JAN KOOI (1849-?)
Ghanese soldaat in dienst van het Nederlandse leger in Indonesië. Stierf in Nederland in een tehuis voor veteranen. (Blacks in the Dutch World, Alison Blakely)
2e Luitenant Jan Kooi, "Black Dutch" veteran of the Aceh War, originally from Ashanti Kingdom in West Africa.
Jan Kooi The African corporal Jan Kooi achieved some fame in the Netherlands for his courageous feats in the Atjeh (now Aceh) war, the longest, deadliest and most inconclusive war in Dutch colonial history. The sultanate of Atjeh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, was known to be a stronghold both of piracy and of orthodox Islam. During the 19th century, the Dutch gradually expanded their control over Sumatra. The Atjeh war commenced in 1873 and ended only in 1904. To this day, there is a secessionist movement in Aceh fighting against Indonesian government troops. Jan Kooi entered into the service of the Dutch East Indies army in 1869, at the age of 20 years. He was born in Elmina in 1849. His mothers’ name was Essowa. His father’s name is poorly readable in the army records: something like ‘Dinaba’. With his new Dutch name of Jan Kooi, he enlisted at the recruiting station in Elmina for the duration of 12 years, receiving a considerable bounty of 200 guilders. On 30 May 1870 he left Elmina on the ship Ternate, arriving in Batavia (Jakarta) on 14 August 1870. With the other new arrivals, he was sent for training with the 1st infantry bataillion. Almost a year later, training was completed, and Kooi was sent to Atjeh with the 2nd infantry bataillion. From 1874 to 1879 he was engaged in numerous military expeditions in Atjeh, earning himself a range of distinctions: the Atjeh medal 1873-1874; the distinction for extraordinary efforts in Atjeh 1873-1874; twice he is mentioned with distinction in the campaign records; in 1881 he is awarded the bronze medal. On top of these decorations, Jan Kooi was the first African soldier to be awarded the highest military honours in the Dutch army:the Militaire Willemsorde (4th class) No wonder that he was a famous man during his brief stay in the Netherlands in 1882, on the way back to his native Elmina. Newspapers reported how he had saved the life of his commander by killing two Atjeh fighters, while himself suffering ten bullet wounds under enemy fire. Later that year he earned a reward of 100 guilders for saving the life of lieutenant Bijleveld by killing a heavily armed Atjeher. The article in the Overveluwsch Weekblad noted that Kooi spoke perfect Dutch, but also spoke warmly about his family and homeland. During his stay in Harderwijk, the garrison town with the recruiting station for the colonial army, he had twice his portrait painted. Two very different portraits: the highly formal soldier’s posture on the portrait by J.C. Leich; and the impressionistic portrait by Isaac Israels, one of the most famous Dutch painters in the 19th century. After army service, Jan Kooi settled in his native Elmina, which meanwhile had been handed over to the British. Here we encounter him once more in the baptismal records of the church of St. Joseph: on 30 May 1886, Joannes Kooi is mentioned as the godfather to Grace Maria Plange, daughter of Jacob Plange and Arala Yaniba.
Foto: Triomfantelijk moment in de pas veroverde kraton van de sultan van Atjeh: april 1874. De beide bevelhebbers laten zich met hun staven fotograferen, zittend op de krijgsbuit. Links zittend luitenant-generaal J. van Swieten, regeringscommissaris en opperbevelhebber; rechts zittend generaal-majoor G. M. Verspijck, tweede bevelhebber. Bron:
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Between 1831 and 1872 some 3,000 African recruits sailed from Elmina (now part of Ghana) to Batavia. They had been recruited to serve in the Dutch colonial army, which throughout most of the 19th century experienced a chronic shortage of European manpower. After their contracts expired, some returned to the Gold Coast where these veterans settled in Elmina on allocated plots behind St. George's Castle, on a hill still known today as Java Hill. Others, having established families during their long years of army service, opted to settle in the East Indies. They became the founding fathers of the Indo-African communities in the Javanese towns of Purworedjo, Semarang, Salatiga and Solo. On Java, the African soldiers and their descendents became known as 'Belanda Hitam' - Black Dutchmen. An army career became a family tradition, for many sons and grandsons of the African soldiers also served in the Dutch army. After Indonesia's independence, most Indo-Africans opted for repatriation to the Netherlands (around 1950 some 60 families left Indonesia and went to Holland).
The shortage of manpower in the Dutch colonial army became particularly acute in the wake of the Java war (1825-1830) which took the lives of 8,000 European soldiers and many more native soldiers. The Department of Colonies turned to the almost forgotten Dutch Possessions on the Guinea Coast, where commercial activity was at a low ebb following the abolition of the slave trade in 1814. These neglected outposts now had the opportunity to make themselves useful in the eyes of the Dutch government as a supplier of manpower to the army. Army policy dictated however that roughly half the troops had to consist of Europeans, who were deemed more reliable and better qualified. The African soldiers were counted as part of the European contingent. The largest Indo-African community lived in the garrison town of Purworedjo in central Java, where in 1859 King William III allocated them a plot of land.
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Allison Blakely
Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society. - book reviews
Journal of Social History, Fall, 1995 by Clifton Crais
By Allison Blakely (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994. xix plus 327pp. $35.00).
Relatively little work has been done on race and racial ideology in the Dutch world. Most recent studies have concentrated on the British Empire. Allison Blakely reminds those who have forgotten just how extensive Dutch expansion was. Dutch commercial relations during the seventeenth century stretched from the Caribbean to East Indies. Profits from trade in the Indian Ocean earned the Dutch the jealousy of other European powers. Dutch involvement in the Atlantic slave trade was early, substantial, and critical to the rise of plantation agriculture in South America and the Caribbean. The economies of many of their colonies rested squarely on chattel slavery, which the Dutch abolished only in 1863, some three decades after the British.
At the same time the Netherlands was becoming an increasingly plural society. According to Blakely, "Immigration has occurred with a persistence and on a scale which leaves few present Dutch families without at least one ancestor from abroad."(1) But this is no "melting pot." Blakely argues that "The tendency has been to accommodate rather then assimilate."(2) Only recently, however, have substantial numbers of people of African descent moved to the Netherlands. Dutch society has had to reconcile the physical presence of black people with a racial ideology that developed without a substantial black population in the Netherlands. Long famous for its liberal culture, Dutch society's capacity for tolerance and diversity may be running thin.
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