The Chinese commercial elite of Medan, 1890-1942: the Penang connection
Dirk A. Buiskool’s 2009 article examines the Chinese commercial elite of Medan, East Sumatra, from 1890 to 1942, arguing that the Penang connection—through business partnerships, educational orientation, and linguistic ties—was the defining structural feature of this community’s integration into the broader Straits Settlements economic sphere rather than the Dutch colonial interior. The study centres on the Tjong brothers (Tjong Yong Hian and Tjong A Fie) while broadening to a wider cohort of entrepreneurs who shared this Straits-oriented profile.
Summary
The article traces the rise of the Chinese commercial elite in Medan against the backdrop of the Deli plantation boom, which began with tobacco in the 1860s and expanded into rubber and palm oil. The Tjong brothers, originally from Mei Hsien, Guangdong, arrived as coolie contract overseers and built vast empires spanning real estate, revenue farming, banking, plantations, shipping, and even a railway in South China. Their success rested on a tripartite strategy: cooperation with the Dutch colonial government (which granted them the title of Chinese Officer and commercial privileges), alliances with indigenous sultans, and international Chinese networks centred on Penang, Singapore, and Amoy. Buiskool draws on the Javasche Bank archive, colonial administrative memoranda, and oral history interviews to reconstruct the specific business arrangements—revenue farm bids, bank shareholdings, shipping lines, and joint ventures—that bound these men together.
The article then broadens its scope to other prominent figures: Khoe Tjin Tek (timber, housing, banking), Tan Tang Ho and his son Tan Boen An (provisions and import trade), Oei Soei Boe (salt and arak monopolies), Hiu Ngi Fen (pharmaceuticals and trading), Thio Siong Soe (coconut oil and rubber), and Chang Pu Ching (real estate, plantations, and Chinese consular service). Each maintained strong ties to Penang or Singapore through business partners, educational institutions, or family connections. The Penang connection manifested in three key dimensions: trade (Medan’s commerce was oriented toward the Straits rather than Java, with Chinese middlemen prioritising Straits creditors over local ones), education (English-language schooling was preferred over Dutch, with teachers recruited from Penang and the Anglo-Chinese School in Medan directly linked to its Penang counterpart), and language (Hokkien, the same dialect spoken in Penang, became the lingua franca of Medan’s Chinese community, unlike in other parts of Sumatra where Cantonese or Teochew dominated).
A further thread concerns the totok/peranakan distinction. In East Sumatra, unlike Java, the China-born totok remained the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population well into the 1930s, and the commercial elite were predominantly totok who maintained strong cultural and political ties to China while simultaneously serving the colonial administration. Buiskool notes that the more progressive Chinese in Medan were typically those who spoke English and originated from Singapore or Penang, while Indonesia-born peranakan Chinese tended to work in larger shops rather than lead the commercial elite.
Key Findings
- Between 1870 and 1933, approximately 300,000 Chinese migrated to Deli to work on plantations (p. 114).
- Tjong A Fie acquired the opium revenue farm for Sumatra’s east coast at ƒ110,000 per month in 1894, rising to ƒ161,500 per month in 1905; the monopoly system was abolished on the east coast in 1918 (pp. 115–116).
- The Swatow railway in South China, operational in 1906, was the first railroad built and financed by overseas Chinese; Tjong Yong Hian and Tjong A Fie each invested 1,000,000 taels, with Thio Tiauw Siat and others contributing the remainder (p. 116).
- The Deli Bank was established in 1907 with Thio Tiauw Siat as the largest investor (ƒ200,000), followed by Tjong Yong Hian (ƒ150,000) and Tjong A Fie (ƒ100,000) (p. 116).
- In 1926, only 200 of 1,400 Chinese pupils in East Sumatra attended Dutch-language schools, reflecting the community’s preference for English-medium education (p. 123).
- In 1930, 75 per cent of Chinese in the outer provinces (including East Sumatra) were China-born totok or first-generation singkeh; the totok-to-peranakan ratio in East Sumatra was approximately 4:1 (p. 124).
Conclusion
Buiskool’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Medan Chinese elite were “loyal to two masters”—serving the colonial government through revenue farming, political representation, and infrastructure development while simultaneously supporting their homeland China through donations, diplomatic service, and cultural patronage. The Penang connection was not merely one thread among many but the structural backbone of the community’s commercial, educational, and linguistic orientation, making Medan’s Chinese elite more integrated into the Straits Settlements world than into the Dutch colonial interior.
Context
- Primary archival sources include the Javasche Bank archive (Levensbeschrijving Tjong A Fie), the Ministerie van Koloniën (ARA), and multiple Memorie van overgave (MvO) documents held at KITLV, supplemented by oral history interviews conducted in Medan during the 1990s with descendants and community members.
- Historiographically, the article extends Buiskool’s earlier monograph on Tjong A Fie (1999) by situating the Tjong brothers within a broader network of Medan Chinese entrepreneurs and explicitly foregrounding the Penang connection as a structural feature of the community rather than a biographical detail.