The Chinese Annals of Batavia, the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji and Other Stories (1610-1795)

340 Pages·2018·5.24 MB·English

by  Leonard Blussé

The Chinese Annals of Batavia, the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji and Other Stories
(1610–1795)
European Expansion and
Indigenous Response
Editor-in-Chief
George Bryan Souza (University of Texas, San Antonio)
Editorial Board
Cátia Antunes (Leiden University)
João Paulo Oliveira e Costa (cham, Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Frank Dutra (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Kris Lane (Tulane University)
Pedro Machado (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Malyn Newitt (King’s College, London)
Michael Pearson (University of New South Wales)
volume 28
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/euro
The Chinese Annals of Batavia,
the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji and
Other Stories (1610–1795)
Translated, edited, and annotated by
Leonard Blussé
Nie Dening
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Silver copy of the golden medallion offered to Governor General Jacques Specx by the
grateful Chinese community in 1632. Haarlem, Teylers Museum. Inv. TMNK 00460.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Blusse, Leonard, 1946– editor. | Dening, Nie, editor.
Title: The Chinese Annals of Batavia, the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji and Other
 Stories (1610–1795) / translated, edited, and annotated by Leonard Blusse,
 Nie Dening.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2018. | Series: European expansion and
 indigenous response ; Volume 28 | Includes bibliographical references. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017052798 (print) | LCCN 2018000035 (ebook) | ISBN
 9789004356702 (E-books) | ISBN 9789004355392 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Jakarta (Indonesia)—History—18th century—Sources. |
 Chinese—Indonesia—Jakarta—History—18th century. |
 Massacres—Indonesia—Jakarta—History—18th century.
Classification: LCC DS646.29.D5 (ebook) | LCC DS646.29.D5 C47 2018 (print) |
 DDC 959.8/22004951—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052798
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface
ISSN 1873-8974
isbn 978-90-04-35539-2 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-35670-2 (e-book)
Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing.
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Contents
General Series Editor’s Foreword vii
Preface x
Acknowledgements xiii
List of Illustrations xvii
Part 1
Introductory Material
1 A Historical Sketch of Batavia in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries 3
2 A Chinese Urban Society in the Tropics 15
3 Chinese Sources for the History of the Chinese Community in
Batavia 25
4 Critical Comments on the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji and Its Genesis 30
5 A Diachronic Overview of the Contents of the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji 37
6 Editorial Notes on the Sources of the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji 42
Part 2
The Chinese Annals of Batavia
A Chinese Chronicle of the Historical Events at Yaolaoba (Galaba) 51
Part 3
Accompanying Texts
1 Brief Account of Galaba (噶喇吧紀略), by Cheng Xunwo (程遜我) 205
2 Selections from the Biography of Cai Xin (蔡新傳) and from Historical
Materials in the First Historical Archive of China Concerning the Debates
about Banning the Overseas Trade to the Nanyang during the Qianlong
Period 219
vi CONTENTS
3 Selections from The Chinaman Abroad: An Account of the Malayan
Archipelago, Particularly of Java, by Ong-Tae-Hae (王大海, Wang Dahai),
translated by W.H. Medhurst 229
4 Jialaba (甲喇吧, Galaba), by Gu Sen (顧森) 238
Appendices
Appendix 1: The Appointment of Captain Tsoa Wanjock 243
Appendix 2: Name Lists 246
1 Governors General 246
2 Chinese Kapiteins (Captains) 249
3 Chinese Luitenanten (Lieutenants) 251
4 Chinese Boedelmeesters (Curators) 256
5 Chinese Secretaries 279
6 Chinese Soldaten (Soldiers) 281
7 Chinese Undertakers 281
8 Non-Chinese Names 283
Appendix 3: Glossary of Malay and Dutch Terms in Kai Ba Lidai
Shiji 290
Bibliography 293
Index of Personal and Geographical Names 300
Subject Index 316
General Series Editor’s Foreword
Over the past half millennium, from circa 1450 until the last third or so of
the twentieth century, much of the world’s history has been influenced in
great part by one general dynamic and complex historical process known as
European expansion. Defined as the opening up, unfolding, or increasing the
extent, number, volume, or scope of the space, size, or participants belonging
to a certain people or group, location, or geographical region, Europe’s expan-
sion initially emerged and emanated physically, intellectually, and politically
from southern Europe—specifically from the Iberian peninsula—during the
fifteenth century, expanding rapidly from that locus to include, first, all of
Europe’s maritime and, later, most of its continental states and peoples. Most
commonly associated with events described as the discovery of America and
of a passage to the East Indies (Asia) by rounding the Cape of Good Hope
(Africa) during the early modern and modern periods, European expansion
and encounters with the rest of the world multiplied and morphed into several
ancillary historical processes, including colonization, imperialism, capitalism,
and globalization, encompassing themes, among others, relating to contacts
and, to quote the EURO series’ original mission statement, “connections and
exchanges; peoples, ideas and products, especially through the medium of
trading companies; the exchange of religions and traditions; the transfer of
technologies; and the development of new forms of political, social and eco-
nomic policy, as well as identity formation.” Because of its intrinsic importance,
extensive research has been performed and much has been written about the
entire period of European expansion.
With the first volume published in 2009, Brill launched the European
Expansion and Indigenous Response book series at the initiative of well-known
scholar and respected historian, Glenn J. Ames, who, prior to his untimely
passing, was the founding editor and guided the first seven volumes of the
series to publication. George Bryan Souza, who was one of the early members
of the series’ editorial board, was appointed the series’ second General Editor.
The series’ founding objectives are to focus on publications “that understand
and deal with the process of European expansion, interchange and connectiv-
ity in a global context in the early modern and modern period” and to “pro-
vide a forum for a variety of types of scholarly work with a wider disciplinary
approach that moves beyond the traditional isolated and nation bound histo-
riographical emphases of this field, encouraging whenever possible non-Euro-
pean perspectives … that seek to understand this indigenous transformative
viii GENERAL SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD
process and period in autonomous as well as inter-related cultural, economic,
social, and ideological terms.”
The history of European expansion is a challenging field in which inter-
est is likely to grow, in spite of, or perhaps because of, its polemical nature.
Controversy has centered on tropes conceived and written in the past by
Europeans, primarily concerning their early reflections and claims regarding
the transcendental historical nature of this process and its emergence and
importance in the creation of an early modern global economy and society.
One of the most persistent objections is that the field has been “Eurocentric.”
This complaint arises because of the difficulty in introducing and balancing
different historical perspectives, when one of the actors in the process is to
some degree neither European nor Europeanized—a conundrum alluded to
in the African proverb: “Until the lion tells his tale, the hunt will always glorify
the hunter.” Another, and perhaps even more important and growing historio-
graphical issue, is that with the re-emergence of historical millennial societ-
ies (China and India, for example) and the emergence of other non-Western
European societies successfully competing politically, economically, and intel-
lectually on the global scene vis-à-vis Europe, the seminal nature of European
expansion is being subjected to greater scrutiny, debate, and comparison with
other historical alternatives.
Despite, or perhaps because of, these new directions and stimulating
sources of existing and emerging lines of dispute regarding the history of
European expansion, the editorial board of the series will continue with the
original objectives and mission statement of the series and vigorously “… seek
out studies that employ diverse forms of analysis from all scholarly disciplines,
including anthropology, archaeology, art history, history (including the history
of science), linguistics, literature, music, philosophy, and religious studies.” In
addition, we shall seek to stimulate, locate, incorporate, and publish the most
important and exciting scholarship in the field.
Towards that purpose, I am pleased to introduce volume 28 of Brill’s EURO
series, entitled: The Chinese Annals of Batavia, the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji and
Other Stories (1610–1795). In it, two well-known scholars, Leonard Blussé and
Nie Dening, have selected several key manuscripts written in Chinese and
impressively translated into English and eruditely annotated them to provide
an excellent general overview of the history of the city of Batavia, as Jakarta,
on the island of Java in the Indonesian Archipelago, was known during the
Dutch period, i.e. from the early 17th to mid-20th centuries. Written by Chinese
inhabitants of a Dutch-ruled city in a Malay world toward the end of the eigh-
teenth century, they offer a truly indigenous perspective and insight into the
GENERAL SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD ix
history of European expansion from one group of several indigenous peoples
who encountered and lived alongside the Dutch over the period.
Blussé and Nie have produced an exemplary volume. In their translation
of the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji, which is the main text that is presented, they faced
significant challenges as translators on account of the various extant versions
of it. They deftly engaged, combined, and intertwined each into singular ver-
sion that provides a fluid, coherent, and enjoyable reading experience. Their
handling of the dialectical variances in Chinese and the orthographical chal-
lenges in corresponding Dutch text of the numerous toponyms, demonyms,
and personal names that are found in the original manuscripts is a major and
an important achievement. The Chinese Annals of Batavia, the Kai Ba Lidai
Shiji and Other Stories (1610–1795), as a consequence, will be an important addi-
tion to multiple audiences in diverse disciplines. In addition to being a major
contribution to the field of European Expansion and Indigenous Response,
Sinologists, experts in Southeast Asia and historians in multiple subfields,
including global history, urban history, and intercultural history to name only
a few will want to read and engage this work.
George Bryan Souza
Preface
This study contains the annotated translation of a curious autonomous history
of the Chinese community of Batavia in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies. The Kai Ba Lidai Shiji or Chinese Annals of Batavia was composed by an
anonymous Chinese inhabitant of the town in the late 1790s. During the nine-
teenth century various manuscript versions of the same text circulated among
the Batavian Chinese elite before it was published, first in a local journal in the
1920s and then in a well-edited and annotated Chinese version by Xu Yunqiao
in a 1953 issue of the 南洋學報 (Journal of the South Seas Society).1
In the six introductory chapters of Section A, we aim to provide today’s
reader with contextual information about this unique historical narrative,
which was originally addressed to a Chinese reading public more than two
hundred years ago. Chapter one contains a brief introduction to the history
of ‘Chinese Batavia’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Chapter two
presents a sketch of the urban administration of this colonial city. In chap-
ter three, we introduce pioneering scholars to whom we feel obliged for their
ground-breaking research on the Chinese texts that we have translated and
annotated here. Chapters four and five introduce the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji itself.
The sixth chapter consists of editorial notes on the sources and the different
manuscript versions that we have used for our translation.
Section B contains the complete annotated translation—the first into
English—of The Chinese Annals of Batavia.2 The title of the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji
(開吧歷代史紀) literally means ‘The opening up [or development (開拓, kai-
tuo)] of the kingdom of Galaba through successive generations’. But for the
sake of convenience, we have called it simply The Chinese Annals of Batavia.3
1  Hsu Yun-Tsiao (Xu Yunqiao), ed., ‘開吧歷代史紀, The Early Accounts of Chinese in Batavia
(a revised and annotated edition)’ Nanyang Xuebao 南洋學報 [Journal of the South Seas
Society] 9:1 (1953): 1–63.
2  The existing manuscript versions on which we have based our translation have slightly dif-
ferent titles: Kai Ba Lidai Shiji (開吧歷代史紀), or Kai Yaolaoba Lidaishi Quanlu (開咬咾吧
歷代史全錄).
3  The character Ba in the title of the manuscript is not originally an abbreviation of Batavia, but
it refers to the Malay word kelapa (coconut) which gave its name to the former kingdom of
Sunda Kelapa (in Chinese, 噶喇吧, Galaba or Gelaba). Nonetheless, after the Dutch takeover
in 1619, Bacheng (吧城) came to stand for the city of Batavia. Curiously the Chinese name of
Yecheng (椰城, coconut town) is still used to denote Indonesia’s capital Jakarta. According to
Koos Kuiper, in the name 噶喇吧 the character 噶 ge should be read as ga, i.e. Galaba. In his
monograph about the Dutch interpreters of Chinese in the Indies he notes concerning their