The History Behind The Fatahillah Museum

The History Behind The Fatahillah Museum​

by Mochammad Sultan Zahan

The Fatahillah Museum is located at the Old Town area, Pinangsia, West Jakarta. This museum was built in 1620 and served as a town hall by the Governor of Dutch Jan Pieterszoon Coen. Fatahillah Museum has an area of more than 1300 square meters and was built in a Neoclassical style with door and window frames made up from dark green colour. After experiencing several changes in function, this building was finally designated as the Jakarta History Museum on March 30, 1974, or better known as the Fatahillah Museum by the Governor of Jakarta Ali Sidikin.

To improve its performance and appearance, since 1999, the Fatahillah Museum has been determined to make this museum not just a place to treat and exhibit objects from the Batavian period, but also to be a place for all people, both Indonesian and foreign, children, adults and even for people with disabilities, to add knowledge and experience and can be enjoyed as a place of recreation.

The Fatahillah Museum is equipped with a small cafe that shows old Jakarta styles, a souvenir shop, a prayer room, meeting and exhibition rooms, cinema theater, canteen, and a big garden. The ticket prices to enter this Fatahillah museum start from Rp. 3,000 rupiah for students and Rp. 5000 rupiah for adults. According to Pak Karsiun, head of collection and maintenance Fatahillah Museum, visitors who visits to the Fatahillah Museum are not only visited by local tourists, but foreign tourists are also interested in visiting this museum.

There are various things that can be found in this museum, start from the replicas of the historical remains of the Tarumanegara kingdom and the Pajajaran kingdom, antique furniture, History of Jakarta city, various kinds of weapons from the Dutch colonial era during the 17th to 19th centuries, and a giant paintings that describe the life of the city of Jakarta in that time. All of them are displayed in different rooms, namely Prasejarah Jakarta’s room, Tarumanegara’s room, Jayakarta’s room, Fatahillah’s room, Sultan Agung’s room, dan Batavia’s room.

However, behind the wealth of interesting historical values contained in this museum, there is a dark past that happened in here. There is an underground prison that was used for prisoners and community leaders who opposed the Dutch government at that time. Every prisoner was sentenced to death and they will be punished in front of the whole people. This was one of the way of Dutch Government to show their power and selfishness among Indonesian people.

Before being punished, the prisoners were held in the dungeon. The women's prison was made without lighting and only had two windows that opened during the day. This women's prison has an area of 6×9 meters and a height of 1 meter, and is used to accommodate twenty until thirty prisoners. Most of the residents were people who opposed the VOC Government, one of them was Cut Nyak Dien, one of the most famous female warriors in Indonesia.

The prison is not only for women, this museum is also equipped with a men's prison. With a different location, outside the main building. The male captives usually had their legs tied with cannons to prevent them from escaping before being executed. These cannons can still be seen in the Fatahillah museum today.