2004
Volume 57 Number 2025
  • ISSN: 2589-4617
  • E-ISSN: 2667-2081

Samenvatting

Abstract:

This article examines the orphanage in Batavia during the eighteenth century as an instrument of colonial and social control. Using archival sources from the diaconate and VOC, it argues that the orphanage systematically separated children of European Christian men and non-Christian local women from their mothers and raised them within a strict Dutch Reformed regime. The institution served to ensure the preservation of a European Protestant community by preventing religious apostasy and by providing Dutch Reformed marriage partners for European men to combat widespread concubinage. A key finding is the gradual shift during the eighteenth century from concerns about European heritage and religion to increasingly racialized concerns for ‘European blood’. The orphanage thus became a key site where racial and religious hierarchies were reproduced through child separation, discipline and marriage policy. Colonial rule was based on the concept of European and Dutch Reformed superiority, by which these children had to be separated from the rest of the population.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/DAE2025.006.MEER
2025-09-01
2025-12-05
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Balk, Louisa, Fransvan Dijk en Diederick J.Kortlang, The Archives of the Dutch East India Company(VOC) and the Local Institutions in Batavia (Jakarta) (Leiden2007).
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bethencourt, Francisco, Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century (Princeton2014).
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Chijs, J.A. van der ed., Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek (NIP), delen 6 en 8 (Batavia1889 en 1891).
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Derksen, Maaike, ‘Embodied Encounters. Colonial Governmentality and Missionary Practices in Java and South Dutch New Guinea, 1856-1942’ (doctoraatsproefschrift, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 2021).
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Derksen, Maaike, ‘“On their Javanese Sprout we Need to Graft the European Civilization.” Fashioning Local Intermediaries in the Dutch Catholic Mission, 1900-1942’, Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies19 (2016) 29-55.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Emmer, Piet, en JosGommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld. De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee 1600-1800 (Amsterdam2012).
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Goor, Jur van, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, 1587-1629. Koopman-koning in Azië (Amsterdam2015).
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Kamphuis, Kirsten, ‘An Alternative Family. An Elite Christian Girls’ School on Java in a Context of Social Change, c. 1907-1939’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review135:3-4 (2020) 133-57.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Ketelaars, Michel, Compagniesdochters. Vrouwen en de VOC (Amsterdam2014).
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Mak, Geertje, ‘Children on the Fault Lines. A Historical-Anthropological Reconstruction of the Background of Children Purchased by Dutch Missionaries between 1863 and 1898 in Dutch New Guinea’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review135:3-4 (2020) 29-55.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Mak, Geertje, Huishouden in Nieuw-Guinea. Zending en het kolonialisme van goede bedoelingen (Zutphen2024).
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Mak, Geertje, MaritMonteiro en ElisabethWesseling, ‘Child Separation. (Post) Colonial Policies and Practices in the Netherlands and Belgium’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review135:3-4 (2020) 4-28.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Meer, Alexander van der, PhilipPost en AliciaSchrikker, ‘Burgerschap in het revolutionaire tijdperk? Een brede blik op een roerige periode in de Indonesische archipel’, in: KarwanFatah-Black en LaurenLauret eds., Koloniaal burgerschap: Geschiedenis en Erfenis (Amsterdam2024) 65–86.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Niemeijer, Hendrik E., Batavia: een koloniale samenleving in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam2005).
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Niemeijer, Hendrik E., Calvinisme en koloniale stadscultuur: Batavia 1619-1725 (Almelo1996).
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Niemeijer, Hendrik E., ‘Disciplinary Institutions in an Asian Environment’, in: Charles H.Parker en GretchenStarr-LeBeau eds., Judging Faith, Punishing Sin. Inquisitions and Consistories in the Early Modern World (Cambridge2017) 279-91.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Osterhammel, Jürgen, Unfabling the East. The Enlightenment’s Encounter with Asia (Princeton2018).
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Raben, Remco, ‘Batavia and Colombo. The Ethnic and Spatial Order of Two Colonial Cities 1600-1800’ (doctoraatsproefschrift Universiteit Leiden1996).
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Reichgelt, Marleen, ‘Revisioning Colonial Childhoods. A Photographic History of Papuan Children in Missionary Networks, 1890-1930’ (doctoraatproefschrift, Radboud Universiteit Nijmen, 2023).
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Schnitzeler, Josje, ‘Financial Care for the Vulnerable. Rise and Decline of Holland Orphan Chambers’ (doctoraatsproefschrift, Universiteit Utrecht, 2022).
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Sens, Angelie, Mensaap, heiden, slaaf. Nederlandse visies op de wereld rond 1800 (Den Haag2001).
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Stoler, Ann, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley2010).
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Stoler, Ann, ‘Making Empire Respectable. The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in 20th-Century Colonial Cultures’, American Ethnologist16:4 (1989) 634-60.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Taylor, Jean Gelman, The Social World of Batavia. Europeans and Eurasians in Colonial Indonesia (Madison2009).
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Wamelen, Carla van, Family life onder de VOC. Een handelscompagnie in huwelijks- en gezinszaken (Hilversum2014).
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.5117/DAE2025.006.MEER
Loading
/content/journals/10.5117/DAE2025.006.MEER
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Dit is een verplicht veld
Graag een geldig e-mailadres invoeren
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error