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The Governor a Missionary? Dutch Colonial Rule and Christianization during Idenburg’s Term of Office as Governor of Indonesiaw (1909-16)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Pieter N. Holtrop
Pieter N. Holtrop*
Affiliation:
Kampen Theological University
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Extract

As a reslut of forced Christianization, the motherland threatens to alienate the indigenous population of our colonies from herself.’ With this slogan a combination of left-wing political parties entered the elections for the Dutch Parliament in June 1913. This combination won the elections and in the end it was the liberal Cort van der Linden who was commissioned to form a government. The then governor-general of what was called the Dutch East Indies, the Christian statesman A. W. F. Idenburg (1861-1935), consequently considered relinquishing his post, now that a government would be formed of a political colour different from his own. On the advice of the leader of his party, the Dutch politician, journalist, and church leader Abraham Kuyper, however, he decided that his decision to stay or to resign would depend on the possibilities of co-operation with the new minister of colonial affairs. But he had no illusions about the opinion of the European press in Indonesia. ‘Against me,’ he wrote in a letter to the outgoing minister of colonial affairs, J. H. de Waal Malefijt (1852-1931), a fellow party member, ‘a devilish howling has burst out in some of the papers. They all agree that I must go.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 13: Missions and Missionaries , 2000 , pp. 142 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2000 

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References

1 In Parlement en Kiezer, 1913-1914 (The Hague, 1913), p. 49.

2 In writing this paper I have made use of the rich family archives of A. W. F. Idenburg, which are kept in Het Historisch Documentatiecentrum voor het Nederlands Protestantisme (1800-heden) of the Free University of Amsterdam. I would like to thank Prof. Dr J. de Bruijn for the permission to consult these archives. I also used Middelberg-Idenburg, C. J., A. W. F. Idenburg (The Hague, 1935)Google Scholar; Rutgers, F. L., ‘Idenburg en de Sarekat Islam in 1913’, thesis, Free University of Amsterdam (1939)Google Scholar; Brouwer, B.J., De houding van Idenburg en Colijn tegenover de Indonesische Beweging (Kampen, 1958)Google Scholar; Bruijn, J. de and Puchinger, G., eds, Briefwisseling Kuyper-Idenburg (Franeker, 1985)Google Scholar [hereafter Correspondence], I intend to publish a more elaborate study on ‘Missions and the Government in the Dutch East Indies’.

3 7 July 1913, in Correspondence, p. 377, n.2.

4 21 June 1913, quoted in Correspondence, p. 386, n.2.

5 Cf. Brouwer, De houding van Idenburg, pp. 2–4; Fasseur, C., Wilhelmina. Dejonge koningin (Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 456–9.Google Scholar

6 Such as Elout van Soeterwoude, Groen van Prinsterer, and Keuchenius.

7 Kuyper, A., Ons Program (Hilversum and Pretoria, 1907), p. 5.Google Scholar

8 Ons Programme, p. 338 (par. 258).

9 Idenburg, A. W. F., ‘Ons beginsel voor koloniale politiek’, in Schrift en Historie. Gedenkboek bij het vijftig-jarig bestaan der georganiseerde antirevolutionaire partij 1878-1928 (Kampen, 1928), pp. 203–22.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., p. 216.

11 Handelingen Tweede Kamer (1902-3), p. 106.

12 Fasseur, Wilhelmina, p. 460.

13 Idenburg to De Waal Malefijt, 9 November 1910. Cf. Correspondence, pp. 216–19.

14 Cf. Correspondence, pp. 267–74.

15 Handelingen Tweede Kamer, 25 November 1912.

16 In a letter to De Waal Malefijt, 29 March 1912.

17 See the discussion on this issue in Rutgers, Idenburg en de Sarekat Islam in 1913.

18 Idenburg pointed at the similarity in his letter to Kuyper, 1 June 1913. Cf.Speary, Percival, India. A Modem History (Michigan, 1961), pp. 318f.Google Scholar

19 To De Waal Malefijt, 19 March 1913.

20 Text in Rutgers, Sarekat Islam, p. 41.

21 Autobiografie (ms. in Idenburg family archives), pp. 51c-52a, also quoted in Correspondence, pp. 52f.

22 9 May 1915.

23 4 July 1913.

24 ‘Obliged to all sorts of forced labour and taxes.’

25 Jongeling, M. C., Het zendingsconsulaat in Nederlands-Indië 1906-1942 (Arnhem, 1966), p. 292.Google Scholar