Kapitan Cina

The origin of the office, under various different native titles, goes back to court positions in the precolonial states of Southeast Asia, such as the Sultanates of Malacca in the Malay Peninsula, the Sultanate of Banten in Java, and the Kingdom of Siam in mainland Southeast Asia. Many rulers assigned self-governance to local foreign communities, including the Chinese, under their own headmen. Often, these headmen also had responsibilities beyond their local communities, in particular in relation to foreign trade or tax collection. For example, Souw Beng Kong and Lim Lak Ko, the first two Kapiteins der Chinezen of Batavia, present-day Jakarta, started off as high-ranking courtiers and functionaries to the Sultans of Banten prior to their defection to the Dutch East India Company in the early seventeenth century. Similarly, the court title of Chao Praya Chodeuk Rajasrethi in Thailand under the early Chakri dynasty combined the roles of Chinese headman and head of the Department of Eastern Affairs and Commerce. In the late nineteenth century, Kapitan Cina Yap Ah Loy, arguably the founding father of modern Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, served as Chinese headman while holding the Malay court position of Sri Indra Perkasa Wijaya Bakti. ==Role in European colonialism==

, the 5th and last Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia When Europeans established colonial rule in Southeast Asia, this system of indirect rule was adopted: first by the Portuguese when they took over Malacca in 1511, then in subsequent centuries by the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies, as well as the British in British Malaya and Borneo. Over a century later, the Kapiteins of the kongsi republics in Borneo led their people in the so-called Kongsi Wars against Dutch colonial incursions from the late nineteenth until the early twentieth century. With the consolidation of colonial rule, the Kapitans became part of the civil bureaucracy in Portuguese, Dutch and British colonies. They exercised both executive and judicial powers over local Chinese communities under the colonial authorities. In British territories, the position lost its importance over time, gradually becoming an honorary rank for community leaders before its final abolition in the late nineteenth or the start of the twentieth century. In contrast, the position was consolidated and further elaborated in Dutch territories, and remained an important part of the Dutch colonial government until the Second World War and the end of colonialism. ==The institution in colonial Indonesia==

The institution of Kapitan Cina was most fully developed in colonial Indonesia, where an intricate hierarchy of Chinese officieren, or Chinese officers, was put in place by the Dutch authorities. The officers acted as Hoofden der Chinezen ('Heads of the Chinese'), that is as the legal and political administrators of the local Chinese community. As part of the Dutch policy of Indirect Rule, all the three racial castes in the Indies - Europeans, 'Foreign Orientals' and natives - had political and legal self-governance under the oversight of the Dutch government. They formed the so-called Cabang Atas, or the traditional Chinese establishment or gentry of colonial Indonesia. As a social class, they exerted a powerful social, economic and political influence on colonial life in Indonesia beyond the local Chinese community. In the early twentieth century, in keeping with their so-called 'Ethical Policy', the Dutch colonial authorities made concerted efforts to appoint Chinese officers and other government officials based on merit. Despite Dutch attempts at reforming the Chinese officership, the institution and the Cabang Atas as a traditional elite both came under attack from modernizing voices in the late colonial era. Their loss of prestige and respect within the local Chinese community led the Dutch colonial government to phase out the officership gradually all through the early twentieth century. Officerships were often left vacant when incumbents retired or died. The only exception, as noted by the historian Mona Lohanda, was the Chinese officership of Batavia, which was retained by the Dutch authorities thanks to its antiquity, pre-eminent position in the Chinese bureaucratic hierarchy and symbolic value to Dutch colonial authority. The institution came to an abrupt end with the Japanese invasion during the Second World War, and the death in 1945 of Khouw Kim An, the last Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia and the last serving Chinese officer in the Dutch colonial government. ==Titles==

Chinese officers in the Dutch East Indies used an elaborate system of styles and titles: • Padoeka ('your Excellency'): a Malay prefix used by Chinese officers • Twa Kongsi ('your Lordship' or 'my Lord'): used by Chinese officers • Twa Kongsi Nio ('your Ladyship' or 'my Lady'): used by the wives of Chinese officers • Kongsi and Kongsi Nio ('my Lord'; 'my Lady'): short form of the above or the styles of descendants of Chinese officers ==See also==