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Fort Rotterdam is a 17th-century
fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
in
Makassar Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Med ...
on the island of
Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...
in
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. It is a Dutch fort built on top of an existing fort of the
Gowa Kingdom The Sultanate of Gowa (sometimes written as ''Goa''; not to be confused with Goa in India) was one of the great kingdoms in the history of Indonesia and the most successful kingdom in the South Sulawesi region. People of this kingdom come fr ...
. The first fort on the site was constructed by the a local sultan in around 1634, to counter Dutch encroachments. The site was ceded to the Dutch under the
Treaty of Bongaya {{Use mdy dates, date=April 2012 The Treaty of Bongaya (also spelled Bongaja) was signed on November 18, 1667 between Sultan Hasanudin of Sultanate of Gowa, Gowa and the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This treaty was developed after Dutch imperial ...
, and they completely rebuilt it between 1673 and 1679. It had six bastions and was surrounded by a seven meter high rampart and a two meter deep moat. The fort was the Dutch regional military and governmental headquarters until the 1930s. It was extensively restored in the 1970s and is now a cultural and educational centre, a venue for music and dance events, and a tourist destination.


History

Fort Rotterdam was built on the location of an earlier Makassarese fort, called Ujung Pandang. It seems more likely that the fort was built in 1634, as part of a fortification programme that the Makassar rulers undertook in response to a war with the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
(VOC) which broke out in that year. The original fort, ''Jum Pandan'' (allegedly named after the pandanus trees growing in the vicinity), gave its name to the city
Ujung Pandang Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan ...
, another name for the city of Makassar. In 1667 Fort Ujung Pandang was ceded to the Dutch as part of the
Treaty of Bongaya {{Use mdy dates, date=April 2012 The Treaty of Bongaya (also spelled Bongaja) was signed on November 18, 1667 between Sultan Hasanudin of Sultanate of Gowa, Gowa and the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This treaty was developed after Dutch imperial ...
, after the defeat of the
Sultanate of Gowa The Sultanate of Gowa (sometimes written as ''Goa''; not to be confused with Goa in India) was one of the great kingdoms in the history of Indonesia and the most successful kingdom in the South Sulawesi region. People of this kingdom come fro ...
in the Makassar War. In subsequent years it was entirely rebuilt on the initiative of Dutch admiral
Cornelis Speelman Cornelis Janszoon Speelman (2 March 1628 – 11 January 1684) was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1681 to 1684. Cornelis Janszoon Speelman was the son of a Rotterdam merchant. He was born on 2 March 1628. In his 16th year, he left ...
, to become the center of Dutch colonial power in Sulawesi. It was renamed Fort Rotterdam after Speelman's
place of birth The place of birth (POB) or birthplace is the place where a person was born. This place is often used in legal documents, together with name and date of birth, to uniquely identify a person. Practice regarding whether this place should be a cou ...
. In the years 1673–1679 it got its five bastions and the 'turtle' shape it still has to this day. This shape gave the fort the nickname "''Benteng Penyu''" ("sea-turtle fort"). The stone for the construction of the fort was taken from the
karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...
mountains in
Maros Maros is a town in the South Sulawesi province of Indonesia close to the provincial capital of Makassar. It is the capital of the Maros Regency. Maros is the location of the Indonesian Cereals Research Institute, a branch of the Indonesian A ...
, the limestone from Selayar and the timber from Tanete and Bantaeng. Following the
Java War The Java War ( jv, ꦥꦼꦫꦁꦗꦮ) or Diponegoro War () was fought in central Java from 1825 to 1830, between the colonial Dutch Empire and native Javanese rebels. The war started as a rebellion led by Prince Diponegoro, a leading member ...
of 1825–1830, Javanese prince, and now
national hero The title of Hero is presented by various governments in recognition of acts of self-sacrifice to the state, and great achievements in combat or labor. It is originally a Soviet-type honor, and is continued by several nations including Belarus, Ru ...
,
Diponegoro Prince Diponegoro ( jv, ꦢꦶꦥꦤꦼꦒꦫ; born Bendara Raden Mas Mustahar, ; later Bendara Raden Mas Antawirya ; 11 November 1785 – 8 January 1855), also known as Dipanegara, was a Javanese prince who opposed the Dutch colonial rule. The e ...
was imprisoned in the fort following his exile to Makassar in 1830 until his death in 1855. It was also used as a Japanese prisoner of war camp in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Fort Rotterdam remained the regional Dutch military and governmental headquarters until the 1930s. After 1937, the fort was no longer used as a defense. During the brief Japanese occupation it was used for conducting scientific research in the field of linguistics and agriculture, after which it fell into disrepair. In the 1970s, the fort was extensively restored.


Description

Fort Rotterdam lies in the centre of Makassar. It is rectangular in shape, surrounded by a seven meter wall. It was originally equipped with six bulwarks, five of which are still visible: ''Bastion Bonie'' (after
Bone state Bone (also ''Boni'', or ''Bone Saoraja'') was a sultanate in the south-west peninsula of what is now Sulawesi (formerly Celebes), a province of modern-day Indonesia. It came under Dutch rule in 1905, and was succeeded by the Bone Regency. C ...
) to the west; ''Bastion Boeton'' (after
Buton Island Buton (also Butung, Boeton or Button) is an island in Indonesia located off the southeast peninsula of Sulawesi. It covers roughly 4,727 square kilometers in area, or about the size of Madura; it is the 129th largest island in the world and In ...
) to the northwest; ''Bastion Batjang'' (after the
Bacan Islands The Bacan Islands, formerly also known as the Bachans, Bachians, and Batchians, are a group of islands in the Moluccas in Indonesia. They are mountainous and forested, lying south of Ternate and southwest of Halmahera. The islands are administe ...
) to the southwest; ''Bastion Mandassar'' to the northeast; and ''Bastion Amboina'' (after
Ambon Ambon may refer to: Places * Ambon Island, an island in Indonesia ** Ambon, Maluku, a city on Ambon Island, the capital of Maluku province ** Governorate of Ambon, a colony of the Dutch East India Company from 1605 to 1796 * Ambon, Morbihan, a c ...
) to the southeast. The sixth bulwark, ''Bastion Ravelin'', is no longer visible. Some of the bastions still contain cannons. It is possible to walk over most of the ramparts. A two meter deep moat system used to surround the perimeter of the fort, however only the southwest portion of the moat can still be seen.


Current status

Inside the fort are thirteen buildings, eleven of them are 17th-century original buildings of the fort; most are still good in condition. At the centre of the fort is a church building. Several buildings along the north and south curtain walls still exist. The buildings along the northern curtain wall were some of the oldest buildings, dating from 1686, such as the residence of the governor, residence of the senior merchant, of the captain, the
predikant Predikant is a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. Predikant is the Afrikaans term for "pastor". The word 'predikant' is also used in the Dutch, West Frisian, Norwegian and Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or r ...
, and the secretary, with several storage buildings for weapons. The governor's residence at the north-westernmost corner is nicknamed as "the Speelman's House", however Speelman himself never actually lived in this house. The house was used by the governor of Celebes until the mid 19th-century when he moved to a more comfortable villa in Jalan Ahmad Yani. The Speelman's House now houses part of La Galigo museum. La Galigo museum has some prehistoric megaliths from
Watampone Watampone is a town in South Sulawesi and the capital of Bone Regency. Known colloquially as ''Bone'', it has a land area of 126.35 km2 and had a population of 149,336 at the 2020 Census.Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2021. It is divided administra ...
, as well as ancient weapons, coins, shells, utensils, sketches and stamps. The buildings on the south curtain, originally used for storage, house a museum displaying local skills in silk weaving, agriculture and boatbuilding; and scale models of indigenous boats. The barracks on the eastern wall now house a small library, featuring old Dutch books that mostly belonged to Reverend Mates, a 19th-century missionary. There are also ships' logs of VOC captains and ancient
lontar manuscripts Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia reportedly dating back to the 5th century BCE. Their use began in South Asia and sp ...
. The department of archaeology is housed in the former building of the head of administration for the VOC; the ground floor of the building, located in the southeast corner of the fort, was formerly a prison. The other two buildings inside Fort Rotterdam were built by the Japanese during the Japanese occupation period. The southwestern Bastion (Bastion Bacan) contains a prison where Prince
Diponegoro Prince Diponegoro ( jv, ꦢꦶꦥꦤꦼꦒꦫ; born Bendara Raden Mas Mustahar, ; later Bendara Raden Mas Antawirya ; 11 November 1785 – 8 January 1855), also known as Dipanegara, was a Javanese prince who opposed the Dutch colonial rule. The e ...
was imprisoned at the end of his life. The fort is now used to hold various events. There is a conservatory for music and dance, an archive of the city, and a historic and archaeological institute.


See also

*
Colonial architecture in Indonesia The colonial architecture of Indonesia refers to the buildings that were created across Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period, during that time, this region was known as the Dutch East Indies. These types of colonial era structures are more ...


References


Works cited

* * * * * * * {{refend
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
Buildings and structures in Makassar Buildings and structures in South Sulawesi
South Sulawesi South Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sula ...
South Sulawesi South Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sula ...
Installations of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Tourist attractions in South Sulawesi Buildings and structures associated with the Dutch East India Company