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Depok

City in West Java, Indonesia

  • 7 min read
  • 9 chapters
Tangkapan gambar Balai Kota Depok yang diambil dari lapangan balai kota di lingkungan Balai Kota Depok, Jawa Barat.
Wikikancil02 · CC BY 4.0

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History

There are two possible origins of the name 'Depok'. The first suggests that the region was already known as Depok when the land was purchased by Cornelis Chastelein, a senior official in the Dutch East India Company, on 18 May 1696. The purchased land measured about 12.44 km2, approximately 6.2% of the current area of Depok. Aside from establishing plantations with the help of the local inhabitants, Chastelein was also engaged in missionary work, introducing Christianity to the local population. He founded a local congregation named De Eerste Protestante Organisatie van Christenen (DEPOC), and in the 1950s, some members of the Depok community in the Netherlands claimed that this acronym influenced the modern name of the city. An alternative explanation is that the name derives from the Indonesian word padepokan (Hermitage), as the site had previously been used as a religious retreat.

Before his death on 28 June 1714, Chastelein wrote a will that freed the enslaved families of Depok and granted them pieces of his land, transforming them into landowners. Therefore, the 12 slave families became landowners (forever as given to them with entitlement deeds of Chastelein himself in his will) and freed men, women, and their children. The freed slaves are also referred to as the Mardijker's – and it originated from the word *Merdeka* or freedom in Bahasa Indonesia. Therefore, June 28 has been designated as Depokse Dag (Depok Day) by the descendants of the original Depok family, and on 28 June 2014, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Chastelein's will, they erected a 3-meter-high monument on their land, but the city government at the time prohibited it, citing its association with Dutch colonial history.

The 12 original Depok family names are:

  • Bacas
  • Isakh
  • Jacob
  • Jonathans
  • Joseph
  • Laurens
  • Leander
  • Loen
  • Sadokh
  • Samuel
  • Soedira
  • Tholense

The original slave families of Depok are of Balinese, Ambonese, Buginese, Sundanese and Portuguese Indo, i.e., Mestizo and Mardijker descent. Isakh, Jacob, Jonathans, Joseph, and Samuel were family names baptized by Chastelein after the slave families converted to Protestant Christianity. The other families retained their original names and might have been (Roman Catholic) Christian already before joining Chastelein's Protestant church. Descendants of the original Depok families with the exception of the Sadokh family, still live in Indonesia, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada and the United States.

In 1871, the colonial government granted Depok a special status (Gemeente), allowing the area to establish its own local government headed by a council leader (President). This local governance ended in 1952, when the Depok administration transferred its authority to the Indonesian government, except for certain territories.

During the Bersiap (Indonesian civil war and war for independence from The Netherlands) period of 1945, Depok experienced violence, and some of its inhabitants were killed by the local youth groups (Pemuda). The instability caused by the Indonesian War of Independence led to several of the original Depok families to flee the town. Many of the surviving families later settled in the Netherlands and various other countries as part of the broader Indo community.

In March 1982, Depok was reclassified as an administrative city within Bogor Regency. On 20 April 1999, the city of Depok merged with some neighbouring districts of Bogor Regency to form an autonomous city, independent of the Regency, with an area of 199.91 km2. This date is commemorated as Depok's official establishment date.

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