The Makassar Malays - Cambridge Journals

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heather sutherland
numbered over 3,750: a generally modest increase compared with the rapid growth between 1685
and 1697. While this early census material provides us with rudimentary information, we need
more if we are to have some image of Malay neighbourhoods. Such information is only sporadically
available.
Fires were one of the most devastating events in Makassar’s urban life, and descriptions give us
some insight into settlement patterns. In 1679 a great fire, fanned by a strong sea wind, destroyed
eighty houses in Vlaardingen, including the living quarters of two Moor-Malays, Ince Buang and
Ince Tengah, sons of the famous merchant, Mapulle. Their compound consisted of four large
houses, and assorted small dwellings where their people lived. 48 The many slaves and debtbondsmen
were expected to earn their own living; some occupations – cooking coconut oil, baking
sweets for sale in the market – were high fire-risk activities. After the Vlaardingen compound was
burnt out, this ‘great rabble’ moved into the Moorish quarter between the beach and the Kampung
Bugis. Here, in August 1680, their enterprises triggered a new fire which destroyed 150 houses,
including their whole compound, much of the Wajorese area and part of the kampung for Moors
and Bugis. 49
Over a hundred years later, on 6 August 1791, another fire swept through the Kampung
Melayu, destroying it completely. The Dutch authorities saw this as an opportunity to improve town
security, and contemplated resettling all Malays in Kampung Baru, south of the castle. This would
involve the removal of 38 ‘kampung’ (used here in the sense of compounds belonging to individual
extended families), of which just more than half were actually Malay-owned. 50 It was reckoned that
these thirty-eight compounds comprised at least 300 houses, and accommodated 2,300 or 2,400
people. 51
Since the total non-European population of Makassar in that year (1791) was 4,934, 52 about
half the town would have had to be re-housed. The densely settled Chinese street was not involved in
this plan, nor were the more peripheral kampung. It is, therefore, likely that a very high proportion
of the ‘Malay’ population lived in the twenty Malay-owned compounds considered for removal.
Since they probably varied in size from poor clusters of a few huts to large complexes, it is not
possible to be precise, but many compounds could have consisted of more than ten houses, with
dozens of inhabitants. If this was so, then it illustrates probable patterns of dependency, with
dominant patrons sheltering many clients. However, the ethnic mix of compound ownership (not
to mention their undoubtedly even more heterogeneous inhabitants) warns us against any assumed
congruence between formal classification and social reality. The relocation plan was submitted to
the VOC High Government in Batavia, which rejected it as impossible, given the scale of
resettlement required. 53
The Dutch regarded the integration of the Malays and Chinese into town life as important, for
both economic and security reasons. In 1728, for example, Governor Gobius noted that the Malays
could muster 265 armed men, capable of turning out in ‘good order, under the command of their
48 VOC 1358 f. 295, 1403 f. 254.
49 VOC 1365 f. 449.
50 Five compounds were along the beach to the west of Vlaardingen’s wall; four of these belonged to Malays and one to
a Chinese. Of the sixteen compounds stretching from the sea along Vlaardingen’s northern wall seven were owned by
Malays, two by Chinese, two by Makassarese aristocrats, one by a prominent mestizo family, and four by other
Sulawesians. Two of the seventeen remaining ‘kampung’ belonged to the Kapitan Melayu, nine were held by other Malays,
and the rest by other Sulawesians.
51 ARNAS Mak. 289/2. References in this format refer to documents from the Makassar collection, in the Arsip
Nasional, Jakarta.
52 VOC 3939 f. 80.
53 ARNAS Mak. 289/2.