5. 2. The Period of the V. O. C. and the Netherlands East Indies (1661-1945)
Not all four sub-ethnic groups in Malesung were open to trade with the V. O. C. The Tondano, then regarded as trade partners with Spain, refused to sell their rice to the V. O. C., threatening the strategic plan of making this region the rice-basket of the Moluccas.1 Simon Cos took the repressive route, causing the situation that led to the first Tondano War in 1661, which ended with the burning of the Tondano’s settlements on the lake.2
In the meanwhile, the kingdom of Manado was undergoing a political shift. It was taken over by the king of Bolaang, who then took up the title “king of Manado.” In the year 1670, however, the people of Manado disavowed the king, and it became walak Manado, which reportedly in 1674 had one church, one school with 25 students, two teachers and about 600 inhabitants, among which 499 were Christians.3
Protestant pastors visited some villages in Minahasa and on the island to the North, starting in 1663.4 A minister called Zacharias Kahaeng came to Manado in 1677 to serve the V. O. C. workers in and around the fortress, including the borgo (multi-ethnic descendants, usually of European and local origin).5 In 1679, the chiefs of the walaks signed a treaty with the V. O. C. Wenas asserts that from that year up to 1819 (140 years), there was no evangelization done by the V. O. C.6 It must come as a surprise then that in 1783 the Toudano leaders (from its three walaks: Tondano, Remboken, Kakas) wrote a petition to the V. O. C., asking to be baptized.7 This request was granted, and a pastor by the name of Adams was assigned to lead the Toudano in faith. A year later he was dismissed. It might be because he criticized the way Company officers treated the Tondano.8
Following the liquidation of the V. O. C. in 1799, the Dutch government assumed responsibility over Minahasa. The unstable situation in Europe, as the result of Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), also pervaded into the so-called Netherlands East Indies. The war came to Minahasa, leaving a place called Minawanua. For about seven years, Britain held its position in Minahasa, then complied with the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, in which one of its rulings was for Britain to return territories to the Netherlands.
Following this British interregnum, there were two crucial developments in Minahasa: One is the colonial cultuurstelsel (compulsory coffee cultivation, or tanam paksa) and the other was the mission work by the Netherlands Missionary Organization (NZG).9
Coffee had been cultivated in Minahasa since 1796, but from1822 until 1899 (longer than any other regions in present-day Indonesia), the Minahasans were forced to plant and transport coffee and other products such as cacao.10 According to Schouten, the chiefs were bought into this system, in which they became more and more dependent on the colonial rulers for their living and accumulation of wealth, as they attempted to gain a good deal of the profit over the suffering people they were supposed to protect.11
In 1817 and 1819, Joseph Kam, a missionary sent by the NZG to the East Indies, came to visit Minahasa. With his effort, two missionaries came to attend to the needs of two established congregations, but they died soon after their arrival, unable to make much progress.12 This situation was compensated by G. J. Hellendorn, who arrived in Manado in 1828, and established schools. A year before his arrival, Minahasan chiefs signed a contract with the Dutch to form hulptroepen, Minahasan personnel to fight along with the Dutch (This group was known as Tulungan “help” and also serdadu Manado “Manado soldier”).13
In 1830, upon Hellendorn’s request, two missionaries were sent by the NZG to reach out into the highlands, J. F. Riedel and J. A. Schwarz. After learning native languages, they took their post in Tondano and Langowan respectively. There were a small number of Christians in the highlands of Minahasa when they started their work in 1831, and about 50 years later, about 80 percent of the Minahasans in the highlands had become Christians.14 In 1851, the Governor General of the East Indies in Batavia (Jakarta) declared that Catholic church workers were allowed to enter Minahasa again.15
The characteristics of Minahasan Christianity were influenced by change that had been taking place in Europe. The wars that were invested in political and religious interests, and now with their tragic consequences, led some people to reconsider the nature of the relationship between the state and religious institutions, as well as the nature of Christianity. In the heartland of the Reformation movement, Germany, P. J. Spener advocated the practical aspects of what it meant to be a Christian, not just theories (in the mind). Christian life must show fruits, so to say, in daily life; and in order to bear fruits, the seed must first be buried in the ground, meaning a true repentance.16 Labeled as “Pietism,” (from “piety” or in Bahasa, “kesalehan”), also referred to as “the religion of the heart,” this movement emphasized bringing Christian philosophy (ratio sapientia)17 and idealism back into public life. The missionaries that came to Minahasa shared the tradition of his Christian thought and practices.18
On the other hand, an ideological-philosophy that distanced itself from religious institutions had begun. It is hard to pinpoint the entirety of this movement but, among other things, Aufklärung (enlightenment) sought after the separation of church and state, partly because of the abuse of this relationship in the past. However, the radicalized movement went as far as to diminish the role of religion (i.e. Christianity) in the public sphere by creating the dichotomy of natural and supernatural, public and private, and scientific and superstitious.19
The forefront of Christian mission in Minahasa was strongly connected with education, both papendaan and the European school system. Papendaan, the traditional education in Minahasa, had the students live, work, and study with the walian or tona’as, who would give them the license to exercise their knowledge in the society. This practice was adopted by the missionaries, and Minahasan children were sent by their parents to live with the missionaries and learn about Christianity, including how to read and write and behave like Europeans. They became the teachers at the schools and the guru jemaat, the teachers of the Christian congregations. They were at the forefront of mission work in Minahasa, as they understood the complex situations at hand and how to convey the faith in Christ to their kawanua (compatriots). With their participation, the NZG made this land the crown of its evangelization effort.
The responsibility of the NZG in Minahasa grew so significantly that in 1873 it had to provide for the salaries of nine European missionaries, 14 native assistant missionaries, three helpers and 123 guru jemaat.20 The oldest mission organization in the Netherlands had to come up with 36,000 guilders per year to pay their workers’ “quite modest” salaries.21 When financial responsibility became unbearable due to some internal conflict, the NZG took a controversial decision: They decided to hand over the new church to the Indische Kerk (The Protestant Church of the East Indies), while maintaining their service through the mission school system.22
This was not without repercussions. Some of the NZG workers protested this decision, not only because it had a significant effect on them, but also because they felt that it showed the impact of the Aufklärung in the church. “They felt not free to preach as they wanted within the framework of the Indische Kerk, considered a bastion of liberal Christianity where even the doctrine of the Trinity and of the divinity of Jesus as [S]on of God was not maintained.”23 Earlier in 1844, Resident A. J. van Olphen instructed that the Christian religion was no longer to be taught in mission and public schools. A protest from the NZG succeeded in exempting the mission school from this policy.24 But dirty play was not seen on one side only; a colonial official, Resident Jansen (1854-1860), required that the head of the district, Dutch rendition for walak, and that the head of the village become Protestant. Those who refused would be dismissed from their office.25
The presumption that Minahasa was as an ally to the Dutch officially came to an end in 1870 with the announcement that Minahasa was a rechtstreeks bestuurd gebied (directly controlled area).26 In 1912 Minahasans who were in diaspora, especially in Java, formed the Perserikatan Minahasa (the Minahasa League).27 In 1927 this organization split into two, one for military memberships retaining the name Perserikatan Minahasa and the other for civil memberships called the Persatuan Minahasa (both share the same meaning in English); this latter group was initiated by Dr. Sam Ratulangi, a Minahasan intellectual who co-run the Levensverzekering Maatschappij Indonesia (Life Insurance Company Indonesia) in the early 1920s. Just a year after its conception, the civil Persatuan Minahasa declared the intention of “going toward the independence of Indonesia.”28
Ratulangi not only championed the idea of Indonesia but also Minahasa. For him, the idea of “nations as a nation” meant also the place of his nation within the nation-state of Indonesia. This shows in one of his thoughts as expressed in the bulletin Fikiran (Thought), May 31, 1930:
Every self-respecting [b]angsa [nation] receives a sacred heirloom of culture and tradition from its ancestors. We must preserve our Minahasa[n] culture and tradition with all our spirit, because that spirit itself consist[s] of nothing else but culture and tradition. The flower of our culture and tradition may change, and certainly we will modernize them, but we will not change the seeds, because those seeds are implanted in the blood and heart of our bangsa [nation].29
The importance of Minahasa-ness, an ethnic identity, was not exclusive to Ratulangi. Supit mentions M. D. Holleman who, at an Indisch Genootschap (Indonesian Society) meeting in 1929, spoke about a head of a walak, who had been educated in a western system since childhood. The ukung wangko' said to him, “Sir, you are curious that we are still Alifuru.30 I can assure you that I am a good Christian, and with me there are still many others; however, in terms of the provisions outlined by our ancestors, we are still the same...”31
In connection to Christianity, Schouten suggests that “Schooling and conversion were not just expressions of submission or compliance, but could also serve as means of approximating the Dutch, much in the spirit of 'if you can't beat them, join them'.”32 Following the thread so far, this argument overlooks many important aspects, including our forebears' religious experiences, not to mention the role of the Minahasans in the independence movement of Indonesia. As pointed out by Harry Kawilarang, an international journalist: “For besides speaking Dutch, they also understood the norms, ethics, culture and Dutch laws as a result of their western education, which made it possible for the Minahasan intellectuals to deal with the Dutch in a 'Dutch-way', while preserving the existence of their self-identity and character of Minahasa-ness.”33
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1 The expression used by two Dutch governors in the 18th century was broodkamer der Molukken “the bread-basket of the Moluccas” (Molsbergen, Geschiedenis van de Minahassa tot 1829, 105-106 as quoted in Schouten, Leadership and Social Mobility in a Southeast Asian Society, 41. Schouten suggests “rice barn”).
2 Watuseke, Sejarah Minahasa, 22. Spain still attempted to take over Malesung, utilizing the Tondano in this quest. According to Supit, a priest called Fr. De Miedes later brought in ammunition for the Tondano to fight against the Dutch. This time the Spaniards were again defeated, and left the area. The Tondano were forced to give into the Dutch demands; one of these was to burn their settlement on the Lake of Tondano. Then they moved to the northern side of the lake, which later became the battlefield of the Minahasa-Dutch War 1808-1809 (Minahasa, 89-90).
3 Watuseke, Sejarah Minahasa, 24.
4 “Catholic Converts in the Moluccas, Minahasa, and Sangihe-Talaud, 1512-1680” in History of Christianity in Indonesia, 63; Wenas, quoting Molsbergen (Geschiedenis van de Minahassa tot 1829, 13), mentions a Protestant Pastor called Burum, who began baptizing around the Dutch Fortress in Manado in the same year (Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Minahasa, 123).
5 Wenas, Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Minahasa, 123.
6 Wenas, Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Minahasa, 123.
7 The petition was included in the Mangindaan article “Oud Tondano,” in Tijdschrift voor Indische taal-, land- en volkenkunde, 20, 373-377.
8 End, Ragi Carita, 170.
9 David Henley, "[Review of] Leadership and Social Mobility in a Southeast Asian Society; Minahasa, 1677-1983," Bijdragen Tot De Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde. 157, no. 1 (2001):187, http://www.kitlv-journals.nl/index.php/btlv/article/view/1759/2520 (accessed February 2, 2012).
10 Christiaan de Jonge, Arnold Parengkuan, and Karel Steenbrink, “How Christianity Obtained A Central Position in Minahasa Culture and Society” in History of Christianity in Indonesia, 419-420.
11 See Mieke Schouten, “Myth and Reality in Minahasan History: The Waworuntu-Gallois Confrontation,” Archipel, Année Volume 34, Numéro 1 (1987):121-124; Jonge, Parengkuan, and Steenbrink, “How Christianity Obtained A Central Position in Minahasa Culture and Society” in History of Christianity in Indonesia, 419-420.
12 End, Ragi Carita, 170.
13 Wenas, Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Minahasa, 51.
14 End, Ragi Carita, 170.
15 Wenas, Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Minahasa, 128.
16 For further reading about Phillip Jacob Spener (1635-1705), his life, the movement that grew out from his work, and its excess, see, for example, Marie E. Richard, Philip Jacob Spener and His Work (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897); Cf. Pantouw, “Minahasa Sebelum Tahun 1829 dan Beberapa Perubahan Dalamnya” in Etnik Minahasa Dalam Akselerasi Perubahan, 95.
17 This term goes back to the renowned Christian thinker Augustine. Charles Norris Cochrane provides a great help to understand the thoughts of this great Church Father and philosopher. As Cochrane writes, Augustine perceives the limitation of “scientia” or what he called “ratio scientiae;” therefore he proposed the “ratio sapientiae,” an appeal “from the method of science to that of insight or wisdom.” In this logic, the Christian sages/philosophers are those who have, in Augustine's words, “the clearest possible knowledge of man himself and of God, together with a mode of life consistent with such knowledge” (De Util. Cred. xii, 27). It is a 'paradigm shift', or a “departure,” as Cochrane puts it, from “the abstract and theoretical to the concrete and practical” (De Civ. Dei, xx) (see Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine [London: Oxford University Press, 1957], 414-415).
18 Cf. Pantouw, “Minahasa Sebelum Tahun 1829 dan Beberapa Perubahan Dalamnya” in Etnik Minahasa Dalam Akselerasi Perubahan, 95ff.
19 This paradigm is more familiar to our contemporary ears as “modernism” (see Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews, 141-174). It is important to understand that there are both positive and negative impacts associated with Aufklärung and what it entails. One positive contribution of the movement is that the persecution of the Protestants by the Catholic Church became milder due to the influence of this movement (End, Ragi Carita, 211). I describe some negative impacts further in this section.
20 Jonge, Parengkuan, and Steenbrink, “How Christianity Obtained A Central Position in Minahasa Culture and Society,” in History of Christianity in Indonesia, 423-424.
21 Jonge, Parengkuan, and Steenbrink, “How Christianity Obtained A Central Position in Minahasa Culture and Society,” in History of Christianity in Indonesia, 424.
22 Jonge, Parengkuan, and Steenbrink, “How Christianity Obtained A Central Position in Minahasa Culture and Society,” in History of Christianity in Indonesia, 424.
23 Jonge, Parengkuan, and Steenbrink, “How Christianity Obtained A Central Position in Minahasa Culture and Society,” in History of Christianity in Indonesia, 427.
24 According to Watuseke, this policy was still applied to the government schools (Minahasa, 40-41). Today, religions are taught in public and private schools, following the idea of holistic education for the children, and the application of the first principle of the Pancasila: Belief in One supreme God.
25 Mieke Schouten, Minahasa Bestuur: De Veranderende Positie van het walakhoofd in De Minahasa (Tesis Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1976), 92 as quoted in Wenas, Sejarah dan kebudayaan Minahasa, 128.
26 In 1877, the uncultivated lands (forests) customarily belonging to each sub-ethnic group were declared to belong to the colonial state, and in 1881 the chiefs were 'emancipated' to be waged-civil servants (Watuseke, Sejarah Minahasa, 45).
27 Watuseke, Sejarah Minahasa, 49-50.
28 Watuseke, Sejarah Minahasa, 49-50.
29 This quotation has been translated into English by Bert Adriaan Supit and quoted in A. J. Sondakh, Richard A. D. Siwu, and Reiner E. Ointoe, Si tou timou tumou tou = Manusia hidup untuk memanusiakan manusia : refleksi atas evolusi nilai-nilai manusia (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 2003), 88.
30 “Alifuru” is a Moluccan word meaning “natives” or “indigenous.”
31 The rest of the quotation: “...If I put myself in that situation, I will feel unusual things overwhelm me and automatically out of my mouth words and sounds of ancient Alifuru, and I feel like I can predict the future” (F. D. Holleman, De verhouding der gemeenschappen [familie, dorp en district] in de Minahasa ['s-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1929], n.p.) as quoted in Supit, Minahasa, 30 in Bahasa (English translation mine). It is arguable whether the majoor was more a good Christian or a good Minahasan, or both. This story is an example of a Minahasan who embraced a Christian identity, or the other way around, a Christian who embraced Minahasan identity.
32 Schouten, Leadership and Social Mobility in a Southeast Asian Society, 107.
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