Batavia
Batavia, currently known as Jakarta, was once the capital city of the Dutch East Indies and was named after the Batavii, prehistoric inhabitants of the Netherlands. In 1610 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a trading post in the small port of Jayakarta in northern West Java. The site became the VOC's Asian headquarters in 1619. The settlement quickly overwhelmed Jayakarta, becoming a small Dutch city, complete with canals, walls, and gabled houses, but largely populated by Chinese traders and laborers, who lived within the city under their own laws. In 1740, Dutch fears of a rebellion allegedly planned by Chinese led to the massacre of some of the Chinese residents and the temporary expulsion of the rest.
During the eighteenth century, the city sprawled beyond its walls, and its architecture became more adapted to the tropics. Indonesians, both slave and free, made up an increasing proportion of the population and formed the basis for an evolving mestizo culture. The city retained, however, a reputation as dangerously unhealthy, and there was a high death rate among all population groups.
Batavia's economic role increased with the completion of a modern port at Tanjung Priok in 1886, but it lost some administrative importance in the twentieth century with the movement of government offices to Buitenzorg (Bogor) and Bandung. The city became a municipality in 1903. It was renamed Jakarta by the Japanese occupation forces in 1943.
Further Reading
Abeyasekere, Susan. (1984) Jakarta: A History. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, Jean Gelman. (1983) The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
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