Cabang Atas

The Cabang Atas — literally 'highest branch' in Malay — was the traditional Chinese establishment or gentry of colonial Indonesia. As a privileged social class, they exerted a powerful influence on the political, economic and social life of pre-revolutionary Indonesia, in particular on its local Chinese community.

The phrase 'Cabang Atas' was first used by the colonial Indonesian historian Liem Thian Joe in his book Riwajat Semarang (published in 1933). The term refers to the baba bangsawan: a small group of gentry families that dominated the colonial mandarinate (see 'Kapitan Cina'), owned extensive agricultural landholdings and monopolised the government's lucrative revenue farms.

As a class, the oldest families of the Cabang Atas traced their roots in Indonesia back to early Chinese allies of the Dutch East India Company, many of whom — such as Souw Beng Kong, first Kapitein der Chinezen of Batavia (1580-1644); or the sons of Han Siong Kong (1673-1743), founder of the Han family of Lasem — played an instrumental role in establishing Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some families came of gentry stock in China, but many more started off as successful merchant families. They shared some common traits with the scholar-gentry of Imperial China, but accumulated much greater dynastic wealth thanks partly to the protection of Dutch colonial law.

The foundation of their political power was their near-hereditary control of the bureaucratic posts of Majoor, Kapitein and Luitenant der Chinezen. This gave them a high degree of political and legal jurisdiction over the local Chinese community. By colonial Indonesian tradition, descendants of Chinese officers bore the hereditary title Sia.

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