On the Margins of Colonialism: Contact Zones in the Aru Islands

ABSTRACT

The Aru Islands are situated at the eastern end of the Indian Ocean, in the southern Moluccas. They are also one of the easternmost places in the world where Islam and Christianity gained a (limited) foothold in the early-modern period, and marked the outer reach of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The present article discusses Western-Arunese relations in the seventeenth century in terms of economic exchange and political networks. Although Aru society was stateless and relatively egalitarian and eluded strong colonial control up to the late colonial period, it was still a source of natural products, such as pearls, birds-of-paradise, turtle-shells, destined for luxury consumption in Asia and Europe. Aru society was thus positioned in a global economic network while leaving it largely ungoverned. Colonial archival data yield important information about the indigenous responses to European attempts to control the flow of goods. They both support Roy Ellen’s claim that the economic flows in eastern Indonesia extended beyond the control of VOC, and provide parallels to James Scott’s thesis of state-avoidance among the ethnic minorities in mainland Southeast Asia.

KEYWORDS:

• Aru Islands
• Maluku
• Indonesia
• colonialism

Notes

1. ANRI Banda 45-1, Copy of 1658 VOC-Aru contract.

2. Hägerdal, East Indonesia and the Writing of History.

3. Some archaeological aspects of Aru, including Ujir, are treated in O’Connor, Spriggs, and Veth, Archaeology of the Aru Islands. For general aspects of Southeast Maluku, see De Jonge and Van Dijk, Forgotten Islands of Indonesia.

4. Lampers, In het spoor van de Compagnie.

5. Ellen, On the Edge of the Banda Zone.

6. Cf. Hong, “Social Formation and Cultural Identity.”

7. Pires, The Suma Oriental, 206.

8. Thomaz, “Image of the Archipelago,” plates IX, XIV, XV, XVII.

9. Reid, Southeast Asia, vols. 1–2.

10. Lape, “Contact and Conflict in the Banda Islands.”

11. Heeres, Het aandeel der Nederlanders, 5–6.

12. Tiele & Heeres, Bouwstoffen, I, 154, 158.

13. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen, 263.

14. Boomgaard, Bridewealth and Birth Control, 220–23.

15. Kaartinen, Songs of Travel.

16. Corpus diplomaticum, 179–82.

17. Bleeker, ”De Aroe-eilanden,” 263.

18. Van Dijk, Twee togten naar de Golf van Carpentaria, 9–10.

19. Coolhaas,Generale missiven, 4, 432; Van Fraassen, Ternate, de Molukken en de Indonesische Archipel, II, 485.

20. VOC 1608, Dagregister Aru, sub 2 April 1698. All translations from Dutch are by the author.

21. The stranger king syndrome is discussed in Henley, Jealousy and Justice.

22. Coolhaas, Generale missiven, I, 166–67.

23. Niemeijer, “Dividing the Islands.”

24. Kolff, Voyages of the Dutch.

25. Bleeker, “De Aroe-eilanden,” 264.

26. VOC 1271, Banda report, f. 448; Lampers, In het spoor van de Compagnie, 37

27. Van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, II-1, 210.

28. Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia. A:o 1636, 227.

29. VOC 8051 (1687-88), f. 259–63.

30. VOC 8034, Witness report, Nicolaas Harmansz, 1787; VOC 3817, Witness report, Coenraad Abrahan Schipio, 14 May 1788.

31. De Klerk, Belangrijk verslag over den staat Banda, 29–30.

32. Spyer, Memory of Trade.

33. Coolhaas, Generale missiven, 3, 316.

34. Verbeet, Memorie of getrouw verhaal, 30.

35. Bik,Dagverhaal eener reis, 73.

36. Ibid., 69–72.

37. Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, III B, 313.

38. VOC 8051, Dagregister Banda, sub 3 February 1688.

39. Andaya, “Bugis-Makassar Diasporas.”

40. Widjojo, Revolt of Prince Nuku, 95–113; Ellen, On the Edge of the Banda Zone.

41. VOC 2236, Dagregister, Banda, sub 27 May 1732, f. 839–40.

42. VOC 2284, Dagregister, Banda, sub 31 May 1733, f. 671.

43. VOC 2284, Banda register, Diary, sub 17 March 1733.

44. Spyer, The Memory of Trade.

45. VOC 8330, Dagregister, sub 24 June 1737.

46. Van Dijk, Twee togten naar de Golf van Carpentaria, 6.

47. VOC 8034, Report, 30 July 1787, f. 116.

48. Interview with Ujir elders, April 2016.

49. Widjojo, Revolt of Prince Nuku.

50. Comité Oost-Indische Handel en Bezittingen, 83, 1794, f. 26–27, 251, 2.01.27.01.

51. Bik, Dagverhaal eener reis, 43.

52. Wallace, Malay Archipelago, 476–79; De Jong, “Footnote to the Colonial History.”

53. Lieberman, Strange Parallels, vol. 2.

54. Ptak, “Northern Trade Route.”

55. Andaya, World of Maluku.

56. Lieberman, Strange Parallels, vols. 1–2.

57. Hong, “Social Formation and Cultural Identity.”

58. VOC 8034, Witness account, Nicolaas Harmansz, 1787. According to his own statement, the Christian chief resolutely refused the offer, and later escaped to the Dutch in Banda.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article was made possible by support from the Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Växjö and Kalmar, Sweden.

Notes on contributors

Hans Hägerdal

Hans Hägerdal is Professor of History at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His research interests are Western historiography on Asia, colonial contact zones in Southeast Asia, and the history of non-literate societies. His latest publication is Savu: History and Oral Tradition on an Island of Indonesia (with Geneviève Duggan; Singapore, 2018).