Kapitan Cina[a] (lit. 'Captain of the Chinese';Chinese:華人甲必丹;Pe̍h-ōe-jī:Hôa-jîn Kap-pit-tan;pinyin:Huárén Jiǎbìdān;Dutch:Kapitein der Chinezen;Spanish:Capitán Chino), was a high-ranking government position in the civil administration ofcolonial Indonesia,Malaya,Singapore,Borneo and thePhilippines. Office holders exercised varying degrees of power and influence: from near-sovereign political and legal jurisdiction over local Chinese communities, to ceremonial precedence for community leaders.[1][2][3] Corresponding posts existed for other ethnic groups, such asKapitan Arab andKapitan Keling for the local Arab and Indian communities respectively.[4]
The origin of the office, under various different native titles, goes back to court positions in the precolonial states ofSoutheast Asia, such as theSultanates of Malacca in theMalay Peninsula, theSultanate of Banten inJava, and theKingdom of Siam inmainland Southeast Asia.[5][6] Many rulers assigned self-governance to local foreign communities, including the Chinese, under their own headmen. Often, these headmen also had responsibilities beyond their local communities, in particular in relation to foreign trade or tax collection.
For example,Souw Beng Kong andLim Lak Ko, the first twoKapiteins der Chinezen of Batavia, present-dayJakarta, started off as high-ranking courtiers and functionaries to theSultans of Banten prior to their defection to theDutch East India Company in the early seventeenth century.[7] Similarly, the court title ofChao Praya Chodeuk Rajasrethi in Thailand under the earlyChakri dynasty combined the roles of Chinese headman and head of the Department of Eastern Affairs and Commerce.[8] In the late nineteenth century,Kapitan Cina Yap Ah Loy, arguably the founding father of modern Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, served as Chinese headman while holding the Malay court position ofSri Indra Perkasa Wijaya Bakti.[9]
When Europeans established colonial rule in Southeast Asia, this system ofindirect rule was adopted: first by thePortuguese when they took overMalacca in 1511, then in subsequent centuries by the Dutch in theDutch East Indies, as well as the British inBritish Malaya andBorneo.[5] Use of the title 'Kapitan' in the civil administration has parallels in the sixteenth-century, colonial PortugueseCaptaincies of Brazil.
Since then, a long succession of Kapitans formed an intrinsic part of colonial history in Southeast Asia.[10][11] Kapitans were pivotal in consolidating European colonial rule, and in facilitating large-scaleChinese migration to Southeast Asia, or'Nanyang' as the region is known in Chinese history.[10][3] Instrumental to the establishment of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia were Chinese allies, such asKapitein Souw Beng Kong andKapitein Lim Lak Ko in early seventeenth-century Batavia and Banten; and the brothersSoero Pernollo andKapitein Han Bwee Kong in early eighteenth-centuryEast Java.[12][11] In British territories, important Chinese allies and collaborators includeKoh Lay Huan, first Kapitan Cina ofPenang in the late eighteenth century;Choa Chong Long andTan Tock Seng, the founding Kapitans ofSingapore in the early nineteenth century; andYap Ah Loy, Kapitan Cina ofKuala Lumpur in the late nineteenth century.[5][3][9]
Yet due to their power and influence, many Kapitans were also focal points of resistance against European colonial rule. For instance, in the aftermath of Batavia'sChinese Massacre of 1740, the city's Chinese headman,Kapitein Nie Hoe Kong, became an important player in the so-calledChinese War, or 'Perang Cina', between the Dutch East India Company and a Chinese-Javanese alliance.[13] Over a century later, the Kapiteins of thekongsi republics in Borneo led their people in the so-calledKongsi Wars against Dutch colonial incursions from the late nineteenth until the early twentieth century.[14][15]
With the consolidation of colonial rule, the Kapitans became part of the civil bureaucracy in Portuguese, Dutch and British colonies.[5][3] They exercised both executive and judicial powers over local Chinese communities under the colonial authorities.[3] In British territories, the position lost its importance over time, gradually becoming an honorary rank for community leaders before its final abolition in the late nineteenth or the start of the twentieth century.[11][5] In contrast, the position was consolidated and further elaborated in Dutch territories, and remained an important part of the Dutch colonial government until theSecond World War and theend of colonialism.[11][16]
The institution of Kapitan Cina was most fully developed in colonial Indonesia, where an intricate hierarchy ofChinese officieren, or Chinese officers, was put in place by the Dutch authorities.[11] The officers acted asHoofden der Chinezen ('Heads of the Chinese'), that is as the legal and political administrators of the local Chinese community.[11] There were three separate ranks ofMajoor,Kapitein andLuitenant der Chinezen depending on the incumbent's seniority in the administrative structure, the importance of their territory or their own personal merit.[11] Thus, the post of Majoor only existed in the colony's principal cities:Batavia,Bandoeng,Semarang andSurabaya in Java, andMedan in Sumatra.[11] The Majoor in each of these jurisdictions presided over lower-ranking officers, who sat in council together as theKong Koan (Dutch: 'Chinese Raad'; English: 'Chinese Council') of their local territory.[16] In jurisdictions deemed less important, the presiding officer bore the rank of Kapitein or Luitenant.[11]
The officers-in-council acted as an executive governmental body, implementing the directives of the colonial government, as well as a court of law on family and customary law and petty crimes.[10][11][16] They were seen as the colonial equivalent of aYamen, or governmental magistracy, inImperial China.[11] Below the Chinese officers were theWijkmeesters or ward masters in charge of constituent districts within each officer's territory.[10][11] In addition, the officers also had recourse to their own basic police force to enforce their executive and judicial decisions.[10][11]
These officerial titles were also given by the Dutch colonial government on an honorary basis to retired officers or meritorious community leaders.[11] Thus, a retired Luitenant might be granted the honorary rank ofLuitenant-titulair der Chinezen; or in very rare cases, a retired officer might be given an honorary promotion, such as the famously wealthyLuitenant Oei Tiong Ham, who became an honorary Majoor upon retirement from the colonial administration.[11] Titular lieutenancies or captaincies were also sometimes granted to meritorious community leaders outside the bureaucracy.[11]
Sitting Chinese officers, together with Arab and Indian officers, formed part of the colonial government'sBestuur over de Vreemde Oosterlingen or the Department of 'Foreign Orientals'.[10][16][17] As part of the Dutch policy ofIndirect Rule, all the three racial castes in the Indies - Europeans, 'Foreign Orientals' and natives - had political and legal self-governance under the oversight of the Dutch government.[10][17] The native counterpart of the officers was thePamong Pradja, or the native civil service, with its equally elaborate hierarchy ofRegents,Wedanas,Asistent-Wedanas andCamats.
The Chinese officership came to be dominated on a near-hereditary basis by a small,oligarchic group of interrelated, landowning families.[11][18] They formed the so-calledCabang Atas, or the traditional Chinese establishment or gentry of colonial Indonesia.[19] As asocial class, they exerted a powerful social, economic and political influence on colonial life in Indonesia beyond the local Chinese community.[12][11] The descendants of Chinese officers are entitled by colonial Indonesian custom to the hereditary title of 'Sia'.[16]
In the early twentieth century, in keeping with their so-called 'Ethical Policy', the Dutch colonial authorities made concerted efforts to appoint Chinese officers and other government officials based on merit.[11] Some of these candidates came from outside traditional Cabang Atas families, including totok appointees, such asTjong A Fie, Majoor der Chinezen (1860–1921) inMedan,Lie Hin Liam, Luitenant der Chinezen inTangerang, andKhoe A Fan, Luitenant der Chinezen in Batavia.[20][11][21]
Despite Dutch attempts at reforming the Chinese officership, the institution and the Cabang Atas as a traditional elite both came under attack from modernizing voices in the late colonial era.[11][22] Their loss of prestige and respect within the local Chinese community led the Dutch colonial government to phase out the officership gradually all through the early twentieth century.[11][22] Officerships were often left vacant when incumbents retired or died.[11] The only exception, as noted by the historianMona Lohanda, was the Chinese officership of Batavia, which was retained by the Dutch authorities thanks to its antiquity, pre-eminent position in the Chinese bureaucratic hierarchy and symbolic value to Dutch colonial authority.[11] The institution came to an abrupt end with theJapanese invasion during theSecond World War, and the death in 1945 ofKhouw Kim An, thelast Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia and the last serving Chinese officer in the Dutch colonial government.[11][22]
Chinese officers in the Dutch East Indies used an elaborate system of styles and titles:
Khoe A Fan LUITENANT.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)