his son’s gibberish.9 Th e Indo-Africans on Java were indeed widely known as Londo Ireng in Javanese or Belanda Hitam in Malay, meaning Black Dutchmen, or Black White Men. While these terms implied a recognition of their European status, the people of Purworejo also used a derogatory word for

8 Th e colonial army in the Dutch East Indies was generally known as KNIL: Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger.

9 Rohmah Soemohardjo-Soebroto, Oerip Soemohardjo, Luitenant-Generaal T.N.I. (22-2-1893-17-11-1948), (Den Haag: Moesson, n.d.) 14.



Kampung Afrikan: Gudang Areng, or charcoal yard.10 However, Indo-African interviewees now living in the Netherlands stress that relations between the Africans and the Indonesian host society were generally good: ‘After all, we all had a Javanese grandmother’.11

Captain Land relates how the wijkmeester also bore responsibility for orga-nising nightly patrols by African ex-soldiers armed with sabres in the Javanese kampongs. Exceptionally, day patrols by African veterans armed with cudgels were held in the years that a company of Buginese soldiers were lodged in the garrison. Th e Buginese, from the island of Celebes (Sulawesi), had a reputa-tion as ferocious warriors, frequently running amok in the Javanese kampongs. Many an amok-making Buginese was put out of action by a cudgel, which, according to Land’s account, was a reassuring sight for the local villagers.

Indo-African boys entered army life at the age of 16, sometimes even at 14. To qualify for a pension, recruits had to sign up for 12 to 15 years. By the early 20th century, Dutch rule over the archipelago had been largely consolidated. Army life settled into a routine in which the soldiers rotated between garrisons and islands, with little chance of ever experiencing a hazardous army cam-paign. For the fi rst generation of African soldiers, the army had taken a heavy toll: few actually fell on the battlefi eld but many succumbed to diseases. By the 20th century, wars of conquest had ended and health care and hygiene in the army had much improved. Th e 2nd and 3rd generation of people of Afri-can descent now were able to reap their modest share of the prosperity gener-ated by the commercial exploitation of Indonesia’s rich natural resources. Th e army was no longer perceived as a hazardous career, but instead as secure employment with the prized bonus of a pension. Th e job security off ered by the army was particularly valued during the depression of the 1930s.

When leaving the army, most men were in their early thirties. Some signed on for a further term, but many Indo-Africans easily found employment with the police, the railways, the prison service, national intelligence, de Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij (precursor to Shell) or as an overseer on sugar estates. Th ey had acquired a reputation as disciplined and loyal workers. Initially many men did not return to Purworejo on leaving the army, as they could be employed anywhere in the archipelago. Land recalls that in those years, the fi rst quarter of the 20th century, only a few dozen people lived in Kampung Afrikan. Living conditions had deteriorated as a consequence of fl ooding after

10 Mark van Harreveld, ‘Belanda Hitam: Afrikaan, Indonesiër, Hollander?’, De Gordel van Smaragd, 24 (1) (January 2004): 11.

11 Interview with Daan Cordus, 1985.



the irrigation system was rerouted. Th e now marshy western part of Kampung Afrikan had to be evacuated, but the residents found new plots in the some-what higher eastern part. A section of the western part was later sold off to the newly established Protestant mission hospital. Th is was to become a divisive issue, as rumours began circulating that the proceeds from the sale were not properly shared between all the families.

A Close-Knit Community

By 1930, Kampung Afrikan had undergone a major renovation. Now that the army veterans had also reached pensionable age in their subsequent civilian jobs, most returned to Purworejo. With many more hands and more money available, houses were improved, roads were widened, bridges were built over the river that ran through the kampong and a proper drainage system was installed.

When Doris Land put these memoirs on paper, Kampung Afrikan num-bered 25 families, with a total of 88 inhabitants. Th e offi ce of wijkmeester had ceased to exist but Doris Land functioned as the community’s informal head. His daughter Mary (born 1928) remembers how the family house in Pur-worejo, where Doris Land lived with his Indonesian common law wife Nji Poniah, seven children and several relatives, was always full of visitors and guests.12 For the fi rst and second generation Africans, civil marriage was a rare event, even more so when the wife was Indonesian rather than Indo-African or Indo-European. Doris Land and Nji Poniah married only in 1951, when it was becoming clear that they might have to leave Indonesia for the Nether-lands. Since Doris Land had retired with an offi cers’ pension, the family was fairly well-off . Th e household made use of the services of several Javanese domestic workers, such as a cook, a gardener and a house boy. Mary still viv-idly remembers the day when the house boy was not around and she, excep-tionally, had to polish her own shoes before going off to the girl scouts. Th us, the well-off Indo-African families shared the comfortable lifestyle of colonial society, although there were also families who had to make ends meet with only a meagre soldiers’ pension.

Sometimes the children in the Land family household would ask grand-mother Louise Baas – widow of Govert Land and daughter of African soldier Baas- to teach them some African words, only to be told that they had no need for them, as they ought to speak Dutch. If the children were too insistent,

12 Interview with Mary Land, 6 Feb. 2001.



grandmother would become a bit annoyed and say something incomprehen-sible, probably in her own kind of fake ‘African language’. Very occasionally, grandmother prepared an African dish for the children, with okra and fufu (pounded cassava) but ‘we did not like it, the okra was very slimy stuff ’. Many people came to ask for her father’s advice. Indo-African schoolchildren came to the house to do their homework. Doris Land had no formal schooling beyond primary school, but he was a self-educated man who ultimately achieved offi cers’ rank in the army. He insisted that his own children, as well as the other Indo-African children of Kampung Afrikan, took their school work seriously and use every opportunity to improve themselves: not only the boys, but the girls as well. ‘My father was really very progressive,’ recalled Mary Land. ‘He was a strict man, but with a strong sense of justice. He was very kind, and always gave us lots of attention. He told me that it was impor-tant for girls to do well at school, as you could not count on marrying a rich husband.’ Th e Indonesian family from mother’s side came visit only once a year. Th e children spoke Dutch with their father and Malay with their mother and grandmother, who were able to understand Dutch, but could hardly speak it. As a young child, Mary moved with her father and the rest of family between diff erent garrison towns. As an offi cer, lieutenant Land was entitled to housing outside the barracks. Social life there revolved around the offi cers’ club, where the Indo-African family joined the Dutch and Indo-European offi cers’ fami-lies for all kinds of festivities. When Mary reached school-going age, the fam-ily moved from Gombong to Purworejo. After Land was again called into active service in World War II, he was promoted from the rank of lieutenant to captain.

It is this renovated settlement of the 1930s that is the setting for the mem-oirs told by descendants now living in the Netherlands. Most speak fondly of a carefree childhood in Kampung Afrikan, where all adults were known as grandmother or grandfather, or uncle and auntie. Th ey all kept an eye on the youth, either to hand out treats or to administer a stern warning or a beating in case of misdemeanour. Daan Cordus, born in 1922 into a family with eight children, cherishes his childhood in Purworejo where he lived in a wooden house with a large garden full of delicious fruit trees.13 Daan Cordus, long the driving force behind the activities of the Indo-Africans in the Netherlands, is the grandson of African recruit Cordus, a slave from the Ashanti region, who joined the Dutch colonial army in 1837 after having bought his freedom for 96,50 guilders. He left the army in 1858 with a pension of 108 guilders a year

13 Interviews with Daan Cordus, 1985, 1998, 1999, 2000.



and settled in Purworejo with his Indonesian wife Siam. Daan’s father, Johan-nes Cordus, retired from the army in 1906 and went to work for the railways, and later as writ-server. Although the large family with eight children was not well off , Daan Cordus does not recall any material shortages. Everyone had to lend a hand in the household. Kitchen duties were most popular, as his mother, Emilia Land (daughter of Govert Land) was widely known as an excellent cook. She was also in charge when communal feasts were being prepared for marriages, funerals etc. Kampung Afrikan in the 1920s and 1930s was a boys’ paradise: plenty of space for games, fi shing, hunting for birds and locusts, and adventures in the rice fi elds and orange plantations. His father also owned a rice paddy, which was leased to a Javanese peasant in exchange for a part of the harvest.14

Along with all Indo-African children, Daan Cordus attended the European primary school, which catered for Europeans, Indo-Europeans and children from aristocratic Javanese families. His school friends were Dutch, Chinese, Indo-European and other Indo-African boys; there was not much intimate contact with local Javanese youth. Like Oerip Soemohardjo, Daan Cordus also recalls the occasional quarrel with the boys from the Javanese kampongs.

By the 20th century, Dutch had become the mother tongue of the Indo-African families. Most could also speak Malay (the lingua franca) and some Javanese, but Dutch was invariably the language spoken at home. Cordus continued his education in the Catholic junior secondary school in Purworejo, where most of his class mates were native Indonesians and Chinese. Sponsored by his uncles, notably Doris Land, he then moved to Djokjakarta to attend the senior secondary school. For a boy from Kampung Afrikan, this was an unusual choice: most became professional soldiers, the natural career for the male descendants of the African soldiers. Young Daan Cordus however had no inclination for army life, but ended up being conscripted when World War II broke out.

In between Asia and Europe

Life in Kampung Afrikan was characterised by a strong sense of community. In the case of death, the elders joined the wake in the house of the deceased. Th e whole Indo-African community would follow the procession to the fi nal rest-ing place in the European cemetery. But in death, husband and wife were

14 Notes written by Daan Cordus in 2000, “‘De mens wikt, God beschikt’: mijn levens-verhaal”.



often separated. Th e European cemetery was the preserve of Christians, that is, all African and Indo-African men and Indo-African women. But the Java-nese grandmothers, being Muslim, were laid to rest in the Muslim cemetery. On old family pictures from Purworejo or Semarang, the frail Javanese grand-mothers have pride of place, sitting in the midst of large families, surrounded by muscled men with martial moustaches. Th e relationship between the Indo-Africans and their Javanese surroundings remained however somewhat ambiv-alent. For a Javanese girl, marriage to an Indo-African signifi ed a rise in social status: she now entered European society. But at the same time, she cut her links with her own family. Th e families in Kampung Afrikan did not maintain much contact with Javanese uncles, aunts or cousins. Javanese relatives hardly ever came to visit. At most, when a cook or garden boy was hired, Indo-African families would favour someone from their Javanese family. Th ere was a wide social gap between the Indo-Africans, legally and socially part of the world of Europeans and Indo-Europeans, and the Javanese who in the hierar-chy of colonial society belonged to the world of the ‘natives’.

A number of the African soldiers were Muslims when they arrived in the East Indies. Th ey would generally continue to practice the Islamic faith, but their children were baptized as Christians, mostly Catholics. Religion is not mentioned in the army archives, but some of the African names of the recruits indicate that there were Muslims also. In a few cases, interviewees remem-bered that grandfather was a Muslim.15 However, as Christianity and a Euro-pean education were vital conditions for upward social mobility, African fathers did not raise their children in their own religious traditions.

Later generations often married within the Indo-African community, although liaisons with Indo-European, Indonesian and European partners were also common. In the colonial hierarchy, the Indo-Africans had most in common with the Indo-Europeans: they were entitled to European status, but as they were of a darker hue they found themselves not always fully accepted in European society in the East Indies. Th us, when Evelien Klink tried to register for a course with the congregation of Ursulines in Batavia, to catch up on her schooling which had been interrupted by World War II, she was told that there was no place for her, as priority was given to Dutch children. Fed up, the 17-year old settled for a typing diploma and went in search of a job.16

Th e majority of the Indo-Africans belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Already in the 1830s, Major-General Jan Verveer, who negotiated the treaty with the King of Ashanti which formed the basis for a substantial part of the

15 Interview with Nico Klink about life in Semarang, 8 March 2002.16 Interview with Evelien Cordus-Klink, 28 Sept. 2000.



African recruitment drive, had recommended that the African soldiers be bap-tised as Christians. Th is was deemed advisable to prevent any risk of fraternis-ing with the largely Islamic population of the Indonesian archipelago. Catholicism was seen as the best fi t because of its abundant ritual of church ceremonies.17 During Daan Cordus’s childhood, the Catholic priest visited Purworejo only intermittently. For the rest of the time, his parents would send him to attend Sunday School with the Salvation Army. Later, when the con-gregation of the Sacred Heart opened a parish in Purworejo, the Catholic church with its youth clubs became central to the social life of many Indo-Africans, as is testifi ed by many old photographs.

Th e Indo-Africans joined in the festivities on the Dutch calendar whole-heartedly, notably the Queens’ birthday and Sinterklaas (the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus), which is celebrated on 5 December. For the Queens’ birthday, Kampung Afrikan joined the parade of decorated cars, trucks and other vehi-cles that rolled through the streets of Purworejo.

However, the most important festivities centred around New Year’s Eve. Everyone came home for the Christmas holidays and took part in preparing food and drink for the annual round on New Year’s Eve. Every family prepared some specialty for the visitors. At midnight, all Indo-Africans assembled at the home of the oldest inhabitant for a tour of all the houses that would end at daybreak in the house of the youngest family head. Fuelled by snacks, fi red by substantial drinking and accompanied by musicians, merriment rose as the night progressed. When the throats were lubricated by a generous dose of Dutch gin ( geneva), the elders would sing ‘African songs’, such as ‘Ani koko-moro’ or ‘Chinees-si-tak si-djumana’. Th e meaning of the songs has been lost in the mists of history. Later attempts to enlist the help of ethnolinguists to trace the origins of the songs were not successful.

Th ose with unhappy memories are mostly unwilling or unable to speak about the past. For Jerome Klink for example, childhood was a time of exclu-sion and poverty. He does not recall Purworejo as a close-knit community where all the children felt secure. His father, who retired on only a soldiers’ pension, did not have the means to support all of his seven children. Much of his boyhood was spent at an orphanage in Batavia, where the boys were taught artisanal skills and where he was the only one of African descent. During World War II, he had to fend for himself, scraping a living as an errand boy for a Chinese shopkeeper in Batavia with an occasional premium from boxing

17 National Archives, Dept. of Colonies before 1850, Openbare Verbalen inv. no. 1212, exh. 14 Feb. 1839 no. 23.



competitions. Keen on gambling, the Chinese placed bets on the game: the winning boxer earned part of the pot. Jerome Klink has better memories of his time in the army, where at least he could be sure of regular meals and a bed at night.18

‘Africa is Long Ago’

In terms of oral tradition, a few songs are about the only African heritage that was passed on to the young generation. When adults discussed family matters and saw that the children were listening with ‘big eyes’, they hastened to send them outdoors: adult matters were not meant for children’s ears. Looking back, Indo-African interviewees now suspect that this reticence may have been caused by a sense of embarrassment over the complicated nature of family relations. Extramarital relations were common, resulting in many ‘illegitimate’ children, who were frequently adopted by other Indo-African families. Adop-tion was widely practiced if parents was too poor to care for their off spring, but also as a favour to a childless couple or those at least without a son. Like the Dutch soldiers, the Africans had shared their army barracks with an Indo-nesian wife and her children, sometimes as a lasting partnership, sometimes changing partners as their battalion moved to a new station. What had been common practice in 19th century army barracks, became a source of embar-rassment as the Indo-African families settled into bourgeois respectability.

If the children ever asked about their family origins, they were silenced with replies such as ‘Africa is long ago’. Nor was being ‘African’ a source of much curiosity. Obsessions with racial and ethnic identities are a feature of our present-day societies. Colonial Java was characterised by a rigid social and racial stratifi cation but the cosmopolitan composition of its population was taken for granted. Although the inhabitants of Kampung Afrikan were natu-rally aware of their African origins, memories of Africa had become remote. Doris Land recorded correctly that the forefathers had sailed from Elmina on the Coast of Guinea, but this fact was not widely known among the majority of Indo-African descendants. ‘Africa’ was sometimes understood as South Africa, or as Ethiopia. In Dutch popular history, Africa is often equated with South Africa because of Jan van Riebeeck’s settlement at the Cape of Good Hope and – much later – the Anglo-Boer War that aroused popular sentiment in support of the kindred Afrikaner nation. Ethiopia was the biblical Africa, the land of King Solomon, and moreover, it was the only African country to

18 Interview with Jerôme Klink, 21 April 2002.



make the headlines in the newspapers in the Dutch East Indies during the 1930s. Oscar van den Berg, born in Purworejo in 1924, vividly remembers how, as a teenager living in the garrison town of Solo on central Java, he planned to volunteer to help liberate Ethiopia from Mussolini’s invading army. At the time, he discussed the news from Africa with the Indo-African soldiers stationed in Solo, who regarded the invasion of Ethiopia as agression against ‘Africa’, the land of their forefathers. Oral tradition in his family claimed that grandfather was ‘from Groessie’ – a Grushi from northern Ghana. Th ese eth-nic origins however were now being linked to geographic notions of East Africa. Van den Berg’s mother, and his grandmother, were Javanese women, but the household did not maintain any contact with the Javanese side of the family. Africa was rarely mentioned at home, but he remembers how his father often ate dishes with okra, which was identifi ed as African food.19

Paulina Hulskamp spent World War II with her mother in a Japanese intern-ment camp for Dutch civilians, where her mother told stories about the old days, about her grandfather from Ethiopia and her grandmother from Uganda.20 However, archival records show that Paulina is the great-granddaughter of Willem Nelk, born in Marowa, who enlisted in Elmina in 1862 and returned to Africa in 1881.21 Even in 2003, descendants of African soldier Govert Stap who was born around 1837 in northern Ghana, hired an Ethiopian music band to celebrate their Ethiopian roots at a party in the Netherlands.22

For many decades, Mrs Mes strongly believed that her great-grandfather hailed from South Africa. Her grandmother had told her that great-grandfa-ther was a Mosie, which she understood as being from Mozambique. Accord-ing to family tradition he had been sold by a British plantation owner to the Dutch, who had put him on board a Batavia-bound ship at Port Elizabeth. To prove her point, she began singing an Anglo-Boer War song during the inter-view: ‘Die driekleur van ons vaderland waait boven die Transvaal.’ 23 Th e Dutch colonial archives tell a diff erent story: the great-grandfather of Mrs. Mes, who had been given the Dutch name of Trappen, was a Mossi who sailed from Elmina in 1839 on the ship Elizabeth.24 Trappen had two children, a boy Petrus and a girl Anna. He recognised Petrus as his son, but left Anna to her

19 Interview with Oscar van den Berg, 28 August 2000.20 Phone interview with Paulina de Valk-Hulskamp, 7 Feb. 2001.21 National Archives, Dept. of Colonies, Stamboeken nr 51328. I have not been able to locate

‘Marowa’.22 Phone interview with Donald van der Helm, 24 Sept. 2003.23 Interview with Mrs G.B. Mes, 3 March 2000. ‘Th e tricolore of our fatherland fl ies over the

Transvaal’.24 National Archives, Dept. of Colonies, Stamboeken, nr. 168903.



own devices. Th is was to cause grave problems after Indonesian independence. Petrus Trappen migrated to the Netherlands without problems, as he could easily prove that as a descendant of an African soldier, he was entitled to Dutch citizenship. With no other document than a baptism certifi cate, Anna strug-gled for years to obtain her papers.

It was only after their arrival in the Netherlands in the 1950s, when some Indo-Africans started to search in earnest for details of their history, that the Indo-Africans became aware of their West-African roots and of the Dutch recruitment eff ort on the Gold Coast, which after independence was renamed Ghana.25 However indeterminate, the people of Kampung Afrikan neverthe-less had a vague sense of African identity. Th e fi rst generation of African sol-diers had been known for their strong bonds of solidarity, standing up for their rights whenever they sensed infringements on their status as European soldiers.26 Th eir Indo-African sons in army service also tended to socialize amongst themselves. When black soldiers from the Dutch colony of Surinam volunteered for the East Indies army in the late 1930s, they found themselves included in the African fraternity. In fact, the men from Surinam and the Belanda Hitam may well have shared a common ancestry from the hinterland of the Gold Coast, although no one would have been aware of that at the time. As a school girl in Purworejo, Evelien Klink, the great-granddaughter of ser-geant J. Klink, was determined that she was going to marry an African boy. In 1951, she married Daan Cordus in Batavia. But by then, the protected world of Kampung Afrikan had collapsed under the pressures of World War II and the subsequent Indonesian war of independence.

Japanese Occupation

On 6 March 1942, the Japanese army marched into Purworejo. Japanese occupation was to be the prelude to Indonesian independence, which, in turn, spelled an end to the existence of organised Indo-African communities on Java. All the inhabitants of Kampung Afrikan were summoned to report to the parade ground next to the army barracks. Here the Japanese administrator separated the Indo-Africans from the Dutch and the Indo-Europeans. While

25 Daan Cordus, spurred by the questions of his daughter Sylvia, became particularly active in the search to uncover the forgotten history. He found help from a historian at the University of Amsterdam, Dr. Silvia de Groot, who in the early 1980s led a group of students to do archival research on the history of the African soldiers.

26 Ineke van Kessel, “African mutinies in the Netherlands East Indies: a nineteenth-century colonial paradox.” In Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History (Leiden:Brill, 2003): 141-169.



the Dutch and the Indo-Europeans were confi ned in internment camps, the ‘Blacks’ were sent home to Kampung Afrikan. For the Japanese invaders, it was diffi cult to make sense of their place in society. To the good fortune of the Indo-Africans, the Japanese did not recognise their European status, at least not in Purworejo. Elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago, some Indo- African women and children did have to spend the war years in the overcrowded, unsanitary camps where the Japanese confi ned the civilian population of European and Indo-European ancestry. During the war years, Kampung Afrikan was populated only by women, children and old men. Most of the men, serving as professional soldiers or conscripts in the KNIL, ended up in prisoner-of- war camps.

Daan Cordus had been conscripted into the army in December 1941 when the Netherlands declared war on Japan after the attack on the American base at Pearl Harbour. For the men, the Japanese POW camps were an extremely harsh experience, but life in Kampung Afrikan remained tolerable and fairly pro-tected against the horrors of the outside world. Schools were closed. Girls – Evelien Klink was only 12, Mary Land was 14 – and women were conscripted into forced labour in the local textile factory, to produce jute sacks for the Japanese army. Th ey took home a meagre wage. Cash income in Kampung Afrikan had all but dried up, as Dutch pensions and wages were no longer paid, and bank accounts had been frozen. But there was no shortage of food, as the gardens supplied vegetables, chickens and eggs. In order to buy rice, charcoal and some meat, household items and jewellery were sold off to Indo-nesians and to Arab traders. David Klink, Evelien’s father, possessed a golden watch with a golden chain. One by one, the links were sold to provide a household income. Evelien’s mother used to sew clothes, while others made cookies or snacks to sell or barter. In the memories of the women who lived through the war years as girls, it was a diffi cult but not always bleak period. Birthdays and other occasions were celebrated as before, with the playing of records, dancing and snacks. Th is was in stark contrast to the deprivation experienced by those in the POW camps.

On the Burma Railway

Daan Cordus, who had had no military training, was conscripted into the army as a medical attendant. He expected his army career to be over in a few months, but he would serve as an involuntary soldier for a prolonged period of time, till 1948. His two elder brothers already served as professional soldiers. After the KNIL had capitulated to Japan in March 1942, all the soldiers in Dutch service were taken as prisoners of war. Initially, Daan Cordus remained



on Java, but in December 1942 he was shipped to Singapore and from there taken to the notorious work camps building the Burma railway. Although he had no medical qualifi cations, he was again employed as a sick attendant, under a sergeant who was qualifi ed as a nurse. Th us he was spared the back-breaking work in the stone quarries and on the railway, but every day he was confronted with the lonely suff ering of prisoners dying from dysentery, malaria, pneumonia or tropical ulcers. Apart from quinine, there were no medicines. Leg ulcers were treated with salted bandages, maggots and, ulti-mately, amputation. As work on the railroad progressed, the prisoners moved to a new camp, walking in stretches from Burma to Th ailand (then Siam).

Th e routine in the camps was a struggle for life, with little solidarity among the men and extreme competition for the scarce food. Even a cigarette stump could be the cause of ugly fi ghts. In the fi rst camps, Daan Cordus teamed up with his brother Jan and another Indo-African, Ferdinand Tangande, regularly sneaking into the Japanese provision stores to obtain salted meat and sugar, which was then hoarded in a pit, dug by another Indo-African POW. Later, his two brothers Jan and Jan Jozef were caught bartering with Burmese women outside the camp. Jan Cordus was beaten to death by the Japanese camp guards, and Jan Jozef was sent to Singapore to be executed. He was saved from the fi ring squad by the capitulation of Japan on 15 August 1945, but died in 1947 in battle near Medan on Northern Sumatra. Doris Land also spent World War II as a prisoner of war. David Klink, Evelien’s father, died in 1944 when the Japanese ship that took him to Singapore, was torpedoed. Th e end of World War II did not mean the end of war in Indonesia. After their trau-matic experiences in the POW camps, the liberated KNIL-soldiers found themselves engaged in a new war, this time against Indonesian nationalists.

Rising Hostility

Th e nationalist movement in Indonesia had originated in the early 20th cen-tury among western-educated Indonesians. Initially, Indonesian pleas for the democratisation of colonial rule had been welcomed by colonial administra-tors who hailed the new organisations as evidence of the success of their civilis-ing mission. In 1918, Governor-General Van Limburg Stirum installed a high-level committee that came up with far-reaching proposals for constitu-tional reform, including the proposal to abolish all discrimination based on race, ethnicity or social status.27 By then, Indonesian pleas for democratisation

27 H.W. van den Doel, Afscheid van Indië: de val van het Nederlandse imperium in Azië (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2000) 25-28.



were escalating to a demand for self-government. Th e emergence of the Com-munist Party of Indonesia, instigating rebellions on Sumatra and West-Java, added a radical dimension that fuelled the fears of the colonial elite. By the 1920s, the enlightened Dutch administrators had been overtaken by a new wave of conservatives, who clamped down harshly on nationalists and com-munists alike. Th e 1930s were characterised by repression and retraditionalisa-tion of colonial rule. Nationalist leader Soekarno was banished to various places of exile in the Indonesian archipelago, while more moderate national-ists such as Dutch-educated Mohammed Hatta and Soetan Sjahrir were exiled to a remote camp at Boven-Digoel on Dutch New Guinea.

When the Japanese army invaded the Dutch East Indies in 1942, they were initially welcomed as liberators by many Indonesians. Banned nationalist leaders were brought back to Java. Soekarno and, more reluctantly, Hatta agreed to work with the new Japanese rulers. From 1943 however, Japanese rule meant increasing hardship with the large-scale imposition of forced labour. Th e requisitioning of rice caused massive starvation. Nevertheless, Japanese occupation had fanned anti-Dutch sentiments among the Indone-sian population. Under pressure from a burgeoning movement of young militants, Soekarno and Hatta proclaimed the Independence of Indonesia on 17 August 1945, immediately after the capitulation of Japan. In reality, the nationalist movement was in no way prepared to take control. Th e Dutch refused to recognize the declaration of independence and treated the national-ists as insurgents. Th e allies had agreed at the Potsdam Conference that the Dutch East Indies would be included in the South-East Asia Command under Lord Mountbatten. Th e British army, already faced with a lack of manpower, was now made responsible for disarming the Japanese and restoring Dutch colonial rule over the East Indies. London decided to give priority to Singa-pore and Malacca and, as far as the East Indies were concerned, to Batavia and Surabaya. Th e remainder of the Dutch East Indies would have to wait. Unaware of the extent of nationalist mobilisation and popular frustration, the Dutch assured the British commanders that militant agitation on Java and Sumatra was caused by a few hotheads only.

Meanwhile, the Japanese had been given instructions to maintain the status quo and to look after the internees and POWs whom they now had to protect against militant nationalists and excited crowds. Th erefore, the end of the war did not herald the immediate release of the inmates of the Japanese POW and civil internment camps. Individuals who ventured outside the camps were shocked to notice that Indonesians did not only hate the Japanese, but the Dutch as well. Not only Dutch and Indo-Europeans, but also Chinese and Ambonese became the targets of popular anger. Defeated and demoralised, the Japanese exercised little authority. In many cases, Japanese units were



forced to hand over their weapons to roaming units of young militants, known as pemuda’s. When he realised the extent of nationalist mobilisation, Mount-batten decided to give priority to helping internees and prisoners and to evac-uate the Japanese army. Th e task of restoring the Dutch colonial administration would be left to the Dutch army. In the Netherlands meanwhile, the Dutch government was busy assembling an army to dispatch to Java, but because of a lack of shipping capacity this was a slow process. Meanwhile, hundreds of Dutch and Indo-Europeans fell victim to groups of young militants. Unable to restrain their excited followers, the government of Soekarno and Hatta decided in October 1945 to establish protection camps for Dutch and Indo-European civilians.

For three years, camp inmates had been isolated from the wider world, feeding on rumours, and for many, it took quite a while to make sense of the rapidly changing conditions of their lives. Th is state of confusion is refl ected in interviews with the Indo-African descendants as well. Most interviewees could not put together a very coherent picture of their life in the period fol-lowing August 1945. Th e common feature in many stories is a string of camps, but often interviewees could not say who controlled these camps. But it seems clear that while the Japanese hesitated about how to label the Indo-Africans, the Indonesians did not harbour any doubts: the Belanda Hitam were indeed Black Dutchmen. Th ey fi tted squarely in the camp of the colonial ruler. It is said that Soekarno, while he was a student at the engineering college in Band-ung, told his fellow student, Indo-African Willy Comijs, that there would be no place for the Belanda Hitam in an independent Indonesia, as they had agreed to fi ght for the Dutch against the Indonesians.28

Indonesian Independence

Although the Dutch government reluctantly engaged into talks with national-ist leaders, the negotiations were twice interrupted by an armed off ensive to contain the nationalist forces. Once again, the Indo-Africans were called into active service for the Dutch cause. Most complied without questioning the war against the Indonesian nationalists. Having spent the war years in isola-tion, they assumed that restoration of Dutch rule would be the natural order of things. Few doubted the legitimacy of the Dutch cause: in most of my interviews, Soekarno is branded as the evil genius who drove them from the paradise of their youth. It was only under strong international pressure, nota-

28 Interview with Bert Klink, 19 Feb. 2002.



bly from the United States, that the Dutch government at long last came to terms with the realities of the post-war world order. Finally, on 27 December 1949 the Dutch government formally transferred sovereignty to the Republic of Indonesia.

As the Indo-Africans were known to be loyal to the Dutch cause, they now received their share of hostility from Indonesian nationalists. In 1945, the inhabitants of Kampung Afrikan were rounded up by Indonesian nationalists: women and girls were kept in a military hospital, the boys were separated in a prison building. ‘We were terrifi ed,’ recalled Mary Land.

‘One of my aunts kept a red-white-blue fl ag (the Dutch national fl ag) in a suitcase, with other scouting material. When the Indonesians found the fl ag, she was beaten all over. We just sat there waiting to see who would be called next. Th e Indonesians came to check whether we were spies, whether we had scribbled secret messages somewhere. Th ey wanted to inspect everything, hand palms, foot soles, your buttocks.’

After a few weeks the Indo-Africans were released and placed under a kind of house arrest in Kampung Afrikan. But in 1946 they were again rounded up and kept in ‘protective custody’ in a convent. Indo-Europeans were confi ned separately, in St. Mary’s School. Th ey were told that this was necessary to pro-tect them against the pemudas, who roamed around in nationalist-held terri-tory, taking revenge on the Dutch and Indo-Europeans. Later that year, the British command worked out a plan with the Indonesian nationalist forces for the evacuation of Dutch civilians to Dutch-held territory. Most Indo-Africans from Purworejo went by truck and train to Bandung, but Evelien Klink and her mother joined family members in Batavia. Th e evacuation was limited to women, children and the elderly. Evelien’s two elder brothers were kept in Nationalist ‘protection’ camps.

Oscar van den Berg also served in the army at the time of the Japanese inva-sion but managed to escape while the Japanese were sorting out the offi cers and the men among their prisoners of war. He spent the war years as a fugitive wandering around Java, always in fear that the Indonesians would report him to the Japanese. At the time, he clearly felt hostility from the side of the Indo-nesians. He was indeed arrested by the Japanese and kept for a year in prison in Magelang, but was subsequently released without trial. Elsewhere on Java, many Indo-Africans had harsher experiences than the inhabitants of Kam-pung Afrikan. Mrs. G.B. Mes lost both her parents in Japanese internment camps in Ambarawa and subsequently spent eighteen months with her grand-mother Anna Trappen in ‘protection camps’. In Semarang and Surabaya, where the Indo-African families lived scattered in town, some had been confi ned to Japanese camps, but others were left in peace. In Surabaya, the Indo-African families Klink and Uithoven had been consigned to the European



part of town, which, under Japanese occupation, had been fenced in, with guards at the gate. Bert and Paul Klink and their mother moved in with their grandparents, who owned a house in the European part of Surabaya. Th eir father Willy Klink worked as a POW on the Burma railway.29

Elie Wit, who was 13 when the war broke out, spent the war years with her mother and three sisters and brothers in an internment camp in Semarang. Her Indo-African father, who worked for the post offi ce, and elder brothers were interned in men’s camps elsewhere on Java. Not all Indo-Africans in Semarang shared the same fate, but Elie Wit’s mother had a light complexion and thus looked ‘European’. After the capitulation of Japan, both Semarang and Surabaya became nationalist strongholds. Th e Indo-Africans, although now confi ned in ‘protective camps’, faced the acute hostility of fi erce national-ists. ‘In December 1945, the British came to collect us with buses. In the buses were also other African families. And then they took us to Siam (Th ailand), but I don’t know why,’ recalled Elie Wit.30 Th e British army organised three ships for the evacuation of Dutch and Indo-European civilians, including the Indo-Africans. As the situation on Java remained unsettled, one ship took its passengers to Bangkok. Searching for facilities to house the evacuees, the Brit-ish decided on a former Japanese POW camp at Th a Muang in Th ailand. Here was also Daan Cordus, who, along the Burma railway, had slowly progressed from Burma to Th ailand.

‘When the train from Bangkok arrived at Th a Muang, we opened a freight wagon. It was full of Africans, from Semarang. Also my nieces from the Land family, and Nico Klink from Semarang, the Bonimbie family, the Wit family, the Herbig family. . . . . We were expecting to go home to Indonesia, but now the people from Indonesia were coming to us in Th ailand. Th a Muang was a hospital camp with reasonable facilities, but not adequate for large groups of civilians.’31

It was only with the arrival of the evacuees from Semarang that Daan Cordus and his fellow ex-POWs learned about the turmoil on Java. Cordus, along with a number of other Indo-African soldiers, was again called on active duty. Th e English army however would not allow the Dutch battalions on Java, for fear of escalating violent clashes with the Indonesian nationalists. Th us, British war ships accompanied the Dutch troops from Singapore to the island of Bali, where the Dutch battalion disarmed the Japanese troops, some of whom were now making common cause with Indonesian nationalists. From

29 Interview with Paul Klink 7 Sept. 1999; interview with Bert Klink 19 Feb. 2002.30 Interview with Elie Schoonderwal-Wit, 11 August 2000.31 Interview with Daan Cordus, 28 Sept. 2000.



Bali, Cordus proceeded to Lombok, and then on to Palembang on Sumatra, where he participated in the Dutch army campaign to seize control over the oil fi elds that had been occupied by Indonesian freedom fi ghters. Subsequently he worked for a while in the military hospital in Batavia/Jakarta, until he was fi nally demobilized in 1948. His father had died in 1942, and his mother, along with most evacuees from Purworejo, had landed in Bandung. He joined his family in Bandung, found himself a civilian job and continued his educa-tion with evening courses. With his high school diploma, he went back to Jakarta where there were better job opportunities. Here, he again met some old acquaintances from Purworejo, including Evelien Klink and her mother. Daan Cordus and Evelien Klink married in 1951.

With the transfer of sovereignty in 1949, the Dutch army was now repatri-ated, including a number of Indo-Africans still in active service. Some Indo-Africans continued their army careers in the Netherlands. However, many Indo-Africans initially opted to stay in the land of their birth; some kept their Dutch nationality, others accepted Indonesian citizenship.

Another Voyage: to the Netherlands

Daan Cordus held a good position with a Dutch shipping company in Jakarta, but over time he realised that Indonesia would not off er a future for his family. He saved up to take his relatives to a more secure life. In 1954, Daan Cordus, along with his mother, two sisters, two brothers, his wife Evelien and three daughters boarded ship for the voyage to the Netherlands. On arrival, he dis-covered that cleavages in Dutch society followed a diff erent logic from those in the East Indies. No inquiries were made about his origins, but about his religion. Since the family was Catholic, they were housed in a facility in Eysden, a rural town at the extreme southern tip of the Netherlands. As this region is populated by speakers of a pronounced southern-Dutch dialect, the locals wondered about the High Dutch of the newcomers. However, Cordus quickly found himself a job in Rotterdam and a house in a neighbouring town, and the family settled down. As the Indo-Africans arrived individually and not as group, they were not identifi ed as a specifi c community. Th ey were generally regarded as Indo-Europeans, subsumed in the massive wave of some 300,000 evacuees from Indonesia who came to the Netherlands in the fi rst decade after World War II. By this time, most were third- or fourth- genera-tion descendants of the African soldiers. Some, such as Daan Cordus and Willy Klink, still carried clearly identifi able African features, but many could easily have been taken for Indo-Europeans. Th eir numbers are not known, probably a few hundred.



Th e young generation of Indo-Africans gradually found their way in Dutch society without major hurdles. Th ere were the initial complaints about the climate, the food (‘every day potatoes and bread’), inadequate and overcrowded housing facilities and of course . . . the lack of domestic servants. A small army of welfare workers taught the newcomers how to manage a household without servants, providing lessons in laundry, cooking, mending clothes, budgeting and of course the Dutch national obsession: cleaning windows.

Life was more diffi cult for many of the elderly Indo-Africans, who initially had opted to stay in Indonesia. Doris Land had wanted to stay in Indonesia. In 1955-56 however, relations between the Netherlands and the Indonesian Republic soured, as Soekarno laid claim to Dutch New Guinea. Contacts with the Netherlands were all but cut off , pensions were no longer paid and Dutch-language schools no longer allowed. Everything and everybody related to the Dutch met with increasing hostility. In 1956 Doris Land, at the age of 66, fi nally decided to follow the exodus to the Netherlands, where he died 30 years later, an unhappy man. In Purworejo, Captain Land had been a man of authority, someone whose advice was widely sought. In the Netherlands, he was an anonymous old man. Nobody came to ask for his advice. His Indo-nesian wife hardly spoke Dutch. Doris Land became silent and withdrawn. But he had brought his four typed pages with the history of Kampung Afrikan with him on the journey to the Netherlands, stored in his trunk. Th e docu-ment only surfaced after his death, to the surprise of his children and his nephew Daan Cordus.

Some Indo-Africans opted for Indonesian nationality and stayed in the land of their birth, often because they were married to Indonesians. Some maintained contact with relatives in the Netherlands, others lost touch. After 1945, the houses in Kampung Afrikan had been confi scated by Indonesians, as had happened with the houses of Dutch nationals and Indo- Europeans all over Indonesia. No compensation was ever paid, except to the inhabitants of Kampung Afrikan, who did receive fi nancial compensation. Daan Cordus regarded this as evidence that the people of Purworejo felt no resentment against the Londo Ireng, the Black White Men of Kampung Afrikan.

Th e last African descendent in Purworejo, Evelien Sujarno, died in 2005. She was born in Kampung Afrikan, the great-granddaughter of an African soldier who had been given the name of Gerrit Artz. A tombstone with the name of G. Artz, ‘born in Africa’, can still be seen on Purworejo cemetery. Artz married a Javanese woman by the name of Yem. Th e youngest daughter from this liaison, Koosje, married a soldier from the Indonesian island of Timor, named Daniel. Out of this marriage, Evelien Daniel was born. She



stayed on after independence because of Sujarno, her Indonesian husband.32 Evelien Sujarno was interviewed in 2001 by Endri Kusruri, an Indonesian historian who wrote her MA dissertation on the Belanda Hitam. Having found out that the street names of Kampung Afrikan had been changed into Gang Koplak I and II ( Koplak means a place to tie up horses), Mrs. Kusruri launched a campaign to restore the old street names, supported by a petition signed by about 100 Indo-Africans living in the Netherlands. Th e municipality agreed, and in 2002 the old street names Gang Afrikan I and Gang Afrikan II were restored. Present-day inhabitants of Purworejo still remember that the Afri-cans considered themselves somewhat superior to native Indonesians, but obviously do not harbour grudges against their erstwhile neighbours.

In the Netherlands, contact among the Indo-African descendants was re-established when the generation who had emigrated as young adults reached retirement age. Since the 1980s, some 150 to 200 Belanda Hitam meet for a bi-annual reunion where family histories are discussed amidst Indonesian food, African music and the colourful spectacle of a Ghanaian fashion show or Javanese dances.

In early 2003, a delegation of Indo-Africans from the Netherlands – including Daan Cordus, Evelien Cordus-Klink and Mary Land- travelled to Elmina, Ghana, to attend the opening ceremony of the Elmina-Java Museum. Th e museum is an initiative of a Ghanaian, Th ad Ulzen, himself a descendant of a young man from Elmina, Manus Ulzen, who was among the very fi rst batch of recruits to travel to Java in 1832. Unlike the Belanda Hitam, Manus Ulzen opted for repatriation to Elmina after being injured in an army cam-paign on Sumatra. Once they learned more details about their fascinating family history, the Ulzen family decided to host a permanent exhibition on the African soldiers who went to Java in their family house in Elmina. With the opening of the Elmina-Java Museum in February 2003, the story had come full circle.33

32 Endri Kusruri, “Reminiscences of the African community in Purworejo, Indonesia.” In Merchants, Missionaries and Migrants: 300 years of Dutch-Ghanaian relations. (Amsterdam/Accra: KIT Publishers 2002) 143-149.

33 I accompanied the Indo-African delegation to Elmina, after having made a previous trip to Ghana in 2000 with Daan Cordus and Evelien Cordus-Klink in the context of my research for a book on the history of the African soldiers in the Dutch East Indies. Th e story of Manus Ulzen is told in: Ineke van Kessel, “Th e tricontinental voyage of Negro Corporal Manus Ulzen (1812-1887) from Elmina”, Afrique & Histoire, 4 (Oct. 2005): 13-36.



Conclusion

For the fi rst generation of African soldiers, life in the Dutch East Indies must often have been a harsh experience, certainly in the early years. Th ey were not familiar with Dutch or Malay, the working languages in the army. Tropical diseases, much more than casualties on the battlefi eld, took a heavy toll. Mor-tality among the African troops was only marginally lower than among the European troops in the Indies. Some were obviously homesick.34 About half of the 3,000 African soldiers did not live to see the end of their long-term con-tracts and to enjoy the promised pension. On the other hand, many adjusted well to army life, signing up for voluntary extensions of service after their original contract had expired. Many also took pride in their military valour, for which they were frequently honoured and praised. Like the European sol-diers, the African soldiers sought solace in the company of Indonesian women. Th ey were reputedly very fond of their children, whom I have labelled Indo-Africans, as a parallel to the Indo-European off spring of European fathers and Indonesian mothers.

Th is second generation, most of whom must have grown up in and around the army barracks, no longer battled with communication problems. Dutch had become their mother tongue, and quite a few boys probably acquired basic literacy. Th e army became the natural career for the Indo-African boys. Girls assisted their mothers with the cooking, laundry and cleaning duties in and around the barracks, and in due course often went to live with an Indo-African soldier. Sons whose father opted for repatriation to Africa were gener-ally adopted by another African soldier. It is much more diffi cult to follow the life-stories of the girls, as they do not fi gure in army records. Conceivably, many Indo-African girls merged into Indonesian society without leaving any visible trace. But by now, a more settled life was beginning to take shape in the garrison towns of Java.

Th e third generation, the main focus of this article, was the fi rst to enjoy modest prosperity, although there also remained instances of bleak poverty. Indo-African families now had a fi xed abode and an ‘African heartland’ in Kampung Afrikan. Most children completed at least primary school. And the army now was perceived as secure employment with pension rights, rather than a hazardous adventure. With their reputation as disciplined and loyal

34 National Archives, Dept. of Colonies 1850-1900, verbaal 49, exh. 4 Nov. 1850, no. 24. Generaal Overzigt van hetgeen betrekkking heeft tot de Werving van Afrikanen en van de ver-kregen resultaten. Missive van den tijdelijk kommandant van het observatiekorps, 29 August 1837, no. 683.



workers, most Indo-Africans easily found employment after their stint in the army. By now, the Indo-Africans fully identifi ed with their status as Dutch nationals, attending European schools, taking part in festivities on the Dutch national calendar and becoming actively involved in Christian churches and social clubs. A most telling illustration of how deeply the Indo-Africans had become rooted in colonial society was the widespread presence of Javanese domestic workers in their houses and gardens. If they owned rice fi elds, these would be worked by Javanese labourers. When interviewing the Indo-African descendants, I asked what they had found most diffi cult to get used to after arrival in the Netherlands. Apart from the predictable - weather and food -, most of the women replied: ‘Here you had to do everything yourself.’ Th ere were no helping hands in a Dutch household. In three generations, the Afri-cans had achieved a considerable rise in social status: from slaves in West Africa to households with servants in the East Indies.

However, there is an inevitable bias in this historical perspective, that was largely assembled on the basis of oral history. People with unhappy experi-ences or unsuccessful lives are less likely to make themselves available for inter-views. Th e people in the Netherlands who nowadays can still be identifi ed as Belanda Hitam, tend to be those who join the Indo-African gatherings because they share a certain nostalgia for the days of their youth in the East Indies. Obviously, the childhood years of Anna Trappen and Jerome Klink must have been a grim experience compared to the carefree youth of Mary Land, Daan Cordus and Evelien Klink.

Few, if any, questioned the legitimacy of colonial rule. After all, their careers had been built on upholding the colonial order. Th eir lives were brutally shat-tered by two successive wars, signalling the collapse of the colonial order. Hav-ing been brought up as ‘Dutch’, most Indo-Africans faced no insurmountable obstacles when trying to fi nd their way in Dutch society. Like numerous other Dutch and Indo-European evacuees, many Indo-Africans have returned to Indonesia on holiday, both to see the Garden of Eden of their childhood and to revisit the places of their wartime suff ering. A handful have also travelled to Ghana to explore their more distant roots. As people today seem to be obsessed with questions of ethnic identity, the Indo-Africans are often interrogated about the ‘meaning’ of their African roots. With few exceptions, that has never been a pressing concern for the Belanda Hitam.

References

Kusruri, E., Th e dynamic of immigrant people from Africa in Purworejo. Salatiga: Widya Sari Press, 2001.



——, Reminiscences of the African community in Purworejo, Indonesia, in: I. van Kessel (Ed.)., Merchants, Missionaries and Migrants: 300 years of Dutch-Ghanaian relations. Amsterdam/Accra: KIT Publishers, 2002.

Land, D. Het ontstaan van de Afrikaansche kampong te Poerworedjo (res. Kedoe). unpublished typed manuscript, 1939.

Soemohardjo-Soebroto, R., Oerip Soemohardjo, Luitenant-Generaal T.N.I. (22-2-1893-17-11-1948). Den Haag: Moesson, n.d.

Van den Doel, H.W., Afscheid van Indië: de val van het Nederlandse imperium in Azië. Amster-dam: Prometheus, 2000.

Van Harreveld, M., Belanda Hitam: Afrikaan, Indonesiër, Hollander?, De Gordel van Smaragd, 24 (1) (2004).

Van Kessel, I., African mutinies in the Netherlands East Indies: a nineteenth-century colonial paradox, in: J. Abbink, M. de Bruijn & K. van Walraven (Eds.), Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History. Leiden: Brill, 2003.

——, Th e tricontinental voyage of Negro corporal Manus Ulzen from Elmina, Afrique & His-toire 4 (2005).

——, Zwarte Hollanders: Afrikaanse soldaten in Nederlands-Indië. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2005.

——, Aux Indes néerlandaises: des Africains, agents de police, militaires, exilés, et un prince. Cahiers des Anneaux de la Mémoire, 9 (2006).


belanda hitam: the indo-african communities on java

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