14Story

23 December 2008

Military expeditions

Shared Cultural Heritage

Contents:  Shared Cultural Heritage  - Introduction  - Collecting within a colonial context  - Scholarly expeditions  - Archaeological sites  - Collectors, officials, missionaries  - Donations  - Military expeditions

 

Military expeditions

 

Military expeditions clearly also constituted significant sources of collections. However, this particular collecting context is the most controversial, and is firmly linked with such ethical questions as: by what right did the colonial rulers use military violence in order to extract objects from Indonesia? Further, what should we do now, with the contents of the museums holding such objects? The use of violence in subjecting regions of Indonesia to Dutch control is now seen, rightly, as a black page in colonial history. Criticism was expressed even at the time the field campaigns were being carried out, yet generally speaking, there was no fundamental doubt concerning the colonial ‘adventure’. Only a few people expressed their doubts about the ‘great things being achieved’, whether these involved financial gain or the bringing of European ‘civilization’ and the Christian religion to foreign parts and peoples. More or less dubious justifications were often found, and it was long time before the nature of the horrible confrontation was faced.

 

Artillery firing at Baté Ilië, Aceh; February 1901 (Photograph C. Nieuwenhuis)

 

A contrasting side effect of the violent oppression was the great blossoming of scholarly interest in the population groups that had been so (literally and figuratively) ‘downcast’. The harsh imposition of administrative rule, and the taking of valuable war booty, were followed almost immediately (full of good intentions and a virtuous interest) by the peaceful ethnological opening-up of the region just subjected to Dutch rule, together with its indigenous people. The tangible and permanent witnesses to this are found in the extensive and fascinating ethnographic collections assembled on the spot in that period, and later deposited in Batavia or Leiden. Fortunately, there were other troop movements organized differently, besides these military (punitive) expeditions led and carried out by ruthless fire-eaters. The participants in these other expeditions cleared a path through regions unknown to the west up to that time, and did so in a non-aggressive – albeit in a difficult and painful -  manner.  In particular, the military reconnaissance forays, lasting years,  and the widely-based collecting activities in New Guinea and the groups of nearby islands are worth mentioning here. These journeys were clearly of immeasurable value for the knowledge of the population groups with which the expedition members came in contact, and for the significant extension of the ethnological museums in Batavia and Leiden. The tale of one military commandant - ‘A.J. Gooszen: de Pionier in Nieuw-Guinea’ – is a good illustration in this context; his efforts to gather knowledge about New Guinea, and the objects from there, are of especial interest to both museums.

 

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Staff members of the southern exploration detachment in 1908. A.J. Gooszen, wearing a cap, is sitting.

 

Another example: W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, a painter who had no professional connection with military actions, was sitting sketching on the beach at Sanur on 14 September 1906 when the military expedition – on a war footing – appeared off the coast. His story can cast a special light on a military action and on its consequences for the local population and culture.

 

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Drawing by W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp of the arrival of the war fleet on the beach at Sanur, 14 September 1906.

 

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