A painting by an anonymous painter depicting the Batavia massacre.

Filling a gap in history

What is worth mentioning that the account in the Kai Ba Lidai Shiji of the Batavia massacre is much more detailed than any other Chinese accounts.

The author traces the roots of the massacre all the way back to 1619, when the Dutch occupied Jakarta, and changed its name to Batavia. In the early days of Dutch Batavia, residents were scarce and the city needed a large number of workers, shop assistants, bakers and undertakers and Chinese took these jobs.

The Chinese and Dutch colonists lived in the city peacefully for a century, but the Dutch colonial powers required the Chinese to carry registration papers, deporting those who did not comply. The massacre was triggered by a rumor claiming deportees were not being taken to Ceylon to work in the sugar plantations as claimed but were instead being thrown overboard once the ships carrying them were out of sight of Java. The Chinese, who had long fermented grievances against the Dutch began to gather around Batavia. In October 1740, the colonists, fearing a response from inside the city, started slaughtering Chinese, killing more than 8,000. Blussé pays a great deal of attention to the description as he says that the details accord closely to those he saw in files in the Dutch archives