Fatahillah, the Jakarta History Museum

Just close to the main station, walking to the northwest direction, we encounter a relatively old building located in the area measuring by 1300 square meters known as Fatahillah Museum, also known as Jakarta History Museum or the Museum of Batavia. It seems that the conservation of the museum has been long neglected but now the condition becomes better as it is undergoing the major renovation.

This building was once the Stadhuis built in the early 18th century. The City Hall building was consisting of the main building with two wings in the east and west as well as side buildings used as offices, courtrooms, and underground spaces were once used as a prison. In 1974, the building was later inaugurated as Fatahillah Museum.

Building architecture was of the 17th century Baroque-style classic with three ground floors with yellow paint, while windows and door frames were made of dark green teak wood. The main roof has a pointer part in every wind direction.

Jakarta History Museum building was built in 1620 by Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the then governor general, as the second City Hall in 1626 (the first one was built in 1620 near the east of Kalibesar). At that time, the building was only single-stage while the second-floor was built later.

Only around 20 years later the building was in very bad condition. Jakarta’s soil is very unstable and the weight of the building made it slightly tilted. The easy solution at that time was raising the floor about half a meter. In 1649, apart the floor was excavated to build five underground cells. The dungeons were used by the Dutch to keep prisoners including Prince Diponegoro before he was removed to Makassar in 1830. There had been rooms added in the east and west sides of the main building, and improvements and changes continued to be carried out until it took the form we see today.

This building was once used as the Raad van Justitie (judiciary council), and later on, the building was used as the West Java Provincial Government Office in the year of 1925 to 1942. In the era of Japanese occupation, the Japanese converted the building to become the warehouse. After independence, it became the City Military Command headquarters, which later became the West Jakarta District Military Command. In 1968 the building was submitted to the Government of Jakarta and was inaugurated as the Jakarta History Museum in 1974.

Collections

Its collections were amounting to 23,500 pieces inherited from the Old Batavia Museum, as the result of the Government procurement efforts and donations of individuals and institutions. Collections on display are more than 500 pieces, others are kept in the storage. The age of the collections is as old as 1500 years especially those related to people's lives such as prehistoric tools and a good variety of materials including metal, stone, wood, glass, crystal, earthenware, ceramic, porcelain, cloth, leather, paper and bone.

Other collections include the history of Jakarta, replicas of relics of the Tarumanegara and Pajajaran kingdoms, the findings of archaeological excavations in Jakarta, antique furniture from the 17th century until the 19th, which were the fusion of European style, People's Republic of China, and Indonesia. There are also ceramics, pottery, and stone inscriptions. The collection is available at several rooms, such as Prehistoric, Tarumanegara, Jayakarta, Fatahillah, Sultan Agung and MH Thamrin Rooms.

There are also various collections of Betawi culture, numismatic, and pedicabs. Among the interesting collections are the old cannon (Jagur) which some superstitious people believe to have magical powers, prehistoric community equipment, inscription and weapons, the statue of Hermes (removed from the Harmony intersection where it was once put there as the bridge ornament), the sword of execution, old furniture and painting of VOC and the Dutch East Indies Governor-General from 1602 to 1942. The collections were periodically carried out in rotation so that all items could be enjoyed by visitors. To enrich the museum collections, the directors called for the public, individuals, and institutions to lend or donate their properties to the museum.

Since 2001 the museum held annual seminars on the nature of the museum, both national and international scale, discussing, among others, the existence of the museum as viewed from various aspects. To reconstruct the history of past events, especially court for criminals and suspected persons, in some occasions, we can see some improvisations about the implementation of the court at the same time understand the condition around the 17th century.

Sunda Kelapa, An Old Lively Traditional Port

Just 15 kilometers at the western part of Tanjung Priok, we can find an old port of Sunda Kelapa. Today it serves as the anchoring spot for sailing ships, especially Bugis phinisi bringing wood and logs mostly from Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua. In turn, the sailing ships are loaded with cement, iron bars and other imported products to the various parts of Indonesia. It is indeed an amazing view as we can see so many masts in front of us as though we live a couple hundred years ago.

History

Sunda Kelapa has already been well-known since the 12th century. During that period, it became a busy port of Hindu kingdom of Pajajaran in West Java, selling pepper and spices. Foreign ships coming from China, Japan, South India, and Arabic already docked at the port carrying goods such as porcelain, coffee, silk cloths, perfumes, horses, wine, and coloring substance in exchange for spices, the wealth of the homeland at that time.

In 1522, the Portuguese Governor Alfonso d'Albuquerque, whose home base was in Malacca, sent Henrique Leme to attend the invitation of the king of Sunda to build a fort at Sunda Kelapa against the expansive people of Cirebon.

So on August 21, 1522, both the Portuguese and Sunda king made an agreement saying that the Portuguese could construct a castle at the Sunda Kelapa, while the king and his people would receive the necessary goods. In turn, Sunda king had to give the Portuguese 1000 baskets of pepper as a sign of friendship annually. A memorial stone or Padrão became the means to commemorate the event. Padrão stone was rediscovered in 1918 at the corner of Prinsenstraat (today it is called Jalan Cengkeh) in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, Demak kingdom had become the center of Islamic power politically. Realizing that the port was a good stepping ground to develop one’s power, and with the aim to eliminate Hindu religion and strengthen Moslem kingdom, Demak and Cirebon military personnel, headed by Fatahillah alias Sunan Gunung Jati, attacked Sunda Kelapa and occupied it on June 22, 1527, the day considered as the birthday of Jakarta. Being occupied, the name was changed into Jayakarta which means the real victory.

The occupation did not last long, however. Dutch colonials under Jan Pieterzoon Coen, destroyed it in 1619, on which he founded Batavia and enlarged it to the southern and eastern parts with Tanjung Priok as its port. This port was getting important because the silting process at the estuary of Ciliwung River made Sunda Kelapa become too shallow for extra-large galleons from Europe to the harbor.

In the 19th century, the area around Sunda Kelapa, in which the Dutch elite lived, became very unhealthy and they removed to the Batavia, and the port was relatively neglected. But in 1817 the Dutch government improved the port by extending its canal from 810 meters to become 1,825 meters.

After Indonesia independence, Sunda Kelapa was improved and enlarged. The canal was made deeper and longer. Following the improvement, the then Jakarta governor, Ali Sadikin, issued a decree, in 1974, stating that the name Sunda Kelapa was officially used.

Today’s Condition
Currently, the port of has a land area of 760 hectares, and water pond area of 16,470 hectares, with the main harboring space at Kalibaru, which has a length of 3,250 meters and 1,200 meters wide to accommodate 70 sailing ships.

From the economic point of view, this port is strategically close to the trading centers in Jakarta, such as Glodok, Pasar Pagi, Mangga Dua, and others. As inter-island port, Sunda Kelapa is still visited by sailing ships of around 175 tons.
Goods transported from this port are the staple food in addition to grocery items and textiles. For development outside of Java Island, Sunda Kelapa also delivers building materials such as iron and cement.

All of the ships are traditional sailing boats coming from all traditional ports throughout the archipelago. Bugis and Madurese are famous for their ability as traditional sailors since olden times. Loading and unloading of goods at the port are still using traditional means and this why the port does not have any international certificates. Sunda Kelapa is also called the Fish Market Port because there is a fish market inside the area, where the newly caught fishes are auctioned every morning.

Why Declines?
Why does Sunda Kelapa decline? That the old and prosperous port finally declined and the newly constructed Tanjung Priok grew into a big port even at the international level, this must be traced back to the era of Dutch colonial, where they considered that Sunda Kelapa was not able to accommodate European galleons coming here to buy pepper and spices.

They constructed Tanjung Priok as the new port of Batavia, the newly built city under Jan Pieterzoon Coen in 1619, and since then trading activities were removed to this new port. It had a deeper pond as compared to Sunda Kelapa’s and therefore could accommodate big galleons coming from Europe.

The construction and opening of Sues Canal in 1869 made more galleons come to Tanjung Priok with ever-increasing tonnage and the estimated capacity amounting to 1,000 tons made them difficult to the harbor at Sunda Kelapa but easy to anchor at Tanjung Priok, accelerating its development. The invention of the steam-ships, which all harbored at Tanjung Priok, was another blow for Sunda Kelapa.

Important Buildings

Indonesian Maritime Museum has located here in which it keeps nautical equipment, replicas of Indonesian sailing boats, pictures from olden kingdoms up to the present day era.

Another building is the watchtower. It was built in 1839 with the main aim to monitor/control the ships that docked in the port of Sunda Kelapa. The wide and open view from the top of the tower made the job of the watchmen easier.
The tower is now leaning because the soggy soil is not able to support the big building, especially from the past. The leaning process goes on, around one centimeter annually. Jakarta officials have cemented and strengthened the foundation of the building, but it is of little value to re-erect the building.

Jakarta, the Old and New

Jakarta at the intersection of past and present, a blending of a metropolitan and big village. It is not merely related to the old and new in terms of parts of the city regions but also in terms of trading and architectural constructions.

The city has a long history starting from its foundation in 1527. As early as the beginning of the 17th century, the city had a nice central business district (old CBD) around Jalan Kali Besar Barat stretching from Glodok to Sunda Kelapa port, in the western corner of the city, covering the distance of 2 kilometers long.

The Old Batavia Map

The spices were obviously the main commodities traded in this area during that period. Dutch galleons at Sunda Kelapa port brought these commodities to Europe and funds gained from the trading were used to establish a lot of companies in that area.

The harbor was located at Onrust, an island in Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand islands) around 15 km off the city port. The island has been named Onrust which means “unrest” because at that time the activities were done uninterruptible from dawn to dusk.

One of the important sites leading to the foundation of Jakarta is Sunda Kelapa, a nice 15 hectares trading harbors managed by the local ruler. Fatahillah, the Sultan of Demak, Central Java, who understood its strategic location, led an army of Demak attacked and occupied it in 1526. Its name was replaced with Jayakarta -city of victory on June 22, 1527, the date which finally was considered as the birthday of the city. After national independence, Batavia was changed to Jakarta, the shortening of Jayakarta.

The Dutch East India Company who kept eye on a strategic stepping stone into which they could enter into the island of Java attacked it in 1619, led by Jan Pieterzoon Coen. In the year 1620 above the ruins of Jayakarta, the Dutch built a new city under the name of Batavia.

Indigenous people dubbed as Betawi (derived from Batavianen) actually were descendants of mixed blood people of different tribes and nations. The city of Batavia in 1635 expanded to the west of the river above the former town of Jayakarta.

The city was complete with a system designed for defense in the form of walls and trenches around it. Due to urban planning, it was divided into blocks separated by canals. Batavia city development was completed in 1650. After the Japanese occupation in 1942, Batavia was renamed "Jakarta".

Today, areas considered as an old city are Sunda Kelapa, Fish Market, Luar Batang, Kali Besar, Fatahillah Park, and Glodok. The total width of the Old City was about 139 hectares. This area was the beginning of the future development of the city since the 14th century.

In the 18th century, this city was enlarged further to the south side of the area in the Fatahillah Park and Glodok now. As an old city, Jakarta has inherited its legacy of a past history of the old buildings with European and Chinese architecture from the 17th to early 20th century. This old town has been preserved as the area of restoration.

Jakarta governor has issued a decree that the total of more than 200 buildings, is under the care of Jakarta government. Any improvements in those buildings must get a special permit of the governor. Only after that, the improvement can be carried out but it must not change either the style or characteristics of those buildings. Today Jakarta has a new CBD located at Sudirman-Thamrin triangle, where various high rise buildings are located.