Hostname: page-component-6dbcb7884d-fw45b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-14T08:53:37.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Rivalry and Early Dutch Reformed Missions in Seventeenth-Century North-Sulawesi (Celebes)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Hendrik E. Niemeijer
Hendrik E. Niemeijer*
Affiliation:
University of Leiden
Get access

Extract

The northernmost region of North Sulawesi, Minahasa, is one of the most Christian provinces of Eastern Indonesia. About ninety per cent of its total population of approximately one million is Protestant. The upland province capital of Tomohon and the city of Manado – the capital of North Sulawesi – are important centres for Christian education. On Sundays, the sound of bells of the white cathedral-style churches can be heard in almost every Minahasan town. Travellers who venture out to the beach villages on the Sangihe-Talaud islands north of Manado experience the same Protestant features of this part of the eastern archipelago.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 13: Missions and Missionaries , 2000 , pp. 32 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2000 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Coolsma, S., De Zendingseeuw voor Nederlandsch Oost-Indië (Utrecht, 1901), pp. 562–92Google Scholar. Gunning, J. W., ‘Uit en over de Minahasa II; De protestantsche zending in de Minahasa’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (1924), 80, pp. 451–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Reid, , ‘Islamization and Christianization in Southeast Asia: The Critical Phase, 1550-1650’, in Reid, A. (ed.), Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era. Trade, Power, and Belief (Ithaca and London, 1993), pp. 151–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 During the years 1521-34, Spaniards from Manila had also settled on Tidore, but were forced to give up their claims under papal restrictions.

4 Stapel, , Pieter van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, II, 1 (The Hague, 1931), pp. 31–2.Google Scholar

5 Algemeen Rijksarchief Den Haag (ARA), VOC 1225, fos 374-84, Letter of the Political Council of Ternate to Batavia, 1 Nov. 1657.

6 Ibid.

7 ARA, VOC 1271, fol. 593r; Memorie van Overgave Governor Maximilian de Jongh, 14 May 1669.

8 Henley, D., ‘A Superabundance of Centers: Ternate and the Contest for North Sulawesi, Cakalele, 4 (1993), pp. 39–60Google Scholar. Leupe, P. A., ‘Het journaal van Padtbrugge’s reis naar Noord-Celebes en de Noordereilanden’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 2 (1867), pp. 105–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 ARA, VOC 1286, fos 705r-722r; letter from the Ternaten PC to Batavia, 20 May 1671; ARA, VOC 1301, fos 378r-382r; letter from Jochum Sipman in Manado to the Ternaten PC, 10 Aug. 1673.

10 Leupe, ‘Het journaal van Padtbrugge’s reis’, pp. 126–7.

11 Aa, R. van der, ‘De vermeestering van Siauw door de Oost-Indische Compagnie’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 2 (1867), pp. 95–104.Google Scholar

12 ARA, VOC 1294, fos 169r-181r, visitation report from the Revd Jacobus Montanus, 9 June to 30 September 1673.

13 Arsip National Republik Indonesia (The National Archives of Indonesia; ANRI), Ternate 67, Memorie van Overgave Governor Robertus Padtbrugge, 31 Aug. 1682.

14 Henley, D., Nationalism and Regionalism in a Colonial Context. Minahasa in the Dutch East Indies (Leiden, 1996), p. 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 ANRl, Ternate, 80, Memorie van Overgave Goverrnor Jacob Claasz, 14 July 1710.

16 Wigboldus, J. S., ‘A History of the Minahasa C.1615-1680’, Archipel, 34 (1987), pp. 63–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Jacobs, H. S.J., , Documenta Malucensia, III, 1606-1682 (Rome, 1984), pp. 17–19.Google Scholar

18 Wessels, C., De katholieke missie in de Molukken, Noord-Celebes en de Sangir-eilanden gedurende de Spaansche bestuursperiode 1606-1677 (Tilburg, 1935).Google Scholar

19 Jacobs, Documenta Malucensia.

20 Jacobs, H. S.J., , ‘The Insular Kingdom of Siau Under Portuguese and Spanish Impact, 16th and 17th Centuries’, in Dahm, B., Regions and Regional Developments in the Malay-Indonesian World (Wiesbaden, 1992), pp. 33–43.Google Scholar

21 Jacobs, Documenta, III, p. 646.

22 ARA, VOC 1294, fos 169r-181r; Church report by Montanus, Oct. 1673.

23 For Catholic missions on Sangihe, see S. Stokman, ‘De Missies der minderbroeders op de Molukken, Celebes en Sangihe in de XVIe en XVIIe eeuw’, Collectanea Franciscana Neerlandica, II, pp. 499–556, especially pp. 543–9. Raja Garuda requested Spanish protection and Christianity in 1677; see Jacobs, Documenta, III, p. 723.

24 Fr Valentyn, Oud- en Nieuw-Oostindien (Dordrecht, 1724-6), I, p. 272.

25 After the pacification of the Ambon region in 1656, clove production was entirely concentrated in the Christian Ambonese districts. See Knaap, G.J., Kruidnagelen en Christenen. De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie en de bevolking van Ambon 1656-1696 (Leiden, 1987).Google Scholar

26 ARA, VOC 1271, fol. 606, letter from the Political Council of Ternate to Batavia, 24 Aug. 1699.

27 ARA, VOC 1286, fos 705r-722r, letter from Governor Abraham Verspreet to the cassier Hendrick van den Broeck in Manado, 7 March 1671.

28 ARA, VOC 1294, fos 169r-1815, Church report by the Revd Jacobus Montanus, Oct. 1673.

29 Molsbergen, E. C. Godée, Geschiedenis van de Minahassa tot 1829 (Weltevreden and Batavia, 1928), pp. 47–9 for fragments of this report.Google Scholar

30 On the nearby islands of Makian and Bacan, three more simple wooden Reformed churches were found near the Dutch strongholds. Reports on the small Protestant community of Bacan-Labuha (a former Portuguese settlement) near the VOC fortress of Barneveld were usually negative.

31 ARA, VOC 1240, fol. 799, Memorie van Overgave Governor Simon Cos, 23 May 1662.

32 Ibid., fol. 801.

33 Ibid., fol. 823. His wife had also died on Ternate.

34 ARA, VOC 1271, fol. 593r, Memorie van Overgave Governor Maximiliaan de Jongh, 14 May 1669.

35 M. H. Schippers, ‘De Christelijke gemeente te Ternate en hare predikanten; Eene bijdrage tot de kennis der geschiedenis van de Indische Kerk’, Mededeelingen vanwege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, 41, pp. 163–301.

36 Leupe, ‘Het journaal van Padtbrugge’s reis’.

37 ARA, VOC 1366A, fos 640-58.

38 Several reports are preserved: the Revd Huisman 1674; the Revd Dionysius 1675; the Revd Montanus 1675; the Revd Peregrinus 1676; the Revd Caheing 1677; the Revd Van der Sluys 1681; the Revd De Leeuw, 1681, 1684 and 1685; the Revd Stampioen 1696. Two such reports were published in the early eighteenth century in the great encyclopedic work on Asia by the Revd François Valentyn: the Revd Jacobus Montanus’ report 17 Nov. 1675 and the Revd Gualterus Peregrinus’ report, 15 Aug. 1676, in Valentyn, Oud- en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, I, part 2, pp. 392–406. Another report from 1684 from the Revd Cornelius de Leeuw was discovered by E. C. Godée Molsbergen; see Geschiedenis, pp. 47–9. More original documents can still be discovered in VOC archives; on recent archival discoveries see Niemeijer, H. E. et al, ‘Nieuwe bronnen tot de geschiedenis van het Christendom in Maluku (1605-1935); Vondsten, thema’s en oriëntaties, in Documentalieblad voor de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Zending en Overzeese Kerken (DZOK), 4-2, pp. 52–90.Google Scholar

39 ANRI, Ternate, 62, Alfabet PO, fol. 512.

40 ANRI, Ternate, 144, fos 220-2, letter from the Revd Cornelius de Leeuw to the Consistory of Batavia, Manado, 30 July 1685.

41 ARA, VOC 1579, fos 478-511, visitation report, the Revd Joannes Stampioen, 18 Sept. 1696.