2025 saw the publication of a paper by Professor Maria Johanna Schouten, an associate of AIA-SEAS, on the administrative reforms of the Dutch colonial government in Minahasa (North Sulawesi, in present-day Indonesia) in the late 1840s. The preparation of these reforms was largely the responsibility of the young secretary Eduard Douwes Dekker, who later – under the pseudonym “Multatuli” – became one of the most celebrated writers in Dutch literature, weaving harsh criticism of aspects of the colonial regime into his literary work.
In the broader context of the colonial policy of the Dutch East Indies, and drawing in particular on Dekker’s official and personal writings (published and existing in archives), the conditions and transformations in Minahasa society in the 19th century are discussed in this text. The research leads to the conclusion that, amid differing views and various catastrophes of different natures, many of the changes that took place in Minahasa in the following decades were due to the initiative of the population, which ultimately sought to combine elements of modernity with their local cultural practices.
This article was published in open access in Archipel magazine, no. 109, and can be accessed via the following link: https://journals.openedition.org/archipel/7451.
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