The Michiels Monument (Dutch: Het Michielsmonument) stood at the Waterlooplein in Weltevreden, Batavia, commemorating General Andreas Victor Michiels (1797–1849), who was killed in action on Bali in 1849.
Account from Nederlandsch Indië Platen Atlas (1926) — The Monument
The atlas depicts the Michiels Monument alongside the Atjeh Monument on a single plate, noting: “Het Michielsmonument aan het Waterlooplein te Weltevreden, Batavia.” The accompanying text describes Michiels’s career: he entered military service at seventeen, distinguished himself in every possible way, rose to General’s rank, and fell on Bali in 1849.
Significance for Achehnese History
While Michiels himself had no direct connection to Atjeh — he died twenty-four years before the first Dutch expedition in 1873 — the pairing of his monument with the Atjeh Monument in the atlas is illustrative. Together, the two monuments represented, in the physical landscape of the colonial capital, the long arc of Dutch military expansion across the archipelago: from the mid-nineteenth-century campaigns in Bali and elsewhere, to the eventual subjugation of Atjeh, the last great independent state in the Indonesian Archipelago to fall under Dutch control. Both stood in the administrative heart of Weltevreden as assertions of colonial authority built upon military sacrifice.
See Also
Sources
Nederlandsch Indië Platen Atlas met korte beschrijvingen, uitgegeven door Volkslectuur, Weltevreden, Java. Weltevreden: G. Kolff & Co., January 1926. Plate 70.