Freemasonry was introduced by the Dutch to what is today Indonesia during the VOC era in the 18th century, and spread throughout the Dutch East Indies during a wave of westernisation in the 19th century. Freemasons originally only included Europeans and Indo-Europeans, but later also indigenous people with a Western education.
Active freemasonry existed throughout the Dutch East Indies (now: Indonesia) from 1762 to 1962. The first lodge in Asia "La Choisie" was founded in Batavia by Jacobus Cornelis Mattheus Radermacher (1741–1783). In July 1772 Abraham van der Weijden established the Lodge La Fidele Sinceritie in Batavia.[1] In 1922 a Dutch Provincial Grand Lodge, under the Grand Orient of the Netherlands, at Weltevreden (Batavia) controlled twenty Lodges in the colony. Fourteen in Java, three in Sumatra and others in places such as Makassar.[2]
The lodges in the colony played a role in the social emancipation of the Indo-Europeans, as well as of the so-called Foreign Orientals, such as the ethnic-Chinese and Arabs. Freemasonry also had a significant impact on the Indonesian National Awakening preluding the national revolution. In 1836 the painter Raden Saleh was the first indigenous person to become a freemason and joined the lodge Eendracht maakt Macht in The Hague. The first indigenous member of a lodge in the Dutch East Indies was Abdul Rachman, a descendant of the sultan of Pontianak, in 1844. A famous freemason and Grand Master (Masonic) was the Indo politician Dick de Hoog, who was the main leader of the Indo emancipation movement and president of the Indo European Alliance.[3] Other prominent Freemasons were the Peranakan tycoon Loa Po Seng and his half-Indo grandson, the politician and parliamentarian Loa Sek Hie.[4]
Most lodges were closed during the Japanese occupation, unless otherwise indicated. All lodges in Indonesia were closed when freemasonry was outlawed by Sukarno in 1961. Specific lodges in the Dutch East Indies included:
