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Naaba
Yambaga? |
| Who is Naaba Yambaga? |
| Naaba
Yambaga means ‘village chief Yambaga’. The full name of our protagonist is Yambaga Ouédraogo. Born in 1817 in the village of Ouomsom in present-day Burkina Faso (West Africa), the young Mossi nicknamed ‘The Panther’ was installed as village chief around 1839. Sadly, not for long. Slave hunters, chasing after young, strong men, abducted Yambaga and sold him at the slave market in Kumasi in present day Ghana. At that time, the Dutch government was busy recruiting young men at the 'Gold Coast' for the Royal Army of the Dutch Indies, the KNIL.Yambaga Ouédraogo was sold to the KNIL and enlisted under the Dutch name “Molemans”. Which history is involved? In the course of the 19th century, the Dutch government recruited over 3000 soldiers on Africa’s west coast as the army in the Dutch East Indies struggled with a shortage of volunteers. The Dutch, still owning a few small trading posts on the Gold Coast, made a deal with the king of the Ashanti in Kumasi to deliver recruits and bought slaves on slave markets themselves. Once enlisted by the army, prisoners of war and slaves could buy their freedom with an advance on their monthly pay. The African soldiers were shipped from the coastal town of Elmina to Batavia in the island of Java. Their African names had been changed to Dutch sounding names such as Land, Recht, Klink, Boom, Wit, Hek and ... Molemans. What happened to the African soldiers in the Dutch East Indies? During their long tour of duty in the Dutch East Indies, most African soldiers died. A few hundred of them returned to Elmina. The remaining soldiers married indigenous women and raised families. In Java, Indo-African communities of so called belanda hitam (“Black Dutchmen”), the nickname of the African soldiers, were founded. After Indonesia gained independence in 1949, the descendants of the belanda hitam were forced to move to The Netherlands. The interest in their African roots was rekindled in the 1980’s and ever since, Indo-African descendants meet regularly at reunions and parties. |
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| What
happened to the african soldier Molemans? Yambaga Ouédraogo became part of the colonial society with a new identity, given to him by the Dutch army. As ‘Molemans’, he served 21 years in the army ranks and afterwards settled down in the garrison town of Purworejo in Java. Together with his native wife Mina, he raised a son, Jan Molemans, who followed in his fathers footsteps as a soldier. The fourth and fifth generations of the Molemans family live in The Netherlands and discovered the true story of their lineage in 2003. To commemorate the family’s ancestor, they founded the Naaba Yambaga Foundation on August 25th, 2004. |
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