Tugu tour: Participants in the Kampung Tugu heritage tour enjoy their meals at a popular restaurant in North Jakarta. The five-hour tour also visited GPIB Tugu Church in Semper recently. The area is marked by Portuguese cultural heritage because of the Portuguese settlers in the 16th century. (JP/Seto Wardhana)

North Jakarta, known as a notoriously hot and dusty part of the capital, is not dull at all, at least for history enthusiasts.

The area holds the history of a community called the Mardijkers, Portuguese descendants sent by the Dutch as slaves to Batavia, present day Jakarta, more than 300 years ago when the archipelago was still a Dutch colony.

During a recent five-hour-tour of Kampung Tugu in the Koja subdistrict, participants had the opportunity to reminisce on the history of the community.

The migration of the Mardijkers began in 1641 when the Dutch took over Malacca from the Portuguese, who had occupied the area since 1511, explained Arthur Michiels, a Mardijkers descendant and Kampung Tugu resident.

After the conquest of Malacca, the Dutch had not been interested in turning the region into a trading center because it had established Batavia as its administrative center.

'€œThe Dutch decided to send the Portuguese residing in Malacca to Batavia and forced them to work as slaves,'€ explained Michiels during the tour.

However, literature states that the Mardijkers were slaves from Portugese conquered territories including India, Africa and the Malay peninsula.

In 1653, the Mardijkers were set free; told to abandon their Portuguese traditions, to convert to Protestantism from Catholicism and to use a Dutch-sounding name. They were then given a scrap of land located 10 kilometers east of old Batavia.

Michiels said that his ancestor'€™s name had been changed from Titus Michielsz to Titus Van Bengalan '€” the last name also suggests that he had Indian blood.

The old Tugu church has also changed. The church was built by a Dutch priest named Mechilor Leydecker in 1678 as a Catholic church before being modified into a Protestant church.

Andre Michiels, Arthur'€™s older brother, said that today the Mardijkers were married into different ethnic groups such as Javanese, adding that he had married a lady from Surakarta in Central Java.

During the tour, visitors could also enjoy various traditions that the Mardijkers families still retain to this day, such as a particular cuisine and music called kerontjong. Both the food and the entertainment were provided at Andre'€™s house, a house which was built by his great grandparents 250 years ago. The house is now considered to be an icon of the Mardijkers community and is preserved by the city administration.

Andre said kerontjong played by the Mardijkers was slightly different from that which was found in mainland Java.

'€œThe pitch of our kerontjong is not as high as the one from Java. The melody is also faster,'€ he told The Jakarta Post.

Besides learning about the Mardijkers in Kampung Tugu, participants of the tour also had the chance to have a look around Tanjung Priok train station.

The station, opened in 1925 by the Dutch colonial, was initially used to transport goods and people from Batavia to other cities in Java. Currently, the station is mostly used to distribute goods while passengers are transported via Kota train station, also known as Beos.

'€œI joined this tour program because I love history and photography. I may also join the next program because I want to sharpen my perspective of the country'€™s history,'€ said Santo Aboeprajitno, a retiree.

Indra Wihodo, who organized the program, said that, to enable participants to explore the history of other parts of the capital and surrounding cities such as Bandung in West Java, they were thinking of opening other programs very soon.

The tour fee differs from one program to another. The Kampung Tugu program, for example, costs Rp 280,000 (US$21.30) for each participant. The group can be reached on their Twitter account @desadedream.

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