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Dossier : Social and Economic Transformations in the Tropics, the Case of Minahasa, c. 1700–1875

Minahasa around 1850: Plans for reform during Eduard Douwes Dekker’s term as secretary of the Residency of Manado

Minahasa vers 1850 : Projets de réformes pendant le mandat dʼEduard Douwes Dekker en tant que secrétaire de la Résidence de Manado
Maria J.C. Schouten
p. 63-86

Résumés

À la fin des années 1840, le gouvernement colonial néerlandais planifia d’importantes réformes administratives à Minahasa, notamment à propos des obligations imposées à la population autochtone et l’organisation du leadership autochtone officiel. L’un des principaux responsables de la préparation de ces réformes fut le secrétaire de la Résidence de Manado, Eduard Douwes Dekker, qui, quelques années plus tard, deviendra, sous le nom de Multatuli, l’un des écrivains les plus célèbres des Pays-Bas et un critique influent des politiques coloniales. Cet article analyse la situation et les changements à Minahasa vers 1850, en s’appuyant sur les écrits officiels, personnels et informels de Douwes Dekker durant cette période. Ces écrits, ainsi que certaines de ses actions en tant que fonctionnaire, sont examinés dans le contexte plus large des Indes orientales néerlandaises et de la politique coloniale. L’influence possible du séjour de Douwes Dekker à la Résidence de Manado sur ses activités ultérieures d’écrivain et de personnalité publique est également brièvement évoquée.

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Texte intégral

Introduction

  • 1 Algemeen Verslag van de Residentie Menado over 1849; Algemeen Verslag van de Residentie Menado over (...)
  • 2 Lopez 2018: 63–66, 117–119; Francis 1859.

1In the areas under control of the Dutch colonial government in the nineteenth century, it was stipulated that each Residency should produce an annual General Report (Algemeen Verslag). However, in the Residency of Manado in the 1830s and 1840s, Dutch officials only very rarely composed such reports. But then, in July 1851, two reports were drawn up in a short space of time, covering 1849 and 1850 respectively.1 This renewed zeal was most probably related to the impending administrative and economic reforms which the colonial government had planned for the territory, emanating from the conclusions drawn from the recent tours of inspection by state commissioners E. Francis and A.L. Weddik.2 The most far-reaching of the new regulations, planned to take effect in 1852, affected the region of Minahasa, the northeasternmost tip of the island of Sulawesi, where the town of Manado was located.

  • 3 Schouten 1998: 41–42; see also Henley’s article in this dossier.
  • 4 For an overview of economic developments in Minahasa in the nineteenth century, see Schouten 1998: (...)

2Since the seventeenth century, a special relationship had prevailed between the Minahasa population and the Dutch (initially the VOC, the Dutch East India Company), involving agreements in which the former pledged to supply rice and other commodities on a regular basis.3 In the nineteenth century, the bond was strengthened by the participation of hundreds of Minahasans as auxiliaries in the Dutch armed forces in the so-called Java War (1825–1830) and the progress of Christianization in the region. The suitability of the land for the cultivation of highly valued export crops such as coffee and cocoa defined the particular relevance of Minahasa to the Netherlands.4 In 1822, the state had imposed its monopoly on the purchase and onward trade in coffee, but the profitability of this scheme, and in extenso of Dutch sovereignty in Minahasa, fell short of expectations. Therefore, in the late 1840s reforms regarding administration, agriculture and trade were deemed urgent.

3The administrative documents of the Residency of Manado drawn up in preparation for that reorganization tackle not only administrative and economic affairs, but also specific episodes and everyday occurrences. Many of these texts were produced by Eduard Douwes Dekker, who was the secretary of the Residency from 1849 to 1852. In fact, this official was the most constant element in the Binnenlands Bestuur (BB, Dutch administrative service) during this transition period. The Resident in office during Francis’s mission, Abraham van Olpen, left his post in 1849. Thereupon, until 1853 Manado had officially no fewer than three Residents, and the longest-serving of these, Reinier Scherius (in office 1849–1852), was often absent on sick leave or on tour in remote areas. During these periods, the secretary was deputized as the highest-ranking administrative officer in the Residency.

4Secretary Douwes Dekker’s talents and ambitions did not really match with the conditions of an administrative post, as would soon become apparent. Some years after his time of office in Manado, under the nom de plume of Multatuli, he wrote the largely autobiographical novel Max Havelaar.5 This work, which focuses on the abuses perpetrated in Lebak, the region of West Java where Douwes Dekker was an Assistant-Resident in 1856, carried a strong indictment of the functioning of Dutch colonial rule. The book has made him one of the most acclaimed Dutch writers and has earned the status of a classic in world literature, translated into more than 42 languages.6 “Multatuli” belongs to that group of authors that includes Harriet Beecher Stowe and José Rizal, who by virtue of their narrative power have succeeded in drawing wider attention to situations of structural injustice.

  • 7 Underlining in the original document.
  • 8 Douwes Dekker, letter to his brother Pieter, Manado, 15-1-1851, in Volledige Werken, 9: 109. Buiten (...)
  • 9 Particularly in Schouten 1987; Schouten 1998: 75–104.

5In this article on mid-nineteenth century Minahasa, the person of Douwes Dekker provides the scarlet thread, but what follows is not a biographical note, nor a discussion of literature and authorship. In other words, this text is not about Multatuli, the man of letters. The focus of attention falls on Douwes Dekker the civil servant in Manado, who in his professional and private writings sketched a singular portrait of his social environment. As he stated in a letter to his brother in the Netherlands, he saw it as one of his duties as a secretary “to maintain the harmony on the great vessel7 that a buitenpost [‘outstation’] represents.”8 This was never an easy task, and less so in the period under discussion. To achieve the planned simplification and standardization of administration, the support of native leaders was essential, but their status, rights and privileges would also be subject to change under the new laws. The uneasy articulation of colonial and native administration in Minahasa is a theme that I have addressed in different ways in previous studies;9 in this article I discuss the major step in the bureaucratization of the native government of Minahasa that took place around 1850.

6In the following pages, firstly the Minahasa zone will be introduced, with short outlines of its geographical and demographic characteristics, paying particular attention to the small and heterogeneous group of notables living in Manado to whom Douwes Dekker belonged. The organization and daily practice of government, both Dutch and native, constitute the next topic, as well as the dire living conditions of most of the population under colonial rule. Next, the motives and objectives of the proposed administrative and economic reorganization are discussed, as well as Douwes Dekker’s role in its preparation. In the concluding sections, I will assess Douwes Dekker’s functioning as a civil servant in this period, as well as the influence that “Manado” may have had on his later life. A myriad of studies and publications have been dedicated to Douwes Dekker’s life and works, of which the works by Du Perron (1956), Van ‘t Veer (1979), Fasseur (1988) and Van der Meulen (2002) are some of the best-known. However, surprisingly scant attention has been given to the period he passed in Manado — notwithstanding its importance for his development as a writer and as a thinker. This article will provide supplementary information about these years, crucial for both the author and Minahasa.

  • 10 Including the Volledige Werken (Complete Works) of Multatuli, edited by Garmt Stuiveling, which fro (...)
  • 11 This is in accordance with the approach of, for instance, Stuiveling (1982: 96) and Van der Meulen (...)

7The texts by Douwes Dekker used in the article consist of archival sources, published and unpublished, and his own publications.10 We refer to the protagonist as Douwes Dekker, or, simply, Dekker. His alternative name, Multatuli, will be used only when alluding to him as the later author of published works.11

Minahasa: sea and land

  • 12 Van ’t Veer 1976a: 11.

8The Residency of Manado was a remote outpost in the huge insular territory in which Dutch colonial control was gradually established, in a process that lasted until the beginning of the twentieth century. Batavia, the centre of power of the Dutch East Indies on the island of Java, was both geographically and often also mentally far away from the population and civil servants in the Manado Residency. When Douwes Dekker was appointed secretary of the Residency in October 1848, he was living in Java, and it was only in April 1849 that he and his wife Tine arrived in Manado. The protracted duration of their voyage under sail was caused not just by the great distance and the unavailability of direct maritime connections, but also by the relative unpredictability of winds and currents. Direct transport between Javanese ports and northern Sulawesi was rare, and the couple had to spend some time on the Moluccan island of Ambon, awaiting an onward berth.12

  • 13 Van Rhijn 1851: 308; Douwes Dekker to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5 1851, in VW 9: 115. Underlining in the ori (...)

9The great distance from Batavia affected the continuity of administration in the Residency of Manado. Leendert van Rhijn, inspector of the Protestant missions, reported that in 1847 the Resident had to wait for at least seven months before he received a message from his superiors, and Dekker likewise informed his friend, the publisher Arie Cornelis Kruseman, that in Manado “often months go by without any transport facility to Java.”13

  • 14 Data disclaims the persistent idea that Brest van Kempen, later Douwes Dekker’s antagonist in Lebak (...)
  • 15 This rapid succession of functionaries was probably an effect of the report submitted in 1853 to th (...)

10These logistic conditions also hampered the smooth succession of government officials. Dekker served for only about one month under Resident Abraham van Olpen, who left in early June 1849, before the arrival of his successor Reinier Scherius who took up his duty on July 26, no less than one year after his appointment. Scherius remained for three years in Manado. Despite the leave granted to him in August 1851, he stayed at his post until June 1852, primarily because of the sick leave that had meanwhile been granted to his appointed successor, Carel P. Brest van Kempen, who in fact never set foot in Manado.14 The following Resident, Adrian L. Andriesse, exited after one year in favour of Albert J.F. Jansen,15 whose eventful term of office would have the exceptionally long duration of about six years (1853–1859).

  • 16 Graafland 1867: 5.

11Despite their unreliability, the maritime connections were less complex than the overland traffic within the Residency, in particular in Minahasa, which according to the Protestant missionary Nicolaas Graafland “consists entirely of mountains.”16 The volcanic character of Minahasa was noticeable in its fertile soil, but was also apparent in the sulphur lakes, hot springs, and the frequent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. At the time of his arrival, Dekker still had to deal with the aftermath of the disruption caused by a huge earthquake that had taken place in February 1845.

  • 17 Douwes Dekker to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5 1851, in VW 9: 196. Underlining in the original. The author cla (...)
  • 18 See also note to Tine, October 1850, in VW 9: 101–102.
  • 19 Men is zijn God op bergen meer nabij,” actually the second strophe of a poem that had been conceiv (...)

12These constant natural threats notwithstanding, the landscape of Minahasa with its mountains, valleys and lakes did not fail to make a deep impression on Douwes Dekker. In his wide-ranging letter to Kruseman, he indulged in some rather ecstatic reflections about Mount Klabat, that he considered to be “[...] in a sense, the highest mountain of the world. It is 6 or 7,000 feet high, not just above sea level (in which case many are higher) but above the immediately adjacent land.”17 He related how he had scaled this volcano with a group of acquaintances, after native labourers had prepared a special track. Supplied with food, tents and a survival kit, the explorers, as they considered themselves, remained on the summit for two or three days, enjoying each other’s company and the view of the sea to the west, north and east.18 Each left a letter for future visitors on the peak. Dekker contributed a poem with the sentence: “On mountains a person is closer to his God,” a phrase that recurs in the literary work he later published.19

The population: miscellaneous Manadonese

  • 20 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 219.
  • 21 Scherius 1847.

13One of the first prolonged stretches of time in which Douwes Dekker had to stand in for the Resident began in August 1849, most probably at the time of Scherius’s voyage to Gorontalo. For this large administrative division, afflicted by poverty and unrest, reforms were planned, mainly of the organization of gold deliveries.20 Scherius was familiar with this region thanks to his former position there as regionaal gezaghebber (regional civil commander), and had even published an article on Gorontalo society, highlighting its hierarchical organization and the abuses perpetrated by persons of high status.21

  • 22 Short notes by Douwes Dekker, 14-8-1849; 20-8-1849, in the Memoriaal, VW 9: 82.
  • 23 Korte aanteekeningen c. 1853: I5–I6; Van der Hart 1853: 160–161; Van Rhijn 1851: 301. About the Rij (...)

14Dekker, alone at his desk, was faced with the tricky ins-and-outs of Manado town and its surroundings. In order to familiarize himself with these, he enlisted the assistance of the opziener (low-ranking official) of Kema, Rijk Adriaan Rijkschroeff.22 This man was an able administrator, a so-called Indisch kind, “child of the Indies,” a designation used those days for a person of partly European descent born and bred in the Indies. Rijkschroeff’s ancestors had lived in Ambon since the early eighteenth century, and members of his extended family were found scattered in various minor administrative posts in the eastern archipelago.23

  • 24 Memoriaal, 19-8-1849, in VW 9: 84–85.
  • 25 Bleeker 1856: 31; Henley (2005: 167–174) provides a detailed and informative table about the number (...)
  • 26 See Fasseur 1994; Anderson and Roque 2018; Washbrook 1982.

15Dekker’s personal notes for that month, as recorded in what was known as the Memoriaal, betray a certain bewilderment about the variety of population categories, each with a distinct judicial status, all set out in the office documents. This diversity, typical of Eastern Indonesian coastal areas, was a legacy of the centuries of contact with European countries and other faraway regions. Secretary Dekker initially pencilled a rough list of the fourteen categories he found in the administrative files,24 but this was considerably at variance with the official categorization of population groups in Manado. In the early 1850s the following categories were distinguished by the regional government: Europeans (white and coloured); Christian burgers or free persons; Islamic burgers or free persons; Christian natives; Islamic natives; pagan natives; Chinese; slaves.25 If nothing else, this attests to the elaborate taxonomy the Dutch applied to the people they ruled, each population group — defined according to perceived ethnicity, religion and various other principles — having distinct obligations and rights. This “legal patchwork,” part of a strategy of “divide and rule,” existed during the entire colonial era, although the criteria and categories have changed over time.26

  • 27 Henley 2005: 170. About the reliability of Minahasa population data in that period, see Henley 2005 (...)

16In Minahasa, the term “natives” or inlanders referred to almost the entire “original” population, consisting of eight ethnolinguistic groups, most of them mountain-dwellers. In the literature of that time, they were often called “Alfur,” an overall term that subsumed all the people, in an area as large as that from the Philippines to Timor, who lived inland and whose way of life was considered “uncivilized,” or, in the more commonly used terminology, “savage.” Together these inlanders accounted for about 95% of the population of Minahasa (which in 1849 totalled 95,662, according to the General Report27), while the category next in size, that of burgers, was about 3%. The burgers or borgo were descendants of Europeans or of persons with some relationship to Europeans and they fell directly under government jurisdiction.

  • 28 On party-throwing among Europeans and Eurasians in East Indonesian coastal towns, see Bosma and Rab (...)
  • 29 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 108.
  • 30 After the surname of his wife Tine (Everdine Huberte van Wijnbergen).
  • 31 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 112. Three palen is about 4.5 kilometres.
  • 32 Graafland 1898, 2: 353–354; see also Resink 1979: 488. It is relevant that Graafland wrote these me (...)

17Despite their differences in legal status, in the town of Manado the Europeans, the prominent Eurasians or burgers and even some high-ranking Minahasans socialized with each other, in particular on festive occasions, of which there were plenty.28 Dekker and his wife, after the Resident the most prominent Dutch inhabitants of Manado, took part in many of these, and in his personal writings Dekker gives detailed, ironic descriptions of these social events. In a letter to his brother Pieter, a clergyman, he states that “[...] Menado is really a bit too merry for us,”29 and that this merriness had motivated him to acquire an estate, unofficially named Wijnbergen,30 just outside the town of Manado: “It seems to me that a distance of three palen on a bad road is a suitable barrier between my thinking and their dancing.”31 In his cottage, Dekker set up the Wijnbergerkring, a debating society in which the missionary-teacher Graafland also participated. In the second edition of his book on Minahasa, Graafland reports he had been captivated by Douwes Dekker’s “witty conversations and eccentrical outbursts,” but he also refers to the difficult and unpredictable manners of the host: “For some he was too exigent, and hence people gradually opted out.”32

Government matters

  • 33 De Lange 1897: 670.
  • 34 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 110. Underlining in the original. The know-how about the Resi (...)

18The secretary of Manado, assisted only by two clerks, had to tackle a huge variety of tasks and additional functions.33 Dekker himself emphasized that his job was more than that of just a desk-bound official: “Secretary, that is the writing machine and should be (I hope I am) the right hand of the Resident, and every time he is absent, which is a frequent occurrence, his deputy.”34 As he often had to make executive decisions, there were many opportunities or necessities to examine the conditions prevailing among the population.

  • 35 Letter to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5, 1851, in VW 9: 158–159. See also Idee 784, in VW 4: 506, among other (...)
  • 36 Henley 2002: 45; Schouten 1998: 72.
  • 37 Idee 705, in VW 4: 435.

19Speaking of the upland Minahasans, in his letters and also in some of his later published work, he evokes the stereotype of headhunters — that he knew would thrill his readers in the Netherlands: “Here (where I am now) […] the bridegroom gives his fiancée some human heads as a pleasant surprise — like pearls for a necklace.”35 In fact, headhunting raids and human sacrifices had become an extremely rare occurrence in Minahasa in the nineteenth century.36 In diverse documents Dekker, like so many other Europeans at the time, even praises the “Alfurs” for their peaceful nature and their willingness to cooperate with the Dutch.37 However, this is a one-sided view as well, as this tractability may be traced back to the intensity of the monitoring by the higher authorities, and the people’s awareness of the heavy sanctions for acts of disobedience.

  • 38 Francis 1859: 277.
  • 39 The colonial government had a monopoly from 1822 to 1899. Therefore, the Minahasa regulation lasted (...)

20In those days, Minahasa’s renown among the Dutch as the most important region in the colonial territory east of Java38 was greatly based on the government monopoly on its coffee.39 The Minahasans, besides having to grow this crop, had to supply rice to the government, an obligation that dated from the VOC era. For the transport of these products to the government warehouses on the coast, they had to build roads and other forms of infrastructure in corvée labour (herendiensten), sometimes under appalling conditions, as Atsushi Ota discusses in this dossier. To supervise the execution of their obligations (the above-mentioned were just a few of them), an intricate structure of government servants was deployed. The officials pertaining to the European sphere, the Binnenlands Bestuur, were those in the immediate service of the Residency (like Dekker and the clerks) as well as the opzieners, posted to the places where the coffee warehouses were located. But the collaboration of the native chiefs was still essential.

  • 40 Letter to Pieter Douwes Dekker, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 110.
  • 41 Prediger (1804) in Watuseke and Henley 1994: 369; Wenzel (1825) in Godée Molsbergen 1928: 190; Piet (...)
  • 42 Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83–84; Riedel 1872: 561.

21At the time, Minahasa was divided into 27 districts, each of them with a district chief (bearing the title of majoor or hukum besar) and usually a second chief or hukum kedua. The districts, Dekker informed his oldest brother, are “all independent of each other and each has its own chiefs who sometimes quarrel, sometimes fight.”40 Below district level, on that of village or neighbourhood, there existed multiple other native leadership functions, whose designations and competences diverged in the reports of Dutch officials in the first half of the nineteenth century.41 Standardization in this respect would only be brought into effect about 1858.42 Hence Dekker’s listing deviated somewhat from those reports.

  • 43 Schouten 1998: 48–49; Henley 1996: 34–37.
  • 44 Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83.
  • 45 Men were identified as dapoorman, dapoormensch (both meaning “head of household”) or boedjang (“bac (...)
  • 46 Notes in Dekker’s Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83–84.
  • 47 Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83.

22To ensure that the native officials properly fulfilled the essential tasks of maintaining peace and order and of supervising the duties allotted to their subordinates, the government set up a system of privileges and rewards for them. Some of these had already been installed by the VOC,43 but in the 1820s they became more sharply defined. In his notebook of 1849 Dekker outlines the income and entitlements of district chiefs. In the first place, they had about four persons (wachtvolk or wachtlieden, literally “guardsmen”) to work for them on a daily basis, carrying out various tasks. He observed, for example, that “in Kema the wachtvolk cuts grass.”44 A regulation drawn up in meticulous detail determined the exact amount of work a male subordinate was obliged to perform for his chief, affected by such factors as marital status.45 Chiefs also had the right to a share in the yields produced by their subjects, for instance a portion of the hunt, of the salt panned in the coastal villages, or edible bird nests harvested, in the case of the east coast.46 The legally established commissions linked to the rice and coffee delivered to the government were significant, but the variations between districts regarding natural conditions and population numbers meant that there were discrepancies in income between the chiefs. After sorting out all those regulations, Dekker rounded off his notes with a remark apparently approving the conclusions of the author of the abovementioned inspection report: “Francis has proposed a fixed salary.”47

  • 48 Schouten 1998: 30–31, 44–45.
  • 49 Wenzel 1825, cited in Riedel 1872: 480–481.

23Because of the great importance placed on labour, population numbers mattered to the district chiefs and that is why they counteracted the migration of their subjects to other districts. This was an alteration to the situation in pre-nineteenth century Minahasa, when for a leader personal bonds with followers prevailed over the rights to territory, and people could switch their loyalty to other leaders and their groups, or migrate.48 This fluid and dynamic character of leader-follower relations stagnated after the passing of the government decree of 1825 that required the permission from the chief to leave a district.49

  • 50 This may have been the often-used perintah halus, “gentle hint,” which in reality was a command.

24Therefore, many of the disputes that the secretary of the Residency had to deal with concerned the (temporary) migration of working-age men. One of the first issues recorded by Dekker involved a couple of small districts in the region of Manado town. The chief of Negeri Baru district complained about individuals who were absenting themselves in the district of Aris, a situation that left Negeri Baru short of labourers. After having also listened to the chief of Aris, Dekker decided that the solution should be sought in the adat (tradition), and he inquired with the chiefs of the nearby districts of Manado and Klabat about what the adat decreed on this matter. Both, one after the other, stated that according to tradition it was an offence to leave a district without informing the chief — and so Dekker suggested50 that the chiefs of Aris and Negeri Baru follow the customary law.

  • 51 Wenzel 1825, cited in Riedel 1872: 480–481.
  • 52 Memoriaal 10-8-1849, 11-8-1849, in VW 9: 80, 82.

25However, as we discussed above, in reality the rule prohibiting absence from the district without permission had been introduced and registered just one generation earlier.51 This case reveals how this directive had meanwhile been so assimilated that people considered, or, for that matter, depicted it as being their adat. Thus, the Dutch administration was legitimized to apply it and impose sanctions on trespassers. In fact, the idea of adat, in Minahasa and elsewhere in Indonesia, is highly capricious. It is not fixed and subject to manipulation by the more powerful — whether native leaders or government officials. In this specific case it was in the interest of the majority of the Minahasan interlocutors to convince the Dutch official of the “traditional” character of the rule, since they did not want to let their own menfolk go. Dekker applied the same procedure in other recorded situations: interrogation and examination of the tradition as this was described to him, sometimes combined with a visit on-the-spot,52 if this was close to Manado town.

26What was the reason that lay behind his respect for the adat? Did he, like so many other Dutch civil servants, resort to it because it provided a welcome solution to disputes, or was his interest based on a genuine curiosity about the customs of the population? The first reason was probably his predominant motive. With the exception of tourist trips, hardly any source about or by Dekker refers to visits to Manado’s Hinterland where the bulk of Minahasa’s population lived. His personal contacts with the indigenous population seem to have been limited to members of the elite, in particular those residing in and around the town of Manado. Hence there is some reason to doubt that his prolonged stay in northern Sulawesi resulted in a real familiarity with Minahasan ideas and customs.

  • 53 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 220.
  • 54 Graafland 1898, 1: 89. The visits of whalers provided a distraction and contributed to trade; howev (...)
  • 55 Gansneb Tengnagel 1848, in ANRI Manado inv. 168: 8; Ten Siethoff 1845, in ANRI Manado inv. 46: 162; (...)
  • 56 Francis c. 1847, in ANRI Manado inv. 166: 122–137.

27The government’s avowed objective of obtaining a high income from agricultural yields in Minahasa was thwarted by all kinds of abuses, as is recorded in, for instance, the General Report for 1849: “Regarding trade, this was not at all lively […] The profit of the farmer has continuously passed into the hands of just a few.”53 With these words Dekker and Resident Scherius were alluding to the role of some native leaders and Eurasians as intermediaries in the process of deliveries of rice and coffee. Chiefs usually demanded more rice from their people than they were obliged to supply, to sell the surplus for their own profit, for example, to English and American whalers who berthed at Kema.54 Some chiefs were personally involved in the inter-insular rice trade and sent this product eastwards to Ternate or Tidore.55 These practices, along with the excessive demands on labour, weighed heavily upon Commissioner Francis for whom the “despotic” behaviour of the chiefs was a major argument when proposing the introduction of a monetary tax system and an administrative reorganization.56

  • 57 See letters by Opziener J. Wilson (7-4-1832; 1833), in ANRI Manado inv. 106.
  • 58 Schouten 1998: 88.
  • 59 Fragment 1856: 94–97. Scherius also applied sanctions such as downgrading, for example in the case (...)

28It had turned out that measures introduced earlier by the colonial government, namely, the obligatory supplies to the state and the granting of more authority to the chiefs, contributed to these extortions. Grievances aired by commoners were usually not taken seriously; in the reports, in particular those of the opzieners, a special term was used: bikin storie (to fabricate stories).57 Lodging complaints about a chief with Dutch officials often led to the detention or exile of the plaintiffs.58 But even so, in some cases investigations into the actions of chiefs were made and, in a few of these, the Dutch authorities did find proof of malpractice that carried with it the penalty of suspension, dismissal or even exile. Before Francis’s mission, at least two district chiefs had been discharged for these reasons.59

29In his position Dekker was also involved in the handing out of punitive sanctions like the demotions and dismissals of native chiefs. As a justification for the dismissal of both the highest and the second-ranking chiefs of Remboken, he states:

  • 60 “Aantekening van Dekker,” 17-7-1851, in VW 9: 213–214. Underlining in the original. Negorij (negeri(...)

[…] that the second Hukum of the district Remboken, Joseph Willem Endoh, has perpetrated the act of arbitrarily retaining […], 262.70 guilders in copper money, forthcoming from the coffee supplied by the population in the years from 1848 to 1850. That he, although first pretending to have borrowed that money from the persons involved, and to the very end has attempted with extreme insolence to deny his malversations, has admitted to being guilty of extortion. That, furthermore, the Majoor of Remboken E. Magot, suspended by resolution of February, 13, ult., has also admitted malversations relating to amounts of money, from both the negorij funds and from diverse persons […].60

  • 61 In 1853, De Lange (1897: 670) portrayed three of the opzieners, “of whom the first can barely write (...)
  • 62 However, this decision by Van Olpen (dated 10-2-1844) met with strong disapproval from his superior (...)
  • 63 Gansneb Tengnagel 1848, ANRI Manado, inv. 168: 10–11; Ten Siethoff 1845, in ANRI Manado, inv. 46: 8 (...)

30Many chiefs were in the red to the opzieners who were in charge of the receipt and inspection, payment and further shipment of the products in the ports of Kema, Amurang and Tanawangko. By and large these officials, usually Eurasians, were poorly educated,61 and reaped profit from their key position. They usually made the chiefs an advance payment for the coffee, and passed their resulting debts on to the population. Resident Van Olpen’s prohibition on this system of credits (voorschotstelsel) in 184462 did not put an end to the abuses. Swindles and tricks in the retail trade, particularly in textiles, continued to enrich the opzieners and their extensive networks of relatives and friends, above all the Europeans and Eurasians in Manado.63

  • 64 Ten Siethoff 1845, in ANRI Manado inv. 46: 82, 135, 162–163.

31The web of clandestine trade contacts, extending beyond the territory of the Residency, was a major abuse recorded in the mid-1840s by the military officer J.J. ten Siethoff. He gave a detailed description of the miserable conditions he had observed in the southern district of Tonsawang, where the people were “emaciated and [their skin] covered with scabies.”64 This situation, he argued,

  • 65 Idem, p. 83. One gantang is about 3 kg.

[...] results purely and simply from the extortions of the chiefs, who buy the rice from their subjects and then resell it again in Amurang, — but to whom, and who sells it on to private persons in Ternate, and accepts a payment of two and 2.50 guilders per gantang? Well, Mr Van Duivenboden, aren’t you able to reveal us the identity of that person?65

  • 66 According to Alfred Russel Wallace (1962: 234), Lodewijk’s father “was generally known as the king (...)
  • 67 Bosma and Raben 2003: 349.

32The gentleman addressed here, Lodewijk Diedrik Willem Alexander van Duijvenbode, was a scion of the wealthy kin group Van Renesse van Duivenbode, sovereign in Ternate.66 He took care of the business interests of his family in Manado.67

  • 68 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 225.
  • 69 Ibid.

33A thorough administrative reform was supposed to be the best remedy against these and diverse other irregularities. One of the measures affected the officials in Dutch service, among whose ranks the position of opziener was effectively replaced by that of the career-civil servant or Controleur in the 1850s. Regarding the native district chiefs, Francis recommended they be paid a salary, an idea that Dekker and Scherius echo in the General Report of 1849: “[...] in their own interest it might be useful to accord them a reasonable salary, thus granting them […] the status of officials, servants of the state also by law.”68 Moreover, they note that “in general, the number of chiefs is rather too high than too small.”69 An integral acceptance of these suggestions, which would imply a substantial professionalization of the indigenous administration, was a bridge too far for the decision-makers in Batavia. But the package of measures announced in the Staatsblad (Government Gazette) of 1850 was certainly a step in that direction.

Preparing the reform — Douwes Dekker’s Publicatie

34The new system, to be introduced in Minahasa on the first of January 1852, involved the abolition of the compulsory rice deliveries, and the simultaneous introduction of an annual monetary tax of five plus 1.50 guilders per household, respectively for the government and for the district chiefs. A better organization of the transportation and delivery of coffee was foreseen. It was expected that this more rational system would stimulate a higher production of coffee.

  • 70 Note in Memoriaal, 13-5-1851, in VW 9: 208. The Dutch-language version of this Publicatie, as it is (...)

35For this reorganization, in addition to the inescapable deskwork, Resident Scherius and Secretary Douwes Dekker had already ordered all kinds of practical preparatory work, including the building of coffee warehouses and the construction of carts. It was considered wise to give the population timely information about the forthcoming changes. To this end, Dekker — obviously, under the auspices of Scherius — authored an explanatory document, dated April 1, 1851, that was primarily addressed to the chiefs and village headmen of the region. The text (Publicatie) was intended to be spread among the entire population, and it was suggested that it should be read out, for example, before or after church services.70

  • 71 Herrmann n.d.: 244.
  • 72 A perception that has latently persisted, and which Fabian (1983) identified and analysed also amon (...)

36An underlying line of thought in this document — just as of the new measures — was the conviction that the creation of new needs is essential to the development of a people, because they provide an incentive to work harder. In this view, generally held among Westerners at the time, scantiness of needs was the equivalent of “savagery.” Or, in the words of the Protestant missionary of Amurang, Karl T. Herrmann: “The Native effectively does not need anything, as long as he remains uncivilized.”71 It was assumed that people of the different, non-Western society lived in a previous stage of cultural evolution.72 But the colonizers declared that they could assist the “savages” in reaching a higher stage of civilization. The General Report for 1849 elaborated on this idea, as it announced concrete plans for the Minahasans:

  • 73 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 215–216.

Luxury has so far been, one might say, an unknown circumstance […]. In this regard, great benefit is expected from the new system of taxes and cultivation, to be introduced at the beginning of the year 1852, as it is to be expected that this will contribute to a better understanding of property, and the desire to increase that through labour.73

  • 74 Fasseur 1988: 45.

37It was supposed that harder work and the motivation to adopt a more sumptuous pattern of consumption would benefit the population and, last but not least, the coffers of the Dutch state that, for example, in 1860 were filled for 34% with the profits from the colonial enterprise.74

  • 75 Publicatie, in VW 9: 203.
  • 76 On the importance of rice in Minahasa worldview, see Schouten 1998: 21 and passim; Schefold 1995. O (...)
  • 77 Publicatie, in VW 9: 203–204.
  • 78 Schouten 1988; Riedel 1872: 56.
  • 79 Schouten 1998: 22–24.

38This argumentation is clearly set out in the Publicatie. It states that if Minahasans themselves could sell their rice for money and must settle their taxes with a portion of their earnings, they would be incentivized to work harder. In other words, rice was seen primarily as a source of income, while its value as food was depreciated: “What has been eaten is gone, and you will have grown older, but not richer.”75 This discourse attests to the gap between the thought processes of the Dutch civil servants and the actual conditions under which the population was living. How were they to live if they could not eat their rice? Actually, the Publicatie recommends the cultivation of substitutes, such as maize (which was in fact an important staple food in Minahasa), sweet potatoes, bananas and pulses, but the European mindset that engendered this proposal was uninterested and ill-informed about the extra investment in time and means that this would have necessitated. Under the regime of burdensome obligations, time was a very scarce commodity for the common Minahasan. Moreover, rice had a high religious and ritual value, and the omission of rice from the menu would have led to a transformation in culture and daily life.76 The document proceeds with a discourse on the benefits of monetarization: “However, if you sell your rice, save the money or purchase durable goods, you will leave your children fine houses, plenty of property and a good name. For which you will still be blessed even after you are dead and gone.”77 The emphasis laid on renown and prestige certainly did strike the right chord among the audience, for whom the importance of a good name or reputation (ngaran in the major Minahasa languages) was and is highly valued.78 The irony, however, is that in Minahasa one of the means of gaining prestige was the organization of feasts in which rice should be abundant.79 The population was also warned against unscrupulous buyers of rice, and against accepting advances on rice not yet harvested (padi). This was followed by the announcement that by building covered marketplaces in various inland villages, the state was preparing to offer protection against this kind of malpractice.

The attitude of Douwes Dekker and the germs of Multatuli

  • 80 “Groot[e] Bestuurde[r] te Batavia,” meaning “the Governor-General.” A similar reference is that of (...)

39The Publicatie, in which it is stated that the well-being of the people of the archipelago is a principal aspiration of the “Great Administrator in Batavia,”80 is pervaded by a spirit of paternalism and encodes an implicit declaration that one of the tasks of the colonial rulers is to protect ordinary people against their more powerful fellow-countrymen.

  • 81 See Schouten 1998: 56; Warren 1981.
  • 82 Draft-letter to the Governor-General, 8-5-1851, in VW 9: 206–208.
  • 83 Draft-letter 30-5-1851 to Governor General, 30-5-1851, in VW 9: 209–211.
  • 84 VW 9: 210. These details (like in the previous note) were recorded by Edgar du Perron during his re (...)

40The eloquent style of the Publicatie is also to be found in several of Dekker’s other official writings, whose tone is distinct from usual bureaucratic correspondence, as it is neither formal nor deferential towards superiors. His handling of the threat of pirates from Sulu, who in those days made frequent attacks on the coasts of North Sulawesi is a case in point.81 In the drafts of his missives that were to be sent to Batavia requesting support for this endeavour, Dekker emphasized in dramatic wordings his resoluteness in the efforts to avert this plague. A draft of May 8, 1851, for example, concludes with a reminder to the Governor-General of the fact that the protection of the population was a preeminent responsibility of the government. But, probably considering that the Governor-General would not appreciate “reminders” from civil servants, Resident Scherius ordered this remark to be deleted.82 Official documents dealing with other matters, such as an extensive letter to Governor-General Duymaer van Twist that lists in an emotional and almost poetic style the flaws in the work of a civil engineer posted in Manado, suffered a similar fate. Halfway through the letter the following sentence occurs: “I declare this all on the oath of allegiance I have sworn to the Country.”83 It reveals the commitment of Douwes Dekker, the future Multatuli; but for Scherius, who after all was to sign this letter, this went too far — and so this sentence, along with some others in the document, was scrapped.84 Nevertheless, Scherius did authorize quite a few other candidly worded documents.

  • 85 In missive Scherius to the Governor-General, 6-8-1851, in VW 9: 229.
  • 86 Van der Meulen 2002: 283; Attachment to letter by Douwes Dekker to Secretary General of Colonial Af (...)

41Overall, it seems that the two officials got on well together and shared views about how a proper administration should function. In 1851, when Scherius was awaiting his European furlough, he gave Dekker a recommendation citing his extraordinary capacities. In a subsequent letter to the Governor-General, he even proposed that the secretary be his successor as Resident of Manado, in support of a request for this promotion composed by Dekker himself. Such a promotion would have been quite unusual, in view of the short period Dekker had been in the service of the Binnenlands Bestuur. In his letter of recommendation, Scherius pointed out the benefits for the Residency of Manado if it were to be governed by Dekker, a man who “has assisted in the preparation of the important reforms that will be introduced on the first of January next year.”85 Dekker eventually did get a promotion, however only to the level of Assistant-Resident, and not in the Residency of Manado but in Ambon, where he took up his post in February 1852. That same year he was granted home leave, and in the Netherlands, the two former Manado officials met on various occasions, for example at the Freemasons’ lodge, and Scherius helped Dekker out when the latter was in financial difficulties.86

  • 87 VW 9: 271–273; Praamstra 1993; Buijze 1997.
  • 88 Van der Meulen 2002: 350–352; Praamstra 1993.

42The sources suggest that in Manado Douwes Dekker was an assiduous official who took his duties seriously. But in financial matters, he tended to act carelessly. He made unauthorized payments, and later inspections by the Rekenkamer (auditor’s office) concluded that he had landed the Manado Residency with a deficit of more than fl. 3,000.87 His financial indebtedness to the state was in 1857 the motive for his abrupt departure from the Indies, leaving his family behind.88

43Reviewing his executive decisions in his Manado years, we can conclude that Dekker continued to work within the bounds of the legally established colonial system, despite the many flaws he detected in it. He queried certain practices in Minahasa that derived from the legal requirements for the provision of corvée labour and denounced the role of chiefs and certain Eurasians and Europeans who acted as commercial agents. In doing so he was endorsing and complementing proposals for a thorough administrative reform. He attempted to eliminate abuses by proposing new legal measures, or the implementation of measures he considered to be based on the laws.

  • 89 Schouten 1998: 53–54.
  • 90 Schouten 1998: 53; Douwes Dekker 1998: 69.

44There are no signs that Dekker objected to the compulsory coffee cultivation, probably the heaviest burden for the common Minahasans in the uplands.89 But it is not too far-fetched to assume that he had Minahasa in mind a few years later when he, as Multatuli, gave the novel Max Havelaar the subtitle “Or the coffee auctions held by the Dutch Trading Company,” suggesting that financial profit, such as from the coffee trade, was the motor that drove the colonial enterprise. In that same book, the author leads us to believe that the story of Max Havelaar would never have been written had not the Amsterdam-based coffee merchant Batavus Droogstoppel found a bundle of papers entitled “Report on the Coffee Cultivation in the Residency of Menado,” a discovery that caught the merchant’s interest because of the link to his profession and, moreover, “Menado is a good brand.”90

  • 91 Letter to Pieter Douwes Dekker, Amsterdam 15-10-1853, in Kortenhorst 1975: 613. Jan was Douwes Dekk (...)
  • 92 Van der Meulen 2002: 264–266; VW 9: 273–282; Schulte Nordholt 1987: 155.
  • 93 As established in the Regeringsreglement (Government Regulation) of 1818.
  • 94 The fourth edition (1873) – with notes – of this work, first published in 1862, is in VW 2: 183–298 (...)

45Although, as we have seen, no direct criticism of the colonial government is known from Douwes Dekker’s Manado years, it is remarkable that shortly thereafter, when on furlough in the Netherlands, he seemed to question the complete structure of colonial rule in Manado and elsewhere in the archipelago. This occurs in a postscript to a letter to his brother Pieter: “I hear from Semarang that Jan has left for Menado to plant tobacco […] I cannot say this gladdens my heart, because (although it is a wonderful place), neither there nor anywhere else will anything be accomplished as long as the Dutch flag flies over it.”91 Unfortunately, no arguments are adduced for this assertion, that might have been nothing more than a spontaneous outburst in a rapidly penned note. But it is certain that by 1854 Dekker had begun to develop a critical attitude, of which the seeds could have been sown by the experiences after his Manado term and upon further reflection. His contact with new ideas while on leave in the Netherlands could have contributed towards their crystallization.92 The awareness that the government had failed in its duty to protect,93 his failure as an Assistant-Resident of Lebak in 1856, and personal disappointments were the crucible in which his scathing attack on government policy in Max Havelaar was fused. This was enunciated even more sharply in his subsequent pamphlet Over vryen arbeid in Nederlands Indië en de tegenwoordige koloniale agitatie (“About free labour in the Dutch East Indies and the present-day colonial agitation,” published in 1862).94

  • 95 Van ‘t Veer 1976a, 1979; Van der Meulen 2002; Saks 1937; Du Perron 1956.
  • 96 In Max Havelaar references to his stay in Manado are plenty (Douwes Dekker 1998: 73, 76, 77, 134, a (...)
  • 97 Letter to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5 1851, in VW 9: 147. See also letter to Tine, 28-9-1859, in VW 10: 60–6 (...)

46On his literary work, Douwes Dekker’s posting to Minahasa — his contacts with the diverse inhabitants as well as his “time to think” on his Wijnbergen estate — had an enormous influence, as has been emphasized by several of his biographers, in particular Dik van der Meulen, Paul van ‘t Veer, J. Saks and Edgar du Perron.95 In Van ’t Veer’s biography, the fourth part that is entitled “The road to Lebak” begins with 1849, the year Dekker took up his post in Manado. Experiences in Manado recur regularly in later writings.96 And it was in Manado that he wrote texts that can be considered drafts of fragments of Max Havelaar. Even his pseudonym Multatuli (in its Dutch version: “Ik heb veel gedragen” — “Much I have suffered”) appears for the first time, and repetitively, in a letter written in Manado.97

Concluding remarks

  • 98 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 111; Van ‘t Veer 1976b.

47In this article we have discussed features of and changes in nineteenth-century Minahasa society, taking into consideration the notes and texts that the civil servant Eduard Douwes Dekker committed to paper during or shortly after his Manado term. Although an examination of these writings certainly does contribute to our knowledge and understanding of Minahasa in the period 1849–1852, we must bear in mind that we are obviously dealing with a fragmented and one-sided view. The texts were written by a European, more particularly, a government official, thus unequivocally connected to the colonial regime. Much as Dekker already revealed himself in that period to be an outspoken and freethinking spirit, in his actions he complied with the essence of the colonial system. He wanted to correct some flaws in the administrative organization that had led to abuses, such as the extortion of the population by native chiefs and traders. With a view to combat these malpractices, he formulated or supported diverse administrative and legal proposals. Some of these were restricted to Minahasa or the Manado Residency, but others extended to the entire territory dominated by the Dutch, such as his reflections on a reform of penal law in the Indies, in a document submitted to the colonial government in 1849.98

  • 99 As his notes and letters (in VW 9: 49–240) suggest.

48The ordinary Minahasans were poor and burdened by crushing obligations, in particular those linked to the cultivation, preparation and transport of coffee. However, it is dubious whether Dekker could really identify with the population of the Residency, because most of his social life revolved around the European and Eurasian elite of the town of Manado. He read books written by Europeans, and his — at the time presumably rare — more in-depth conversations (personal or in writing) will have been limited to people of Western origins or with a Western education.99

49In those days, the Western world was undergoing a drastic change. The scientific and technical advancements, stimulated by the ideal of progress, were epitomized in the Great Exhibition that was held in London in 1851. Progress, as defined by the contemporary Western intelligentsia, was usually also considered possible and desirable for people living outside their “Western” world, on the condition that Westerners assisted them on that path. A dedication to spreading civilization, the mission civilisatrice, was to be kindled as a major justification for the colonial undertaking in the Dutch East Indies and elsewhere. In the least serious cases, Westerners’ behaviour in this venture was paternalistic; in the worst and most common cases, the establishment and maintenance of colonial rule involved widespread violence.

50Officials professed what they considered the edification (verheffing) of a colonized people a worthy objective that justified the demands imposed on the population, such as taxes and compulsory labour. They might also refer to the Law of 1818 that decreed that, in return for these obligations, it was the colonial government’s duty to protect the native population. Douwes Dekker, and some Dutch officials both before and after him, thought that the government and civil servants did not fulfill this pledge on the ground and should take firmer action to avoid and combat threats of both natural and human origin.

  • 100 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 225.

51The “elevation” of the population usually carried the implication of their acceptance of some Western customs and values. Features that were increasingly defining modern society, as famously analysed by Max Weber, included a so-called rationalization expressed in, for example, bureaucratization. In the nineteenth-century world of the Dutch East Indies, this bureaucratization pervaded the Dutch administrative service, as Dekker knew all too well. After all, he was also involved in endeavours to imbue the native government in Minahasa with a more bureaucratic character. The group particularly targeted was that of the district chiefs, who worked closely with the Dutch administration but also had to remain on good terms with their local population, an “ambivalent position,” as Dekker rightly commented.100

  • 101 De Lange 1897: 674–686; Schouten 1998: 72–73 and passim; N.P. Wilken, letter 30-1-1856, in Archives (...)
  • 102 Examples in Schouten 1998: 79; Lopez 2018: 48–82.

52The administrative reforms planned for 1852, whose motivations and preparation have been discussed in this article, slotted almost seamlessly into these ambitions of rationalization. In order to reduce the arbitrariness and nepotism that prevailed in Minahasa society, the new measures were designed to boost monetarization and produce a more strictly regulated and salaried corps of native chiefs. The actual implementation of these plans, that has not been discussed in this article because it occurred after Douwes Dekker’s time in office, turned out quite differently to what had been envisioned. Failures to carry out the projects and novel types of abuse originating precisely from the new plans, reinforced by epidemiological and climatic catastrophes, made the 1850s a dramatic decade for the Minahasan population.101 Hampered by these obstacles that emerged in the process of reform of the native government, only some elements of reform could be introduced, and of these, some were later revoked by Resident Jansen.102 Changes in Minahasa did not take place in the way as intended by Douwes Dekker, but, as has been extensively discussed in Schouten (1998), and also pointed out by Atsushi Ota in this dossier, transformations did happen in the following decades, often as a result of the initiative and inventiveness of the population, combining novelties with their own customs.

53Abbreviations

54ANRI: Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia)
HUA: Het Utrechts Archief (Archives Council for the Missions)
KITLV: Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies)
VOC: Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East Indies Company)
VW: Volledige Werken (Complete works) of Multatuli (pseudonym of Eduard Douwes Dekker).

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Bibliographie

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Notes

1 Algemeen Verslag van de Residentie Menado over 1849; Algemeen Verslag van de Residentie Menado over 1850, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (ANRI), Archives Residency Manado, inv. 51. Also in G. Stuiveling (ed.) (1956) Multatuli. Volledige Werken, vol 9: 214–226, 226–227. According to this Algemeen Verslag, the previous annual report was the one about 1829 (Pietermaat, c. 1830; Pietermaat et al. 1840). There is however also an Algemeen Verslag about 1833 (in ANRI Manado, inv. 48).

2 Lopez 2018: 63–66, 117–119; Francis 1859.

3 Schouten 1998: 41–42; see also Henley’s article in this dossier.

4 For an overview of economic developments in Minahasa in the nineteenth century, see Schouten 1998: 53–74.

5 Douwes Dekker 1998 (first published 1860); Douwes Dekker 1987. An English-language summary and succinct backgrounds of Max Havelaar can be found in Pieterse 2010. See also Salverda 2011.

6 See Dutch Foundation for Literature, https://www.letterenfonds.nl/en/books/max-havelaar.

7 Underlining in the original document.

8 Douwes Dekker, letter to his brother Pieter, Manado, 15-1-1851, in Volledige Werken, 9: 109. Buitenpost refers to an administrative post beyond Java and Madura.

9 Particularly in Schouten 1987; Schouten 1998: 75–104.

10 Including the Volledige Werken (Complete Works) of Multatuli, edited by Garmt Stuiveling, which from now on will be referred in the footnotes as “VW.”

11 This is in accordance with the approach of, for instance, Stuiveling (1982: 96) and Van der Meulen (2002: 17).

12 Van ’t Veer 1976a: 11.

13 Van Rhijn 1851: 308; Douwes Dekker to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5 1851, in VW 9: 115. Underlining in the original. See also letter by Douwes Dekker, 15-1-1851, to Pieter, in VW 9: 105; Haasbroek 1977: 115.

14 Data disclaims the persistent idea that Brest van Kempen, later Douwes Dekker’s antagonist in Lebak and one of the central characters in the novel Max Havelaar, had had a past as civil servant in Manado. In his Naschrift (“Afterword”) to the text by Watuseke (1973: 352), Frits Jaquet provides the following data, found in the National Archives (NA) of the Netherlands: Verbaal 26 January 1853 no. 1: Indisch Besluit 26 August 1851 no. 1: “Two years’ furlough in the Netherlands granted to R. Scherius, Resident of Menado. C.P. Brest van Kempen appointed as his successor.” Stuiveling (1982: 108) notes that Brest van Kempen was in the Netherlands in June 1852. The brothers De Lange, who carried out geographical research in the Residency of Manado in the period March 1852–March 1853, had personal contact with both R. Scherius and A.L. Andriesse[n], as is evident in the acknowledgments in their report (De Lange 1853: 39).

15 This rapid succession of functionaries was probably an effect of the report submitted in 1853 to the Governor-General by the engineer S.H. de Lange (see De Lange 1897: 667).

16 Graafland 1867: 5.

17 Douwes Dekker to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5 1851, in VW 9: 196. Underlining in the original. The author clarifies his account with a rough drawing. The height of Mount Klabat is actually 1,995 metres.

18 See also note to Tine, October 1850, in VW 9: 101–102.

19 Men is zijn God op bergen meer nabij,” actually the second strophe of a poem that had been conceived some years earlier, on Mount Salak in West Java. The same strophe, with some slight adaptations, is also included in Max Havelaar (Douwes Dekker 1998: 145).

20 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 219.

21 Scherius 1847.

22 Short notes by Douwes Dekker, 14-8-1849; 20-8-1849, in the Memoriaal, VW 9: 82.

23 Korte aanteekeningen c. 1853: I5–I6; Van der Hart 1853: 160–161; Van Rhijn 1851: 301. About the Rijkschroeff family, see Bosma and Raben 2003: 166–167.

24 Memoriaal, 19-8-1849, in VW 9: 84–85.

25 Bleeker 1856: 31; Henley (2005: 167–174) provides a detailed and informative table about the numbers and composition of the population in Minahasa, 1568–1930. As for slavery, this practice was legally abolished in the Dutch East Indies in 1859. Although it had been formally abolished in Minahasa before 1820, in practice some families (in particular Eurasians) could keep slaves, as long as they had been officially registered.

26 See Fasseur 1994; Anderson and Roque 2018; Washbrook 1982.

27 Henley 2005: 170. About the reliability of Minahasa population data in that period, see Henley 2005: 177.

28 On party-throwing among Europeans and Eurasians in East Indonesian coastal towns, see Bosma and Raben 2003: 153, 163; Pos 2015; Van der Hart 1853: 145–152.

29 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 108.

30 After the surname of his wife Tine (Everdine Huberte van Wijnbergen).

31 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 112. Three palen is about 4.5 kilometres.

32 Graafland 1898, 2: 353–354; see also Resink 1979: 488. It is relevant that Graafland wrote these memoires several years later, when Douwes Dekker’s fame had already been established in the Netherlands, not just as a writer but also as a capricious and unashamedly atheist public figure.

33 De Lange 1897: 670.

34 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 110. Underlining in the original. The know-how about the Residency of some secretaries is evident from, for example, the report by Gansneb Tengnagel (1848), who held that function in the mid-1840s.

35 Letter to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5, 1851, in VW 9: 158–159. See also Idee 784, in VW 4: 506, among other passages.

36 Henley 2002: 45; Schouten 1998: 72.

37 Idee 705, in VW 4: 435.

38 Francis 1859: 277.

39 The colonial government had a monopoly from 1822 to 1899. Therefore, the Minahasa regulation lasted much longer than the much-discussed Cultuurstelsel in Java, that was in effect from about 1830 till 1870.

40 Letter to Pieter Douwes Dekker, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 110.

41 Prediger (1804) in Watuseke and Henley 1994: 369; Wenzel (1825) in Godée Molsbergen 1928: 190; Pietermaat et al. 1840.

42 Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83–84; Riedel 1872: 561.

43 Schouten 1998: 48–49; Henley 1996: 34–37.

44 Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83.

45 Men were identified as dapoorman, dapoormensch (both meaning “head of household”) or boedjang (“bachelor”). Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 84.

46 Notes in Dekker’s Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83–84.

47 Memoriaal, 16-8-1849, in VW 9: 83.

48 Schouten 1998: 30–31, 44–45.

49 Wenzel 1825, cited in Riedel 1872: 480–481.

50 This may have been the often-used perintah halus, “gentle hint,” which in reality was a command.

51 Wenzel 1825, cited in Riedel 1872: 480–481.

52 Memoriaal 10-8-1849, 11-8-1849, in VW 9: 80, 82.

53 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 220.

54 Graafland 1898, 1: 89. The visits of whalers provided a distraction and contributed to trade; however, often this was pursued illegally. A crew on shore leave, and defectors, sometimes created problems for secretary Douwes Dekker (Du Perron 1956: 173).

55 Gansneb Tengnagel 1848, in ANRI Manado inv. 168: 8; Ten Siethoff 1845, in ANRI Manado inv. 46: 162; Schouten 1998: 86.

56 Francis c. 1847, in ANRI Manado inv. 166: 122–137.

57 See letters by Opziener J. Wilson (7-4-1832; 1833), in ANRI Manado inv. 106.

58 Schouten 1998: 88.

59 Fragment 1856: 94–97. Scherius also applied sanctions such as downgrading, for example in the case of the chief of Ponosakan. This man was however rehabilitated by a later Resident (Jansen 1853). In the 1820s, Resident Pietermaat suspended chiefs of Tomohon, Remboken, and Kakaskasen for extortion and abuse of power (Pietermaat c. 1830: 36).

60 “Aantekening van Dekker,” 17-7-1851, in VW 9: 213–214. Underlining in the original. Negorij (negeri) means “village.”

61 In 1853, De Lange (1897: 670) portrayed three of the opzieners, “of whom the first can barely write a Dutch letter, the second cannot write at all, and the [third] can scarcely write a Malay letter.”

62 However, this decision by Van Olpen (dated 10-2-1844) met with strong disapproval from his superior, the governor of the Moluccas G. de Serrière (letter dated 6-10-1844 in KITLV, western manuscripts, nº 70), and thus probably had little effect.

63 Gansneb Tengnagel 1848, ANRI Manado, inv. 168: 10–11; Ten Siethoff 1845, in ANRI Manado, inv. 46: 81–83; Grudelbach 1846, in ANRI Manado, inv. 49; Wenzel 1825, cited in Riedel 1872: 526–529.

64 Ten Siethoff 1845, in ANRI Manado inv. 46: 82, 135, 162–163.

65 Idem, p. 83. One gantang is about 3 kg.

66 According to Alfred Russel Wallace (1962: 234), Lodewijk’s father “was generally known as the king of Ternate.”

67 Bosma and Raben 2003: 349.

68 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 225.

69 Ibid.

70 Note in Memoriaal, 13-5-1851, in VW 9: 208. The Dutch-language version of this Publicatie, as it is usually called, earned a place in various journals and books after Dekker had become a famous author. Text in VW 9: 201–205. It appeared for the first time in print (with authorship assigned to “Eduard Douwes Dekker (Multatuli)”) in the Soerabaiasch Handelsblad of 25-10-1878; then in Oost en West of 17-1-1879; and the Nederlandsche Spectator 26-4-1879 (note 141 by Annemarie Kets, in Douwes Dekker 1998: 377). This same version is included in, for example, De Lange 1897; Van Kol 1902.

71 Herrmann n.d.: 244.

72 A perception that has latently persisted, and which Fabian (1983) identified and analysed also among anthropologists in the late twentieth century.

73 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 215–216.

74 Fasseur 1988: 45.

75 Publicatie, in VW 9: 203.

76 On the importance of rice in Minahasa worldview, see Schouten 1998: 21 and passim; Schefold 1995. Of all the foodcrops, rice was most valued and the first to be consumed (Herrmann 1839: 105). See also Henley (2005: 66) about the priority given to the consumption of rice and the postponement of delivery to the government.

77 Publicatie, in VW 9: 203–204.

78 Schouten 1988; Riedel 1872: 56.

79 Schouten 1998: 22–24.

80 “Groot[e] Bestuurde[r] te Batavia,” meaning “the Governor-General.” A similar reference is that of the “High Gentleman in Buitenzorg” (“Groote-Heer te Buitenzorg,”) indicating the palace of this supreme official. This reference occurs in the Assistant-Resident’s speech to the headmen of Lebak (West Java), one of the most famous excerpts from the book Max Havelaar. Various comparisons can be, and in fact have been, made between the two texts, including by Multatuli himself (Douwes Dekker 1998: 377; Van der Meulen 2002: 250).

81 See Schouten 1998: 56; Warren 1981.

82 Draft-letter to the Governor-General, 8-5-1851, in VW 9: 206–208.

83 Draft-letter 30-5-1851 to Governor General, 30-5-1851, in VW 9: 209–211.

84 VW 9: 210. These details (like in the previous note) were recorded by Edgar du Perron during his research in the Landsarchief (State Archives) in Batavia, in 1937 and 1938 (Du Perron 1956, 4: 171–173). Paul van ’t Veer (1979: 452) observed that many of the documents consulted by Du Perron were later untraceable in the Indonesian Arsip Nasional. See also Van der Meulen 2002: 245.

85 In missive Scherius to the Governor-General, 6-8-1851, in VW 9: 229.

86 Van der Meulen 2002: 283; Attachment to letter by Douwes Dekker to Secretary General of Colonial Affairs, 3-12-1853, in VW 9: 336–337.

87 VW 9: 271–273; Praamstra 1993; Buijze 1997.

88 Van der Meulen 2002: 350–352; Praamstra 1993.

89 Schouten 1998: 53–54.

90 Schouten 1998: 53; Douwes Dekker 1998: 69.

91 Letter to Pieter Douwes Dekker, Amsterdam 15-10-1853, in Kortenhorst 1975: 613. Jan was Douwes Dekker’s second brother. Semarang is a city in Central Java.

92 Van der Meulen 2002: 264–266; VW 9: 273–282; Schulte Nordholt 1987: 155.

93 As established in the Regeringsreglement (Government Regulation) of 1818.

94 The fourth edition (1873) – with notes – of this work, first published in 1862, is in VW 2: 183–298.

95 Van ‘t Veer 1976a, 1979; Van der Meulen 2002; Saks 1937; Du Perron 1956.

96 In Max Havelaar references to his stay in Manado are plenty (Douwes Dekker 1998: 73, 76, 77, 134, and so on, as well as in later added notes), but always in a superficial way.

97 Letter to Kruseman, 24-2/6-5 1851, in VW 9: 147. See also letter to Tine, 28-9-1859, in VW 10: 60–63.

98 Letter to Pieter, 15-1-1851, in VW 9: 111; Van ‘t Veer 1976b.

99 As his notes and letters (in VW 9: 49–240) suggest.

100 General Report for 1849, in VW 9: 225.

101 De Lange 1897: 674–686; Schouten 1998: 72–73 and passim; N.P. Wilken, letter 30-1-1856, in Archives Council for the Missions (presently: Het Utrechts Archief), inv. 34.6; Henley 2005: 279–280, 317–319.

102 Examples in Schouten 1998: 79; Lopez 2018: 48–82.

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Maria J.C. Schouten, « Minahasa around 1850: Plans for reform during Eduard Douwes Dekker’s term as secretary of the Residency of Manado »Archipel, 109 | 2025, 63-86.

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Maria J.C. Schouten, « Minahasa around 1850: Plans for reform during Eduard Douwes Dekker’s term as secretary of the Residency of Manado »Archipel [En ligne], 109 | 2025, mis en ligne le 25 mai 2025, consulté le 16 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/7451 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/144x6

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Maria J.C. Schouten

University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal

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