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Book talk | The Christian slaves of Depok: A colonial tale unravels
18/11/2021 @ 16:30 - 18:00
This book recounts the little-known history of Cornelis Chastelein, a high-ranking official of the Dutch East India Company and the 150-200 enslaved people he purchased from slave markets around South-East Asia to work his landed estates in the Batavian (Jakarta) hinterlands. It traces the making and unravelling of his dream to create a self-sustaining Christian community of freed slaves amid a Muslim stronghold. To this end, on his death on 28 June 1714, he freed most of his slaves and bequeathed those who had embraced Christianity, his 1244-hectare Depok estate in “collective ownership”.
With author Dr. Nonja Peters (Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands / John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University, Western Australia and discussants Prof. Dr. Leonard Blussé van Oud Alblas (Leiden University) & Prof. Dr. Fridus Steijlen (VU / KITLV).