Ambon — also Amboina — is the island in the Dutch East Indies that was the homeland of Oom Ambon, the Ambonese professional soldier of the K.N.I.L.. In Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. Ambon is the place to which the Ambonese soldier returned on verlof (leave), the place whose negorij took pride in his decorations, and the place to which the retired soldiers — Thijs de Fretes, Nussy — returned after their service. The island is also the place of the mass arrest of 23 September 1943 by the Kempetei during the Japanese occupation, and the place of the post-1949 *Republik Maluku Selatan]] — the unilateral declaration of independence of the South Moluccas by the Ambonese soldiers who refused to be handed over to the unitary Republic.
The recruitment island
“In Ambon en de Minahassa was dit volkomen anders. Daar was het militaire beroep in hoog aanzien en het dienstnemen volkomen normaal, zelfs een eervolle daad.” In Ambon and the Minahassa, the military profession was in high esteem and joining up was completely normal, even an honourable deed. Ambon was therefore one of the two principal recruitment islands of the colonial army’s indigenous soldaten — the place where the negorij took pride in its soldiers, and where the M.W.O. Ridder was the pride of his community.
The verlof and the negorij
The Ambonese soldier returned to Ambon on verlof (leave) — normally after six years’ service, for two months. “Slechts één maal is hij in die veertig jaar met een kort verlof naar Ambon geweest” — Dominee Thenu visited Ambon only once on short leave in his forty years of service. The negorij — the home village on Ambon — tracked the soldier’s wedervaren through the gehele Archipel, and his decoration was worn at the Koninginnedag rondgang. “Komt men in Nederland na twintig jaar vrijwel als een vreemde in zijn geboortestad, dáár kon een achterkleinzoon na een eeuw thuiskomen” — where in the Netherlands one returns after twenty years almost as a stranger to one’s birthplace, there a great-grandchild could come home after a century.
The post-retirement return
The retired Ambonese soldiers returned to Ambon. Thijs de Fretes — the sergeant 1e klasse of the 6e Divisie Marechaussee at Bakongan — “had op Ambon een grote doeriantuin, die hem nog een aardig centje opleverde” — had a large doerian plantation on Ambon that still brought him a nice penny. Nussy — after his retirement and a visit to the Netherlands with a controleur — became mantri-politie on Ambon under the civil bestuur of his former commander, the Assistent-Resident Schmidt.
The Japanese occupation and the mass arrest
The Japanese occupation of 1942-1945 was particularly harsh on Ambon. The Kempetei conducted the mass arrest of 23 September 1943 on Ambon, in which large numbers of the Ambonese elite were seized and many executed. Pietje de Fretes — the fourier and later onderluitenant, nephew of Thijs de Fretes — was beheaded by the Japanese during the occupation.
The Republik Maluku Selatan
The transfer of sovereignty of 27 December 1949 triggered the *Republik Maluku Selatan]] — the unilateral declaration of independence of the South Moluccas by the Ambonese soldiers who refused to be handed over to the unitary Republic. The declaration was the political consequence of the abandonment: the Ambonese soldiers who had served the Dutch and were now to be handed over to their enemy refused, and declared their own state. The Republik Maluku Selatan would be crushed by the Indonesian army in 1950-1952.
Significance
Ambon is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the homeland of Oom Ambon, the Ambonese professional soldier of the K.N.I.L.. The book’s argument is that Ambon — the recruitment island, the verlof destination, the negorij of the decorated soldiers, the post-retirement return, the site of the Japanese mass arrest, and the place of the Republik Maluku Selatan — was the island that gave the colonial army its Ambonese soldaten, and the island to which the abandoned soldiers of 1949 looked for a political future the Dutch had not provided.
Account from DLP-84-Atjeh — Ambonese fusiliers and the Christian soldiery
The DLP-84-Atjeh pamphlet records that the inhabitants of Ambon — the Ambonese (Ambonezen) — were recruited as Christian soldiers (Ambonese soldiers) by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and later served in the colonial forces in Atjeh. Ambonese troops formed a significant component of the Dutch colonial army, often serving as fusiliers (infantrymen) and participating in campaigns such as the one led by General Van Heutsz.
The source notes that the Ambonese soldiers were gehecht aan hun godsdienst (attached to their religion), and that their Christian identity brought them closer to the Dutch — the cultural-religious affinity that underlay the role of the soldier-pastors Ds. Thenu and Pastoor Verbraak in tending to their spiritual needs.
See Also
- Oom Ambon
- Negorij
- Minahassa
- Thijs de Fretes
- Nussy
- Schmidt
- Pietje de Fretes
- Jappentijd (Japanese occupation, 1942-1945)
- Mass arrest of 23 September 1943 (Ambon)
- Kempetei
- Souvereiniteitsoverdracht (27 December 1949)
- K.N.I.L.
- Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen
- Dutch East India Company
- Ambonese soldiers
- Ambonese fusiliers
- Atjeh
- Dominee Thenu
- Pastoor Verbraak
- General Van Heutsz
- Aceh War
Source
Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapters “Van recruut tot pensioen,” “Dominee Thenu,” “Thijs,” “De colonne Schmidt,” and the closing chapters on the Indonesian revolution.
DLP-84-Atjeh.pdf, pp. 4-5.