Batavia Massacre (1740): The Killing of the Chinese in Batavia

The 1740 Batavia massacre was the mass killing of ethnic Chinese residents of Batavia, the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Java, between 9 and 22 October 1740. An estimated 10,000 people died as soldiers and colonists swept through the Chinese quarter. The violence grew out of an economic crisis and Dutch fears of revolt, and it ignited a wider war across Java that reshaped the island’s politics.

Background: a city built with Chinese labour

The VOC had seized Jayakarta in 1619 and rebuilt it as Batavia, the hub of its Asian trading empire (see Founding of Batavia). From the start, the company encouraged Chinese settlers, who worked as traders, craftsmen, builders and farmers. By the early 18th century the Chinese formed one of the largest communities in the walled city and especially in the Ommelanden, the surrounding countryside.

Many of them worked in sugar mills in the Ommelanden. In the 1720s and 1730s world sugar prices fell, partly because of competition from the Caribbean and Bengal, and the industry around Batavia declined. Thousands of Chinese labourers lost their livelihoods. Chinese entrepreneurs also held many of the revenue farms through which the VOC collected local taxes, and every Chinese resident paid a poll tax to the company. The company tried to limit new immigration and introduced residence permits, which corrupt officials exploited for bribes.

Causes: deportation and rumour

On 25 July 1740 the High Government ordered that Chinese who were unemployed or lacked permits could be arrested and deported to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to work for the company. Rumours spread that deportees were being thrown overboard once out at sea. Whether or not this was true, it terrified the Chinese community.

Many Chinese fled into the countryside and formed armed bands. In early October they attacked company posts outside the city, and on 7 October an assault killed dozens of VOC soldiers. Inside Batavia, Europeans feared that the Chinese in the city would rise in support of those outside.

The massacre

On 8 October the authorities ordered Chinese residents to stay in their houses and surrender any weapons. On 9 October fire broke out in the Chinese quarter, and the search for arms turned into killing. Soldiers, sailors, European residents and enslaved and freed people from other communities attacked Chinese households. Houses were looted and burned, and Chinese prisoners and hospital patients were also killed.

The main slaughter lasted several days, and looting and violence continued until 22 October, when a general pardon was proclaimed. Most estimates put the number of dead at around 10,000. Only a few hundred to perhaps 3,000 Chinese residents of the city are thought to have survived, many of them sheltered or escaping to the countryside.

Responsibility has been debated ever since. Governor-General Adriaan Valckenier presided over the council that issued the orders of 8 October, and some contemporaries said he encouraged the killings. Others in the government, notably Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff, had opposed his handling of the crisis.

Key people

• Adriaan Valckenier (1695–1751): Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1737 to 1741. He was later arrested at the Cape, returned to Batavia for trial and died in prison there in 1751 before a final verdict.
• Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff (1705–1750): a council member who quarrelled with Valckenier, was arrested and sent to the Netherlands, and returned as Governor-General in 1743.
• Pakubuwono II (r. 1726–1749): ruler of Mataram, the main Javanese kingdom, who first sided with the Chinese rebels and then switched back to the VOC.
• Sunan Kuning (Raden Mas Garendi): a young prince proclaimed king, as Amangkurat V, by Chinese and Javanese rebels in 1742.

Consequences: the Java War

Survivors and Chinese from the countryside moved east along the north coast of Java, attacking VOC posts. In 1741 Pakubuwono II of Mataram joined them, and his forces took the company’s garrison at Kartasura, his capital. As the VOC regained the upper hand he changed sides again, and in 1742 the rebels captured and sacked Kartasura, forcing him to flee.

The company, helped by Cakraningrat IV of Madura, retook Kartasura late in 1742, and the war ended in 1743. In return for his restoration, Pakubuwono II ceded control of Java’s north coast and other rights to the VOC, a major step towards Dutch dominance over the island. The ruined Kartasura was abandoned, and a new court was built at Surakarta in 1745. This conflict, sometimes called the Chinese War, is distinct from the later Java War of 1825–1830.

In Batavia itself, the Chinese were afterwards required to live in a district outside the walls, the origin of today’s Glodok neighbourhood. Chinese immigration and trade soon revived, because the company still depended on them.

Blame and investigation

The killings caused a crisis inside the VOC government. Van Imhoff and two other councillors criticised Valckenier’s conduct, and in December 1740 Valckenier had them arrested and shipped to the Netherlands as prisoners. In Amsterdam, however, the company’s directors, the Heeren XVII, took a different view. They appointed van Imhoff as the next Governor-General and ordered Valckenier’s arrest.

Valckenier had already left office and set sail for Europe. He was detained at the Cape of Good Hope in 1742 and sent back to Batavia to face charges relating to the massacre and to his administration. His trial dragged on for years, and he died in prison in 1751 without a final judgement. Historians continue to debate how far he planned the violence and how far he simply failed to stop it, but most agree that the authorities’ orders and the climate of fear they created made the killing possible.

By the numbers

Legacy

The massacre embarrassed the Dutch East India Company in Europe, where pamphlets and engravings depicted the killing. In Indonesia it is remembered as Geger Pacinan and is a frequent reference point in discussions of anti-Chinese violence, which recurred in later centuries.

A widely repeated story says the Qianlong Emperor dismissed the victims as subjects who had abandoned their homeland. The story’s source and accuracy are uncertain, but the Qing court did not retaliate, and trade between China and Batavia continued.

Timeline

• 1720s–1730s: Falling sugar prices ruin many mills around Batavia.
• 1740, 25 July: The VOC orders the arrest and deportation of unemployed or unregistered Chinese.
• 1740, 7 October: Chinese bands attack company posts outside the city.
• 1740, 9 October: Fire and killing begin in Batavia’s Chinese quarter.
• 1740, 22 October: A general pardon ends the violence.
• 1741: Mataram joins the rebels; the VOC garrison at Kartasura falls.
• 1742: Rebels sack Kartasura; the VOC and Madurese forces retake it later in the year.
• 1743: Peace with Pakubuwono II; the VOC gains Java’s north coast.
• 1751: Valckenier dies in prison in Batavia.

Why it matters

The Batavia massacre was one of the deadliest episodes of colonial violence in early modern Asia. It exposed how economic crisis, fear and prejudice could turn into mass killing, and the war it set off gave the VOC decisive power over Java’s coast and its largest kingdom.