Construction
La Grande Route, as Daendels called it, was a military road which was laid down under the order of King Lodewijk Napoleon who ruled Holland at that time. France was at war with England and the road was intended to ease military support, e.g. transfer of soldiers, in order to defend Java. Before the road was constructed, connections existed between Batavia — Semarang and between Semarang — Surabaya in 1750. North-south connection between Semarang, Surakarta and Yogyakarta was also available at that time. However, these connection paths were not easily passable as heavy tropical rainfall frequently destroyed them.
Daendels faced difficult conditions in Dutch East Indies when he was starting the road construction. The financial situation in the colony was so tight that the minister of Colonial Affairs in Holland sent him a letter emphasizing the difficult financial situation and the need to reduce expenditures. English was surely a big threat, there were uprisings in Bantam and Cirebon, and some of Daendels opponents, who were alienated from him, took a negative side against him. Daendels then decided to use Javanese unpaid forced laborers to perform most of the heavy work, which resulted in thousands of deaths due to the difficult health challenges of the forests and marshes as well as the labor conditions.
Many of Daendels' opponents became historical sources of the harsh condition during the road construction. Major William Thorn wrote that about 12,000 natives have perished during the construction. Nicolaus Engelhard, who was a governor over most of Java and who had to give up his position to Daendels, stated that 500 workers had died in Megamendung area nearby Buitenzorg (the present-day of Bogor), excluding the number of people who died as the result of illness. Furthermore Engelhard criticized Daendels of the thousand of casualties resulting from the road construction in the woods of Weleri in Pekalongan region.
Read more about this topic: Great Post Road
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“There’s no art
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