The Christian Slaves Of Depok

This book recounts the little-known history of Cornelis Chastelein, a high-ranking official of the Dutch East India Company and the 150-200 slaves he purchased from slave markets around South-East Asia, to work his landed estates in the Batavian (Jakarta) hinterlands. It traces the making and unravelling of his dream to create a self-sustaining Christian community of freed slaves in the midst of a Muslim stronghold. To this end, on his death on 28 June 1714, he freed most of his slaves, and bequeathed those who had embraced Christianity, his 1244-hectare Depok estate in â ~collective ownership.â (TM) The book isolates behaviours and events that influenced these Depokkersâ (TM) lives after Chasteleinâ (TM)s death, such as exogamy, religion, war, revolution and diaspora. Its main characters are the missionaries bent on Depokkersâ (TM) Dutchification, the Japanese invaders who demand obedience to their â ~Asia for the Asiansâ (TM) thinking, and the Indonesian Pemuda (freedom fighters), who insist Depokkers throw their weight behind the Independence movement. Enslavement made Depokkers inbetweeners. In the Netherlands, they were considered Indonesian, and the Dutch to whom they thought they belonged painfully excluded them. Following the transfer of sovereignty, the Republic of Indonesia confiscated the rice fields of those that stayed and labelled them Belanda Depok (black Hollanders). The history of the Depokkers is a tale of survival in the face of adversity that takes in the dying embers of the Netherlands East Indies and the birth of Indonesia.

This book recounts the little-known history of Cornelis Chastelein, a high-ranking official of the Dutch East India Company and the 150-200 slaves he purchased from slave markets around South-East Asia, to work his landed estates in the Batavian (Jakarta) hinterlands. It traces the making and unravelling of his dream to create a self-sustaining Christian community of freed slaves in the midst of a Muslim stronghold. To this end, on his death on 28 June 1714, he freed most of his slaves, and bequeathed those who had embraced Christianity, his 1244-hectare Depok estate in ‘collective ownership.’ The book isolates behaviours and events that influenced these Depokkers’ lives after Chastelein’s death, such as endogamy, religion, war, revolution and diaspora. Its main characters are the missionaries bent on Depokkers’ Dutchification, the Japanese invaders who demand obedience to their ‘Asia for the Asians’ thinking, and the Indonesian Pemuda (freedom fighters), who insist Depokkers throw their weight behind the Independence movement. Enslavement made Depokkers inbetweeners. In the Netherlands, they were considered Indonesian, and the Dutch to whom they thought they belonged painfully excluded them. Following the transfer of sovereignty, the Republic of Indonesia confiscated the rice fields of those that stayed and labelled them Belanda Depok (black Hollanders). The history of the Depokkers is a tale of survival in the face of adversity that takes in the dying embers of the Netherlands East Indies and the birth of Indonesia.

Cornelis Chastelein was a successful 17th century Huguenot merchant in the Dutch East Indies. He was opposed to slavery and upon his death in 1714, he willed his estate at Depok in collective ownership, in perpetuity, to his one hundred and fifty slaves, who had converted to Christianity and were therefore emancipated. In a codicil to his will, Chastelein set out detailed instructions on how the estate was to be managed, including his wish that his emancipated slaves use it to make an "honest living and not be dependent on alms". Depok Slaves presents a case study of slavery in Southeast Asia, which is less studied even though it outstripped in numbers Dutch trans-Atlantic slavery. Slaves often comprised over fifty percent of the population of Batavia, and were one of the most important sources of labor during the 17th and early 18th centuries. This book presents Chastelein's legacy embedded in the context of his life and times. The story continues into the 19th century, when Reformed churchmen broadened the Depokker community's spiritual, cultural, and economic outlook, opening a Christian Dutch language school in 1873. Ironically, in the 20th century, the Depokker's education and land ownership gave them official recognition as gelijkgesteld (equal to Europeans). Labelled Belanda Depok and considered pro-Dutch, they were targets of violent attacks during the October 1945 Indonesian Revolution for Independence. Oral histories from the current descendants of the Depokker slaves, combined with stunning portraits of renowned documentary photographer Geert Snoeijer, make this an essential volume for understanding the legacy of colonization and slavery in Southeast Asia.

Understanding and managing inter-religious relations, particularly between Muslims and Christians, presents a challenge for states around the world. This book investigates legal disputes between religious communities in the world’s largest majority-Muslim, democratic country, Indonesia. It considers how the interaction between state and religion has influenced relations between religious communities in the transition to democracy. The book presents original case studies based on empirical field research of court disputes in West Java, a majority-Muslim province with a history of radical Islam. These include criminal court cases, as well as cases of judicial review, relating to disputes concerning religious education, permits for religious buildings and the crime of blasphemy. The book argues that the democratic law reform process has been influenced by radical Islamists because of the politicization of religion under democracy and the persistence of fears of Christianization. It finds that disputes have been localized through the decentralization of power and exacerbated by the central government’s ambivalent attitude towards radical Islamists who disregard the rule of law. Examining the challenge facing governments to accommodate minorities and manage religious pluralism, the book furthers understanding of state-religion relations in the Muslim world. This accessible and engaging book is of interest to students and scholars of law and society in Southeast Asia, was well as Islam and the state, and the legal regulation of religious diversity.

In this book, Davis uses many new historical sources to re-examine one of the least understood forms of human bondage in modern times - the systematic enslavement of white, Christian Europeans by the Muslims of North Africa's Barbary Coast. Far from the minor phenomenon that many have assumed it to be, white slavery in the Maghreb turns out, in Davis' account, to have had enormous consequences, ensnaring as many as a million victims from France and Italy to Spain, Holland, Great Britain, the Americas, and even Iceland in the centuries when it flourished between 1500 and 1800. Whether dealing with the methods used by slavers, the experience of slavery, or its destructive impact on the slaves themselves, Davis demonstrates the many often surprising similarities between this 'other' slavery and the much better known human-bondage suffered at the very same time by black Africans in the Americas. -- Back cover.

This book highlights the recent research works on sustainable construction, people behavior and built environment which were presented virtually during the 2021 AUA and ICSGS Academic Conference, Global Strategies for a Resilient and Sustainable Post Pandemic World Towards a Better Future for All which was conducted on 26-27 October 2021.

Asia, Modernity, and the Pursuit of the Sacred examines a large number of Europeans who, disillusioned with western culture and religion after World War I, and anticipating the spiritual seekers of the counterculture, turned to the religious traditions of Asia for inspiration.