| At the end of the 18th century, the oversea Chinese in Batavia (now the Indonesian capital of Jakarta) which is under the rule of Holland colonial government established their own semi-autonomous agency---Batavia Tribunal. Batavia Tribunal deals with the Chinese affairs autonomously, and at the same time, it also records the Batavia Chinese traces of activities in the history book, leaving behind a lot of historical documents---Batavia Tribunal archives---on the Batavia Chinese situation.The archives are the precious first-hand materials recording all aspects of Batavia Chinese social life from 1787-1940. These archives are rare important historical materials reflecting the historical truth from the disadvantaged Chinese groups and opposing to the traditional west central theory when the academia do the research on the history of Southeast Asia (especially overseas Chinese history). Book of Public Cases is the largest, the most systematic and the most complete archives among the Batavia Tribunal. Based on the first to fifth series of the Book of Public Cases which is newly published in the past few years and has not yet widely used in academia, the thesis comparatively analyzes the Chinese economic cases recorded in the archives in 1787-1848 to reflect the true faces of oversea Chinese society and analyze the relations between Chinese and colonial rulers and the relations between Chinese and indigenous people. Through these economic cases, we can clearly understand Batavia Chinese economic depression and sluggish business in that period, and at the same time, the Chinese economic situation is lower and many Chinese people lived in poverty. Gambling was prevalent and the consumption and trafficking of opium was in serious condition. During this period, affected by the local social development, Batavia Tribunal turned into a civil supervision department without jurisdiction from the original independent administrative judiciary agency. Contract revenue is the important way of Batavia Chinese businessmen's capital accumulation, which also leads to disputes between Chinese businessmen and the colonial authorities, Chinese businessmen and lower Chinese classes. And it is the main reason for the conflicts between Batavia Chinese and the local indigenous people. |
